Something new for you
I'm creating a simple series for you!
Heyyyyyyyyy…
Long time no see!
Meant to send you this, this morning… But uh, I nearly went straight to bed once I got home from a family outing and forgot to wrap this up.
It’s been a long minute. As a brief recap in case you’re new here: I had to switch up my priorities to start working on creating an income for myself… Like of the living wage variety.
Still working on it! But I REALLY missed writing on Substack.
So I’m slowly coming back by creating a short little series where I write about at least one intentionally joyful activity I decided to do the previous weekend.
3 reasons this is great:
It gives you ideas of fun things to do/see/read for your weekend.
You can hold me accountable to actually intentionally do something (subjectively) fun every weekend. (I tend to always tell myself “I don’t deserve to do creative/fun things until I’ve felt satisfied with the amount of work I’ve done.” Yeah we’re stopping that.)
I get to post on Substack again!! 😭
I have an idea of what the format will look like, but in the meantime, I wanna ask you what’re you looking forward to this weekend?
What I did last weekend:
After hearing so many people talk about The Bear, I finally decided to start watching it.
And I’ve gotta be honest… I don’t get the hype so far!
The Bear is a restaurant TV drama about a man who learned fine dining but returned home to Chicago to run his family’s Italian restaurant.
I’ve heard a lot of people say it’s the perfect representation of an actual restaurant kitchen, especially in the city… and maybe that’s why I wasn’t thrilled?
In retrospect, I’ve gotten stressed watching Masterchef when they’d get to the part where they worked a kitchen in teams.
And the show Sweetbitter (so far) had a similar feel to The Bear: hierarchy, stress, yelling…
I dunno. Am I weird for saying that?
I’ll keep watching, but I didn’t feel inclined to marathon the whole thing in one sitting like many people have said.
My only other theory is that I watched it on the wrong day. Sundays are my chill and relax day, not my “get vicariously thrown in a mental pressure cooker day.”
And I’ve watched shows with conflict and tension—I loved Breaking Bad and what I saw of Jessica Jones.
My one last theory is that I straight-up just prefer cool and calm atmospheres when it comes to the kitchen.
Makes sense when I think about how I avoid the kitchen if even one other body is preoccupying it.
Or how calm and cozy I’d feel when I’d get to make the waffle cones and bowls in the morning when I worked at Dairy Queen. (Ahhh… the smell of warm sugar and the silence was mesmerizing.)
Or how jazzed I’d get when I’d be pulled from the main floor and asked to prep veggies and noodles in the kitchen when I worked at Pei Wei, a fast-serving sit-down Asian restaurant.
Oh! Oh! Oh! Or, the rush I’d get when I would write on customer’s ice cream cakes at DQ. I think I only wrote on a customer’s cake in front of the actual customer once—spine-tingling.
Hey, making sure the cursive was legible and centered was a challenge!
Didn’t get a lot of downtime last weekend, but was glad to make time to check out a TV series instead of brushing it off.
Now to share with you some fun finds during the week I saved for you from my last draft like, weeks ago!
Been loving this deep-layered brown noise for ambient sounds (and the memories commenters associate with it are so nostalgic.)
I literally listen to this Tic Tac commercial on repeat. Someone uploaded a 5-minute version of it, and people are even wanting an hour-long version!
Doing this lower ab workout, and the trainer keeping her struggle grunts in.
Rediscovering this 90s gem and twerking to its intro/outro.
Apricot duck sauce from a recent HelloFresh order.