Don't call me Julia (or Martha or any other famous chef)

Anyone who knows me knows my cooking skills are lacking. Baking on the other hand, I can do. My goal is to cook more and to try baking more things. I've been in a bit of a rut, where I keep baking the same things so I want to expand my horizons again. I mean peanut butter fingers are great, but a person needs variety. I've been inspired by "Julie and Julia" (saw the movie a couple of years ago and just started reading the book). I will not be gutting any ducks or doing anything too crazy, but my goal is to cook or bake a new dish each week from now until the end of the year. My first dish was cheesecake and although I am incredibly biased, I think it came out pretty well. I am having someone over tomorrow to give a les biased opinion. We'll see what he thinks. Later this week, I want to do chicken parm. I've technically made it before so I'm not sure if that counts as a new dish, but it's been over a year since I've made it and since I all ready did one new dish this week I guess I'm in the clear. In my defense, cooking for one can be a bit annoying. Most recipes are not meant for one, sure you can half them, etc, but how do you do half an egg? I can do half a cup, but if you half an egg what do you do with the rest of it? Throw it out, then that's just wasteful, but can you save half an egg yolk? Anyway, so yeah, if I do cook for one, the leftovers are great the first two days, but by day three I'm sick of them and I have to start taking it for lunch and dinner so it doesn't go bad so it's not totally fear of lighting the kitchen on fire that keeps me from cooking more things, it's also wasting food and the fact that I'm lazy. After being at work for 9-10 hours, I'm not dying to cook when I get home (God help me if I have children, I'll have to cook more and cook better or I fear what will happen to them. Can kids live off of pasta, sandwiches, and salad?). Now you would think since I struggle with cooking, that I'd have issues with baking. I am no expert, but I've been told that I make good desserts and for some reason I enjoy baking. Brownies, cookies, cupcakes, muffins, pancakes, recently added cheesecake, and various other desserts I'm happy to do, but throw a piece of poultry at me and I panic. So here's hoping my new plan goes well and I expand my cooking and baking horizons.