-Down The Road

If you were to catch me a few days back on Thursday, you would have found me rather anxiously watching DanDanThe Fireman teach his wife how to ride a motorcycle on YouTube.  To be clear, I have my motorcycle license, but boy do I love a pep-talk and a plan.  I thought about taking out a petition to convince Will to ride with speakers in our helmets so he could coach me through the small corners and rolling hills of our upcoming ride in Fredericksburgh, TX but he’s a man of few words so i wouldn’t have been very chatty.

If you were to catch me today (it’s Friday for me and Sunday for you), you’d find me high-fiving Will on the side of the road after my first successful motorcycle run of the weekend.  We went out right after morning coffee, while the sun was still low and before I had time to over caffeinate and overthink anything. That’s the trick – just go. Motorcycling – the small bit I know about it so far – requires presence. Different from driving a car where I find myself spacing out about 25%?  On a motorcycle you need all 100.  You have to look down the road at where you want to go.  You have to actively NOT look at where you don’t want to go.  If you’re lulled into that space, your bike will go exactly where you don’t want it to and well… no one wants that.  That’s a little lesson we can take in the week, don’t you think? Let’s practice looking down the road at where we want to go.  Let’s not look where we don’t want to go. Simple enough, but surely something I forget when my weekdays get muddy.

I hope this finds you settling into your day.  Let’s be here with a few think pieces, a few delicious recipes, and a smattering of things I have and have not purchased. Here we are:

•  This week’s long reach on motherhood, micro/macro/complicated. I’ve had this tab open all week:  A Mother’s Charge. (Washington Post)

•  In the 1940’s and 50’s, Freda DeKnight shaped Black American food in Ebony magazine.  Here’s some respect for The Table Freda Built. (Sporkful)

•  In news you can use literally right now, daily breath training is medicine. (NPR)

•  Are you feeling butter inflation because yes I am very much.  I’ve done a double take at the butter case more times that I care to admit.  (The Hustle)

•  Can someone who subscribes to Disney+ please watch Edge of The Unknown and report back on whether or not I subscribe for the National Geographic channel alone?  I have a feeling the answer is, girl – get it.

•  You had me at cream cheese, Bev.  Banana Bream Cream Cheese Skillet Cake (Bev Cooks)

•  I’m such a sucker for lemon desserts and a fiend for tiramisu so this is a strong connect for me:  Flouring Kitchen’s Lemon Tiramisu.

• This week I made Sweet Potatoes with Roasted Garlic Lemon Tahini Sauce on Instagram (with the recipe in the caption) and highly suggest you meal prep it for your entire week. The tahini sauce is great on everything!

•  OK I’m ashamed to admit that TikTok convinced me to buy these leggings as a lulu lemon dupe. I wore them to Will’s tryna look cute and he only told me later that he thought the lines under my butt were butt sweat. Listen…. life is a constant humbling so we might as well just stay stayin’ humble.  In good news, the compression of these leggings is quite nice if you’re into that sort of thing. (Amazon)

•  While we’ve settled into the section of things we want but don’t need but actually might need very much – this is my new favorite lotion. It’s rich and creamy going into winter. The fragrance is perfumey – floral and musky – which I love and lasts well into the day.  (Amazon)

•  I’m going to have to stare at all of these Charlotte Stone shoes for another few months before I splurge on a pair but GAH it’s going to be impossible to choose.

•  This time last year we were talking about pandemic fatigue and roasting chicken with grapes.  Worth a revisit. (Joy the Baker)

Be well and enjoy your Sunday.

My love to you.

xo Joy