Happy second blog-iversary to me

It's been two years since I wrote my first post. I'll be honest, I never really thought I'd last two years. After all, so much has changed in my life. We've moved to a larger home (with more kitchen counter space and more room for my appliances and gadgets) and my son is almost 15 months old. Life is understandably more hectic these days.

And though I took a bit of a hiatus after my son is born, I think I'm back into the swing of things.

I'm a firm believer that the more busy you are, the better organized you are, and I think that reflects itself in the fact that I'm back to work, but baking more than ever. And it's important to me because baking is my quiet time. It's the time of day when the house is clean, my son is sleeping, and I can take a few minutes to lose myself in whisking batter and just get away from it all. A welcome mental break.

And while I had a slow start over the past year, I picked up momentum in the last half: I took French pastry classes and finally learned how to make macarons and discovered canelés (photo above); guest-blogged for SweetMama; I bit the bullet and bought a candy thermometer;  I threw my son's first birthday party with an array of delectable sweets like whimsical watermelon pops, chocolate raspberry pavlova, chocolate chip ice cream sandwiches; and I even interviewed Anthony Bourdain. And you should see my cookbook collection these days. It is bursting at the seams and I am starting to think about giving some away.

Last year, cupcakes dominated my list of top ten posts. This year, it's all chocolate chip cookies. I was rather shocked, after all, there must be bazillions of blog posts about chocolate chip cookies, but the public has spoken: You want to hear about chocolate chip cookies! That's not the only surprise from my stats: Over the past year, some of my older posts are still getting tons of traffic, like my list of last-minute desserts for company, Nigella's cherry chocolate trifle, and Welcome Baby Boy cupcakes.

If you haven't checked those out before, have a look below. You will find my top ten blog posts over the past year, in order of most popular to least. Let me know what you think!

1. Cook's Illustrated perfect chocolate chip cookies

2. Lemon meringue cupcakes

3. Amy's ultimate chocolate chip cookies (and ice cream sandwiches)

4. Bourbon and orange pecan pie

5. Welcome Baby Boy cupcakes

6. Nigella's cherry chocolate trifle

7. French pastries course day 1: Macarons and canelés

8. Cookbook Review: Michael Symon's Live to Cook

9. David Lebovitz's chocolate chip cookies

10. Company's Coming: Top ten last-minute desserts