Sometime in February or March of 2011, I got an idea for a project.

It was to be the perfect gift, and I had fantasies of finishing it in time to celebrate a birthday.

That day came and went, and I worked my way through the first year thinking, “I could finish it and give it to her for…” and then I would replace the ellipsis with an ever changing parade of holidays until a year had passed and I found myself working my through a new year of unmet deadlines.

Last Friday, I decided that I needed to ramp up my efforts to finish the cookies for my baker’s dozen cookieghan and get this project off my plate so to speak, and I issued myself this challenge: finish all of the cookies needed by midnight, June 30, 2012.

Here is how the 13 x 13 (a baker’s dozen of a baker’s dozen) array of cookies and cookies-to-be looked last Friday:

and here is how it looked today:

Finishing the cookies will not be the end of the project. I will still need to join them, but finishing the cookies is a tangible goal and assembling them marks the beginning of the end.

While I am not convinced I will make the June 30 deadline, I am not yet convinced that I won’t, and either way, I know I will learn something in the next four days as I work to reach this goal.