A letter to my winter self

Dear Winter Lisa,

There will be a time when you will feel debilitated, like a stone has been tied around your waist and is pulling you under water.

What can we do to protect you from sinking, love? For starters, when you begin to feel this way, I want you to read this letter and remember that I see you. You’re probably feeling sad and struggling with how hard everything feels especially because you are usually a happy, jubilant, initiating human and right now you feel dull and stuck.

Sure, diet and exercise will help. But you need more than these things. Tell Peggy. Tell Bethany. Tell David and Diana. Increase your meds to 50 mg even if they make you feel “funny.” Go on all the flights you booked to San Jose, even if you think you don’t need to go. There is no medal for getting through winter without extra support.

These trips you take in the dead of winter are not meant to fix your feelings or help you “make meaning” out of winter; they are simply to keep you alive for Summer Lisa.

I’m guessing that what is the hardest is not the acceptance of the rain or the gloom but acceptance of how low your mood is. There is nothing wrong with you, even though you don’t “feel like yourself.” Please know that I accept you as you are right now, and that I love you.

You are worthy even when you struggle. Happiness is not perfection and perfection isn’t even what is being asked of you.

Hang in there, and I’ll see you next summer at the lake.

Even easier

I've been dragging my feet with regards to posting these days, but I think I have a good excuse.



It's finally (finally!!!!!!!) summer!

I have had big plans to tell you about rediscovering one of my favorite Chinese cookbook authors, and about The Glory That Is Laundry Day, and of course, we are more than overdue on a Theo update.

But the days are getting brighter, longer, and lazier, and so all I have to offer you today is these.

After finding some winter refuge at the computer, I feel the tug to spend more of my time unplugged and outside. We have too many popsicles to eat and too few days.

Ever since I saw Molly Orangette write about these I have been dreaming about making them. For some reason I thought they were more complicated than they really are. But in fact they are really easy, like boozy pudding (something else I need to tell you about later*) but even easier.

(*ehhh, if you're new around here, I've talked about it plenty on the old food blog with Stephie. You're welcome. So embarrassing.)

Anyway, without further ado, and so that I can get back to laying out on the deck, here are the fudgsicles you need in your life today.

Fudgsicles
adapted from Orangette

If you're fancy, you should definitely read up on Molly's recipe to get all the details about chocolate, because she's obviously thought it through. I've tried to keep it simple and easy here, and it's more for my reference to make it again. She also called for heavy cream and milk; I had lots of half and half so I've simplified it here. Obviously, you can use your brain and do things differently.

8 oz chocolate chips (preferably mixed in with some bittersweet, but don't go all dark)
2 1/2 cups half and half
2 T unsweetened cocoa powder
2 t vanilla extract, or (spiced) rum since vanilla extract costs a million dollars these days

Heat up half and half on the stove with cocoa powder, whisking to dissolve. Remove pan from heat, and after a minute, dump chocolate chips into the pan, whisking until it's all incorporated. Add in vanilla extract and then pour into popsicle molds. Freeze until hard.

P.S. Comment below with a caption for the second picture in this post. The winner gets a fudgsicle!

More/Less

LESS
sugar
over-thinking
worrying
judgment

MORE
journaling/writing/expressing
drawing/art
questions
awareness about the things that make me feel good
lists!

Happy 2017, y'all!