Deanna Atkins

My name is Deanna Atkins, from Cortez, Colorado.

I am a junior student at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado where I am majoring in English Communications.

I am 20 years old, and I am a cocktail waitress at the Diamond Belle Saloon inside the Strater Hotel. I am a beginner model trying out my talents in posing for the camera and I am the Print News Editor for the college news magazine The Independent. I play the flute and I love to bake! I started baking when I was about 14 years old, or when I was tall enough to reach the cabinets in my mom’s kitchen. Either way, I started out making cookies, then cakes, cupcakes, breads and tarts. With a severely old family cook book, I started making my own recipes based on the ones written on the pages of the book. Some have been successful and some have not, I’m afraid. Nevertheless, baking is one of my passions as is writing and journalism.

Even though I love being a communications major and being a reporter/editor, I originally wanted to attend a culinary school, specifically for baking. I had dreams of owning an adorable bakery on a nice street corner where people would come in regularly to purchase my little baked goods. But coming from a family with low income, I had to take what I could get, and I chose to pursue another one of my passions; journalism.

As you have probably figured out, I really enjoy baking. Making gooey sweet creations out of so many different ingredients and taking a masterpiece out of the oven is a true treasure. I never thought I would love the oven so much! Bless the people who invented and perfected it. Anyways, I chose to title my blog ‘sweetness and goodness’ because I love to bake all kinds of sweet desserts, especially with frosting (sweetness) and I like to think that all the treats I make are in some way good, whether it tastes good, warms a person’s heart or brings a smile to my own face (goodness), and because it was a title that nobody had used yet, but that’s beside the point.

Thank you for reading and I hope you find yourself baking in your free time as much as I do, if not more.