Okay, really, this is a coffee date spanning November, December, January, and the very beginning of February. I can’t believe it’s been that long!
February Coffee Date – 2020
Okay, really, this is a coffee date spanning November, December, January, and the very beginning of February.
I kind of can’t believe it’s been that long – I love writing these posts and look forward to sharing them every month. But as usual, life has been very lifey, and Sugar Free January has been very delicious, and all the things have just been kind of intense, and the other day Eman on our team was like, “hey, we got an email about the coffee dates – are you still doing them?” and then I kind of had to do a double take when realized it had been a few months since I just sat down for no other reason than to say hi and connect.
So anyways. I’m here, with my decaf Americano with heavy whipping cream because I had some leftover from this beauty and it’s very simple but also feels like luxury. Very luscious and warming and rich.
What are you drinking? What have you been up to? Any SFJ-finishers or recipe favorites as of lately? Let’s catch up.
The Big Thing: We Moved!
In our last coffee date, I mentioned that we had bought a house. Now in this coffee date, I’m here to tell you that it’s official. WE MOVED. We live in a new house now.
I’m also here to tell you that we are closing on our old house next week, and in the most charmed turn of events, our very very good friends are the buyers! ❤️We feel so lucky to know that these amazing humans will now make this house and this neighborhood their own.
The moving process has been – well, honestly, I think the fact that I haven’t done a coffee date in almost three months is a good indicator of how it’s been. It’s been amazing, emotional, difficult, and all-consuming.
My mantra as we get settled has been: “Good Enough.”
Like, the boxes in the basement are overflowing with unorganized contents of Solvi’s babyhood and Bjork’s random assortment of rarely-used tools and my high school swim team memorabilia, and you know what? For now, for, like, the next year maybe? er, five years? that’s okay. Can’t do it all right now. It’s good enough.
If you’ve found the secret sauce to moving and settling in to a new home without your life also feeling like a small tornado… speak up.
A Reusable Coffee Cup
This is the gift my Work Party Secret Santa got me (thanks, Emily!) and it has gotten so much use. I love it and would highly recommend it.
Here’s a link. (affiliate)
It’s cute, compact enough to go in my backpack, and more pleasant to hold onto than a paper cup because it’s nice and toasty-warm.
Also, it’s not an overnight earth saver, but it has kept 7 disposable cups out of the garbage in the month of January and yes I did keep track of the exact number because LITTLE THINGS MATTER. I don’t remember to bring it with me every time, but I remember it a lot of times, and I feel like this is how it has to be done. Baby steps to better.
Do you have any baby steps to better? For your health, work, environment, etc? Baby steps are easier than big steps. Maybe I can borrow some.
And Now I Am a Creative Director
Up until now I’ve done, like, 98% of the photography that you see here on POY. I love photography. It feels very personal and would be hard to share that with someone who is not… well, me. But it’s a new year and I am ready to give some things a little friendly shake-up.
So this month we hired photographers (our friends!) to do a photo shoot with us for some POY recipes. As in, I didn’t take the pictures!
I got to prep and cook food, styling it, and help with edits, but I was not actually standing behind the camera. Instead of being all the things, I got to limit my role to just “Creative Director.”
Reflections:
A) It was SO FUN.
B) It was less stressful.
C) Can we keep doing this please?
Cheesy-sounding but actually very important challenge for you based on my own personal experience with this – is there something in your life that you can release and let someone else take care of for you? Something that you can hire for? Or maybe just something that you’re holding tightly to that you can let go of?
This was my thing this month and I had a lot of fears with it because change is hard and all that, but dang, one round in and it feels really good.
Traveling with Toddlers
… is a marathon!
We went to Florida last week for a few days with Bjork’s parents, and I cannot even begin to describe to you the amount of sheer anxiety I had walking my very fiesty and independent 17-month-old down the jetbridge and onto a small, crowded, enclosed airplane for the first time. And getting delayed FOUR HOURS at the gate did not help the cause.
But the lil baby Solvs did beautifully. She fussed, but she didn’t scream. She resisted, but she didn’t melt down. She was busy, but she stayed generally contained. She got compliments from seat neighbors after both flights which felt like the equivalent of receiving an Olympic gold medal even though I had absolutely no control over any of it.
I watched so many YouTube and Instagram videos and read so many blog posts on traveling with toddlers – are other people like this? I think I might just be kind of extra in this way.
Some things we did:
- Stuffed a pill box with approximately 200 small snacks
- Packed lots of brand new toys that she had never seen (or that we just pulled out of her toy bins several weeks in advance so they *felt* new)
- Packed lots of random items from around our house – ribbons, paint sample cards, tissue paper, keys, punch cards, etc.
- Bookmarked tons of videos of her and Sage
Worth mentioning: we did have to straight-up leave a restaurant one night. Like, pack up our just-delivered food, down the drinks, and file out the door in a very loud walk of shame due to an irreversible meltdown, so it’s not like we came out of the trip unscathed, okay? Don’t be getting the wrong idea here.
Traveling with toddlers or kids? Horror stories? Victories? Yay or nay?
Speaking Of Sun
This winter has been rough. The feel-bads have been really running rampant for me this month thanks to the longest stretch of cloudy days in what, 70 years or something?
Being in the Florida sun for four days was like… it was like becoming a new person a little bit. It felt like a reminder that there is life out there, things are thriving, the sun is shining, faces are warm, plants are green and growing, birds are singing.
This morning as I looked out the window and surveyed the flat, grey-brown-white suburban landscape all around me, I texted Bjork that it’s amazing how quickly I start to feel blah again when I’m back in this.
We would probably never move away from Minnesota because this is where all our family and friends live, and we have a healthy attachment to the good parts of winter, and I think what we’d gain in warm weather, we’d lose in close connections and emotional satisfaction. But it’s just a LITTLE BIT TEMPTING RIGHT NOW, MINNESOTA.
I know a lot of you understand this hardcore. Maybe some of you have even actually made the move? Talk to me.
Sage Says
Sage just wants you to remember that your people are the main thing. She sits here with Solvi almost every day and waits for me, and then Bjork, to come home from work, and then she gets the zoomies and greets us like we are the best thing in the whole wide world.
I think there’s a life lesson in there somewhere.
Okay, February (+ Jan + Dec) coffee date. There it is! I’m sorry it took me three months to make this one happen.
I love reading your comments on these posts. They are my favorite.
Thank you for joining, reading, connecting, and just being you, exactly as you are! xo
Filed Under: Life
February 10, 2020
Nice to meet you!
I’m Lindsay and I ♡ FOOD. I used to be a teacher, and now making food and writing about it online is my full-time job. I love talking with people about food, and I'm so glad you're here.
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Yay, I look forward to your coffee chats so much!! I am drinking cashew honey coffee from your blog, it’s my favorite. Made your baked ziti with mascarpone-ay and it was a huge hit! I love Sage Says. She is so wise. Thank you for this post! Congrats on the move! I am a huge believer in “good enough”!
Try a light therapy box (tons of options on Amazon) for the winter months. They really work!
dear Lyndsay – Not that you asked me but:
1. Toddlers ARE small tornados, so your life is just probably going to feel this way for awhile!
2. I grew up in Florida, but I’ve lived all over. Florida weather is beautiful but boring. I think winter encourages us to slow down, nourish our “roots and seeds” for new growth.
3. I bet our fans would adjust to a quarterly coffee date. Your blog will carry us along – and great sugar free January!
Sticky notes are great for kids on a plane! They can stick them all over the place and color on them without causing any harm.
Definitely in the middle of moving back to San Francisco from Seattle because we just couldn’t hack the months and months and months of cold, grey, wet, dark misery.
Give me sun and palm trees please! Then again I am from CA, and all my closest friends/family are there so there was nothing keeping us here in Seattle.
Best tip I have for traveling with a great toddler (and we fly a lot!) is wrap small toys in tin foil. Pick out items from the target $1 section and wrap them up. They have fun unwrapping and the foil can be reused over and over on the flight to wrap the toys up again.
I moved from The North(tm) to Florida to be with my now-husband almost two years ago. While I love the weather, the palm trees, and the bright sun, I still have yet to make any new friends and the friendships I had are strained by distance. I like it here but I am desperately lonely. I think you’re making the right call.
Ok so traveling with a toddler. Our son is 3 now but has been on 2 airplane rides and a bunch of road trips since birth. The thing that has by far worked the best for us is noooootttttt overpacking things for the baby/toddler/kid. We found when we packed MORE stuff MORE snacks MORE more more that it was overwhelming. It’s easy to grab for a new toy or snack because you get that feeling they’re getting antsy, but that truly made it worse for us. We were all just overwhelmed with STUFF and trying to occupy every minute. Last few road trips and both airplane rides? We literally brought a few favorite books, an iPad with headphones for shows, his favorite stuffed animal, and a few reliable snacks. Done-zo. We let him “be” wherever he was without worrying about keeping him busy. He loves eating goldfish and staring out the car window listening to music (and now asking “why” every 5 seconds). He loves getting Starbucks at the airport, riding the train, eating the airplane cookies while watching a show, looking out the window. Us just letting him be and look around and explore without constantly trying to occupy him was almost too simple but it was a miracle-worker for us. I don’t know. Every kid is different (and we haven’t experienced a major delay) but hey it worked! And we were FAR less stressed. Everyone wins!
We moved to Oregon from The coast of Virginia a few years ago, and sometimes I miss the warmth and sunshine so bad!
This year: I decided to start visiting the tanning bed occasionally. (I know it can be bad, but so can being super gloomy right?) everything in moderation. And I confess, it feels SO good to have all of your skin waking up a little bit in the middle of the cold winter days. ☀️
Good morning Lindsay and POY staff,
CONGRATULATIONS on your new home!
I love the wood and hope you feel warm there.
I left everything I loved about MN for life in the mountains of Utah. There were lots of tradeoffs, but I got used to the turquoise skies and what I call mild winters here quickly. I met my WI grown husband here and we visit MN and WI during the best months of the year. I still long to move back to my home, but we swear we cannot move back unless we spend a winter there again. The long grey months take their toll. For us, getting outside with young kids make life easier here for now.
In regards to moving, my best advice is to stick to your Good Enough mantra and enjoy your time with kids and family.
My mantra was to be CONTENT.
Although things were not just the way I like, I had to constantly remind myself I had my two babies and we had everything we needed.
My travel advice with toddlers is to get a Go Go Babyz Kidz Travelmate!!
Saved us with two toddlers and we loved to travel.
My kids loved the ride, I knew exactly where they were and it made the bulky car seat a comfy useful tool.
Thank you for all of your wonderful recipes that make dinner/family life so inspiring.
I totally hear you on the grey. I grew up in the Pacific NW (near Portland) and had NO idea until I moved to Boston, of all places, that it could actually be SUNNY in the winter. Like, what??? I thought Sept – June = grey and rainy. I remember walking outside in Boston one very cold day in December and looking up to see blue sky and sunshine, and just marveling at the whole thing. A few years ago, work took me, of all places, to California (SF Bay Area) and funnily enough I now CRAVE cold and stormy days. It was 70 here last week and we have gotten probably less than 7 days of rain since last winter/spring and I was complaining that I just wish it would stay in the cooler temps so that I can keep wearing my sweaters. Needless to say, I think that, like with most things in life, nothing is perfect and it is all about finding the right balance that works for *you*. I just try to remind myself how lucky I am that things are green and beautiful and blooming here in January and February when most everywhere else is gloomy and dead. It works most days. 🙂
Forgot to add- I did participate in SFJ for the first time ever. I was a little disappointed I didn’t feel different BUT I was so proud of myself and also I have significantly reduced how much sugar I have in my daily life since then. With that being said, I ordered chocolate marzipan hot chocolate mix (apparently from Germany and this is why Amazon is so great) and have been adding it to my coffee on the weekends for something extra special. Definitely not sugar free, but I am okay with it!!! Yum!!
My tip for moving- unpack all the things. Don’t wait- just do it. Tackle one room at a time and don’t stick things in closets unless that is where they belong. And if there are things in boxes that you haven’t used in 2+ years, then you don’t need them (minus special keepsake items). We’re about to pack for our 4th move in 3 years, and I try to pack as organized as possible, visualizing where each box is going to go when we get there. We’re building a house, so I’ve had lots of time to think about it. But my goal will be to have all boxes emptied within the first week we are there. (Now organizing- that’s a whole other topic!)
My Mom always forced flowers (from bulbs) in the late winter months. Watching narcissus grow and bloom in the living room in February was always rejuvenating and brought hope/happiness. I didn’t realize how much happiness it brought until I became an adult with my own winter slog in late Jan-early Mar. Perhaps it would be something to add on as a tradition in your home?
We moved from Minnesota to Charleston, SC and are absolutely living our best lives! We have no family here (they are all in Minnesota) but truly, we are so so happy. We have tons of incredible friends here, I walk the beach at least once a week, and our little boys (5 and 3) get to enjoy being outside year round. I encourage anyone to make the move if where they live is not making them 💯 happy. LOVE all of your recipes by the way!
Drinking: Black tea with sugar and hemp milk, which I’m not 100% sold on because I feel like it separates a lot? But I do like the taste so *shrug*
Baby Steps: I’m trying to incorporate at least one vegan meal into my meal plan every week. Since I cook for one and do a lot of leftovers ideally that means I’m eating vegan once a day, but I’m also trying not to beat up on myself if I miss the goal. During this season oatmeal with a plant-based milk has been an easy way to get it in!
Winter: Oh my goodness the Februaries are hitting hard this year. I was in the middle of a 300 mile move last year, so I had enough going on that I didn’t notice them as their own thing, but I definitely do this year! I read something lately that I’m trying to lean into: don’t make any big decisions in February. I may not have any idea how to counteract the blahs, but I can at least not let them drive decisions I might regret later! (Note: this does not stop me from dreaming about running away to Arizona for a week or two)
My husband and I just returned from a trip from Florida as well, to cold, gray Pennsylvania. I can’t help but say I feel the EXACT SAME WAY about where we live. The trip definitely cured our S.A.D for a few days, but it is definitely back now that we’re home…. During this retched season, I question why we subject ourselves to bitter temps and cloudy skies for months on end, but at the end of the day it’s all about the family that lives here… I couldn’t imagine not being so close to them.
However, my husband and I still regularly dream about opening a food truck which we will go down south with in the winter and stay up north in the summer 🙂
Loved your Coffee Date for February (Jan + Dec)! I have a comment on moving… Eddie and I “drove off a cliff” on 5.25.2019! We left WA State (too dreary, rainy, too many drama-ridden people, etc.) where we have lived since the 1970s AND where all our family and most friends live, the day after our house closed! We call this “driving off a cliff” because sometimes you can’t plan every detail and trust me, I usually feel compelled to plan every detail in advance. It was liberating to just wave goodbye and drive off! Buh-byeeeee!
So where did we go? We moved out of the Seattle area (hundreds of thousands of people, insane traffic, and depressing weather 9 months out of the year) and moved to Sunshine & Palm Trees in a little city of 20,000 people: Mesquite, NV. Here there are over 300 days of SUNSHINE! Yes, it is hot in the summer but, hey, STAY INSIDE and develop recipes, blog posts, teach your dog new tricks, go to the gym, to the pool, etc. There are 9+ months of warm, sunny weather here…the complete opposite of Seattle! We spend time in the hot summer afternoons at the pool where only 55+ yr olds can go! When we arrived we had no rental house (shortage of rentals here), we hadn’t bought a new house because we were having one built in Sun City Mesquite (55+ community), and as a result we stayed at the Holiday Inn Express for 25 days…in a dog room…Gracie Blue is our little miniature schnauzer who is always up for a grand adventure too! We stored all our worldly belongings in two storage units which was 5 minutes from the hotel! We only brought what items could fit in a 26’ U-Haul as we sold, donated, gave away, or dumped the rest (which took a year to do after living in our WA house for 20 years)! Luckily, after 25 days, we found a beautiful house in Sun City to rent until our house was built. It was fully furnished so we left everything in storage. We lived in the rental house from 6.20.2019 until 12.21.2019 when we moved into our beautiful new, bright yellow house! Moral of the story? Don’t be afraid to move, to make a change, to “drive off a cliff”! Everything works out in the end. I think when you get older (I am 62 and Eddie is 72), you just L.E.T. S.O.M.E. T.H.I.N.G.S. G.O. that used to matter when we were younger but now we’re like, who cares? And, to your point, certain things are indeed “good enough” until you can get back to it in the future but only if you feel like it! Our mantra for the new house was minimalism! Out with the old and not bringing much new into our new space. Keep it simple. Keep it clean. Love the colors!
Having lived in the Seattle area for so many years, we also experienced the “feel-bads” you described! Everyone there lives for the handful of sunny days the Seattle area is deigned to receive each year but it wasn’t enough for Eddie and I in the end. We FELT compelled to change our situation because we craved sunshine, warm weather, blue cloudless skies, palm trees swaying in the wind, sitting out on the patio enjoying the outdoors almost every day, walking on the pathways with Gracie Blue who is now known as the Princess of Pathways here, meeting new people and making new friends, and so on. Beautiful weather and blue skies definitely elevate your mood! We had the long conversations about how to distill our house of 20 years into a 26’ U-Haul. How do we leave family and friends? Where will we live? and many more topics of concern, and, in the end, we just said let’s just do it and so we did! We haven’t looked back! No regrets, not one, and we’ve been in Mesquite for 9 months already! We love it here. We love that we made the change in spite of worries about this, that, and the other thing. We told family and friends 2 years in advance that we were making a move. We don’t think family believed us but we believed us and just did it! “But we’ll never see you” they said! We responded, “how do we communicate right now while we are just a couple of miles away from you?” “Oh, by text, FB, phone calls, etc.” “Yup, exactly! Everyone has full time jobs and relationships and are living their lives as they should. We have Life Livin’ to do and it must be done in the Sunshine & Palm Trees!” Eddie nailed it when he said we have to live our lives for U.S. now. Not for anyone else. If anything, communication with family and friends has improved since we moved because everyone is making more of an effort to stay in touch! Freedom to do what you choose to do in retirement (versus being swayed by what others think you should do in your sunset years) is liberating! We now live in our beautiful, BRIGHT YELLOW house and enjoy every day we are gifted. Kitty
Love reading about your story’s. thanks love coffee date… Hubby and i this year decided to eat more healthier and also create more dishes, and what we were use to eating. Also meal prepping has been a big help. this weekend we made fresh bread, he made black bean meatloaf, pesto garlic pasta, i made quinoa chicken cacciatore, and egg quiches.
Very nice blog.
Thank you
I love your blog and your recipes! And Solvi is adorable! Congrats on your move and on restructuring your team so that you get to be the creative director.
Lindsay,
Thank you for the thoughtful posts & yummy recipes.
I am older than you. I am thrilled to see that the next generation of business women know how to do self-care so much better than we did. What an amazing example for your daughter! Bravo!
I LOOOOOOVE this post. Do more like this. Do you have a good carbonara recipe that is egg free
Thanks
Hi there! I just wanted to let you know how much I love reading your blog posts & how incredibly helpful (and delish) I find ALL of your recipes. Your lively writing makes me feel energized & like I want to cook all the things! Thanks for sharing your gifts & life lessons with us, your readers :-)!
Tip for all those basement boxes! I had a million basement boxes after a move with baby clothes overflowing. I got those vacuum bags on amazon and a million basement boxes is now approximately 2 basement boxes.
I love your coffee dates! I’m about to embark on a flight with a four-year-old and a 14-month-old. I’m intrigued by your pillbox idea. What sort of things did you put in there? I’m seeking all sorts of ideas!
Oh and once I was flying with just my four-year-old when he was a lot younger and he cried the whole flight. I stood in the back and at one point an older lady came and gave me a hug and encouragement – and then I cried. 😂 but she was the sweetest lady for doing that when I was so worried about bothering everyone!