It is my birthday this weekend, and I’m mostly treating it like any other day. For some reason I’m just not super excited about it this year?! I think it might be a little bit of winter blahs honestly. One of my favourite things to do on a day off is to go out for a really nice coffee, sit in the café/coffee bar/possibly on a patio when it’s nice out, and just enjoy a latte in a ceramic cup with a magazine or newspaper. Simple pleasures! So hopefully I’ll get up to some of that, lots of snuggling with my angel doggies, maybe a fire and board game night, watch all of Drive to Survive, a pizza thrown into the mix etc. Wait, maybe I am actually excited for the weekend now? Haha. Also, my older dog Cleo and I share a birthday, so that makes it a bit more special :)

Here’s my usual assortment of weekend reading, fun and lovely things, and some of your questions answered. Hope that you have a beautiful weekend.

5 Things I’m Reading:

1. What Is Mindfulness?
2. How (And Why) to Say No
3. Marie Kondo’s life is messier now — and she’s fine with it
4. When it comes to aging, 90-plus or even 100 might not be ‘extreme’ anymore
5. Next book on my list: WHEN

5 Things I’m Enjoying:

1. Loved Pamela Anderson’s interview on Q with Tom Power, and also Pamela, A Love Story on Netflix.
2. Completely fascinated by “earth smiles”
3. New life goal: seeing a wombat in person
4. This retinol emulsion has been a game changer for me. No redness or irritation, dark spots fading, brighter/smoother under the eyes, and my skin is generally absorbing my other skincare so much nicer since introducing it. It is definitely on the spendy side, but I only use it 3 nights a week, so I can see the tube lasting quite a while.
5. Listening to the archives of Fruit Love Letters

5 Questions:

1. What’s your least favourite kitchen task?
   Washing my food processor!! I find it so annoying because of all the little nooks and crannies and I’m always scared of nicking myself on the blade. Also, I’m generally annoyed any time I have to scrape a dressing, sauce etc out of my blender pitcher because I always get it all over my hand/wrist and never have the right spatula at the ready for the job haha.
2. Do you drink? Or are you dabbling in the sober curious world?
   I stopped drinking over a year ago because I realized that I just wasn’t enjoying it anymore. The expense, not truly loving it, and avoiding it because of the inflammatory potential were all initial motivations. I also didn’t exactly love my personality if I had one too many drinks, and would always over-anlayze things I may have said/did the next morning. Overall I enjoy the clarity of the non-alc lifestyle so much and don’t see myself changing it any time soon.
3. I see you make vegan pasta, but many pastas have egg in the dough. Do you have a preferred vegan brand?
   Most dried pasta brands available where I live are vegan! They’re typically composed of durum wheat semolina and water. My favourite brands are Garofalo and Rummo. Highly recommend trying either brand in almost any shape with my 30-Minute Lentil Bolognese :)
4. Best hack to avoid eye irritation while chopping onions?
   I saw a wet paper towel hack on TikTok recently and had to try it. It helped a little bit! Basically you grab a piece of paper towel, moisten it with water and lay it on the cutting board near your chopping area (but not in the way of the chopping). Something about the acid in the onion wanting to attach itself to water on the paper towel rather than your moist eyeballs? I don’t know the scientific particulars to be honest. I do this and ALSO leave the root intact, and try to breathe through my mouth exclusively when I’m chopping. I also turn the overhead fan on/open a window, and work fast when I’m chopping. There’s a lot going on there haha.
5. I am curious how you and other business owners stay sane while on social media?
   Honestly at a certain point, I just stopped caring so much! I don’t obsess over Instagram’s updates to the algorithm at all. I’ve accepted that Pinterest has totally changed its business model and that it may be too late for me to become a TikTok sensation lol. All I can do is post the things that I like/that I’m working on and the things that I’m excited about. If that connects with people, great! I think it is true that the engagement rates tend to favour negative interactions/content, which I definitely try to stay away from. A couple years ago, a negative comment or direct message from someone would derail my entire day. Now I just put it out of my mind and try not to give it any additional energy so that I can keep creating and working on things that I know will bring value to people that follow my work. I also direct a lot of my focus to my website and email list now because those are things that I have a lot more control over, and both tend to give me a much higher return on investment of time. Lastly, I know that increased time on social media is bad for my mental health, so when I’m on there, I make sure that I’m interacting with folks, posting things, and generally have a purpose for scrolling with a rough time limit. Also, I love when folks ask me about social media–I could talk about it all day seriously!