The Crucial Difference Between a Cupcake and a Muffin

Is frosting? I was not sure, and this questions has nagged at my very soul for quite some time. This Friday, when I made cupcakes for the office, the question resurfaced. Alan swears that the only difference is frosting, but I am not convinced. After all, cannot a muffin be more healthy for you because it can contain wheat and bran? A cupcake by nature would never be as healthy for you.
Isn't a cupcake a little cake? Where as a muffin was not originally created to be a little muff-cake? Aren't muffins more related to bread?
I was talking about this with my new Admin person at work, and it occurred to me that maybe muffins are originally from Brittan. After all, I am positive that English Muffins existed before the (American?) Muffin did. Maybe the present day version of the muffin is a knock off of the English Muffin, made bigger and better by adding more fat.
I turned to Wikipedia for an answer. Unfortunately this website was not extremely insightful. It did not mention that Muffins originally came from England, which kind-of discards my hypothesis. However it did mention that in recent decades muffins have become almost indistinguishable from cupcakes because the fat and sugar proportions have increased dramatically. The true origin of muffins is lost, but it is believed to be related to cornbread and breakfast. Cupcakes were invented in the 1800s. They started out as mini, individual, cakes that measured a cup.

Where to begin?

On March 2 Alan and I went on a weekend of debauchery with my family. For the purposes of transportation during this weekend, my dad made a big point of renting a van that could seat 12 people. We all fit in the van, which looked like some sort of white church van, and drove everywhere.We went to Sonoma and explored just a tiny bit of Napa. We drank our hearts out while participating in the Russian River Wine Tasting Event. We ate tons of exquisite food. And, basically, we hung out for an entire weekend with nothing better to do than stuff out faces and relax. It was wonderful. -Especially because work has been kind of stressful for everyone lately. - My grandmother even visited from Portland! This weekend was her birthday weekend, so we had fun celebrating that as well.

Work has been crazy. My coworker quit last week... so I have been slightly freaking out about my workload. However, so far so good. Life continues, and there will always be more work.

I am in Monterey this weekend. My company is sending me to a seminar so that I can learn more about CAL OSHA. I am very excited about this learning opportunity. I am also very excited about the location of my seminar: Monterey, CA! I get to stay in Monterey for two extra days. Yay!

It is late now and I must get my beauty rest.