It?s my birthday ? Chocolate Mint Cupcakes with molten Lindt Lindor Mint centre

It’s my birthday today and another year has gone by, and I’m now 35.  Eek!

While today is officially my birthday it doesn’t really feel like my birthday yet, mainly because my boyfriend is away with work (he gets back tomorrow night).  Also, the last few days haven’t been the best because my position at the IT company I worked for was made redundant on Thursday.

I seriously debated whether to say anything about my job being redundant.  I’m one of those people that worries far too much about what other people think about me and while you can’t help it if your role at a company is made redundant, I worried people would think badly of me when they heard the news, but I know there are many people in this economy who have gone through the same thing.

My boyfriend was happy and excited when I called him shortly after it happened.  He knew I had been unhappy at the company for some time and he also pointed out that this provides a great opportunity and also gives me time to have a break from work for a while to relax.  Over the last few days I’ve come to see things in the same light as him.  I can now relax for a while before working out what I want to do next, thanks to my redundancy payment, without feeling pressured to find a job asap.  It also gives me the opportunity to spend some time doing something I enjoy – working on Delicieux.

Being a typical Piscean, I love the creativity that comes with working on Delicieux, and I love challenging myself each week by cooking something new and learning new techniques.  Since working on Delicieux I’ve noticed my confidence and skills grow.  While I’m nowhere near as talented as some of the other wonderful food bloggers out there, I really enjoy the time I spend on Delicieux.  I’ve also noticed that where in the past I might have looked at a recipe and thought I’d like to cook it but it looked too complicated, that only serves to excite me now.  Now I spend hours flipping through cookbooks and food magazines or browsing online for recipes for inspiration on what to cook next.  Despite my enthusiasm, or perhaps because of it, I have learned to not try and cook 4 or 5 different things at once.  I have often had so many recipes I couldn’t wait to try, that while I was working, I would cram as much cooking into the weekend as possible and inevitably because I was cooking 4 dishes at the same time something would go wrong.  Now I will have the time to take my time.

Another positive in all of this, is that my boyfriend is going to take his Long Service Leave from work so we can spend time together and we are going to go on a 3 week holiday to the United States.  So if you have any suggestions of things to do and see in New York, San Francisco and Las Vegas, please leave a comment or send me an email as I’d love to hear from you.  By the way, you can look forward to posts of our wonderful foodie finds while we are away on holiday.

Now, back to the cupcakes.  While I’ve made these chocolate mint cupcakes to celebrate my birthday, they are also to celebrate the wonderful love and support my boyfriend has provided me, not only over the last few days, but since we’ve been together, hence the heart decorations.  I find mint to be both a soothing and energizing scent, and chocolate and mint is a winning combination in my books.  Not quite as good as chocolate and orange, but definitely up there.

I would also like to share my love and say thank you, to you, my dear readers, for reading Delicieux and leaving such lovely comments.  Each and every comment and wonderful email you send means so much.  Thank you!!

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