If someone had said to me a year ago that I would be sitting in my own coffee shop, writing another article on my blog which has garnered a pretty impressive underground cult following, be the number one selling non celebrity chef on Groupon for cooking classes, I would have laughed, said thank you and kept moving. WoW! How much a year has changed my life. I’ve built some pretty impressive relationships over the past year, lost a few important relationships, cried, laughed, cried some more and stood on top of the mountain of depression and trudged through.

I remember the day that I wrote my first article, it was more or less a paragraph of me saying welcome to my site. I was truly lost for words, and really didn’t have a clue of what I was going to do. I think, I am beginning to find my legs or better yet, my writing wings. I really do enjoy writing as though I’m having conversations and making it a place that people can feel comfortable to and sit and read, whether it’s about food, what I’m up to, what I’m seeing and so forth.

This blog helped me deal with the death of my Uncle Robbie, that I loved so much that I felt as though my heart had stopped the day his did.

My Uncle Robbie was a person who walked to his own drum and whatever beat it played was the beat he strutted to. Not having him in my world has been a bit hard to deal with. It’s weird, when you lose someone you are very close to, you see them everywhere or at least say things that remind you of them. Sometimes, I’ve caught myself crying because I see someone doing something or saying something that reminds me of him. The helicopter has landed and I know he is finally at peace.

As I continue, to plug away at the blog, there are many new and exciting things that are going to be happening. I will be bringing a live aspect to the blog. This will be a paid service – a mere $10 a month for live cooking classes (where you’ll be able to interact with me), demonstrations, shopping excursions and so much more. I want to create a LIVE cooking community. The software has been designed, so this will hopefully be on-line within the next few months. With the blog, i plan on taking it to an even higher level by adding more gourmet stylings for foodies to experiment with and really sink their teeth into – no pun intended / okay maybe a little. I most definitely plan on writing a lot more articles, adding more video and just making it a better community for all of my food friends.

I am also working very hard on putting together my 501(c)3 non-profit, which took me a minute to get together, but, like everything else in my life, I keep pluggin’ away at it. I’m keeping the name underwraps, until I’m ready to go “public” but this is a very exciting time for the IAMCHEFAPPLE.COM brand. I’m also pushing forward with the coffee shop… it has had such a rough start, I’m hoping that with the reorganization that I’m about to do things will level out with the shop – fingers are crossed.

With 2011 almost at the half way point, I realize that time is moving fast and I’ve got to kick up my gears. So to those of you who are reading, THANK YOU SO MUCH!