I was thinking this morning – I am most proud of this space I’ve created online through meeshyd.com. After all of these years, this is where I feel at home. I love what I’ve made here and I love the medium of blogging the very best. I can’t wait to be back and just write from the heart.
I have been feeling so great lately after going through an incredibly tough time earlier this year. It was depression and it was grief and it was shedding old parts of myself that I had outgrown. I left my victim mentality behind and turned an entirely new corner. I feel better than I’ve ever felt in my life. I feel unblocked inside, ready to take on the world from a place of hope, positivity and positive expectation.
The changes I’ve made inwardly are showing on the outside. I am confident and strong and full of vitality and reveling in the beauty of my physical form, thanking God for making me. Watch out world!
Just wanted to pop in and say hi this Sunday. I’ve had the most magnificent quiet time this morning. I’m about to clean the house and go to the grocery store. I’m making homemade french onion soup and having a friend over for dinner tonight and I honestly cannot wait. It feels a little bit like pre-pandemic times and I’m welcoming it with open arms.
Life is so, so, so good friends. I hope you are having a magnificent day.
I’ve been away from this space for a while now. I needed a moment to collect myself and to process what’s happening in the world and to contemplate the changes I need to make in my life and mind.
If you’ve been reading here for a while, I hope it’s already clear to you that I wholeheartedly believe that Black Lives Matter and that I am actively anti-racist. I use this little platform, my voice, to amplify the work of black creators and POC and I plan to do that more as I continue to grow this space. I believe action matters so much more than words, even though I am a writer, so I am focused less on writing and more on living my life to better support dismantling the ridiculously hateful, systemic racism in our country. As a woman dating a black man and helping raise two black sons, I see the effects of racism everyday. Shit has to change and we can’t look to anyone other than ourselves to make that happen.
And still, we have to eat.
We have to sustain and nourish ourselves and our loved ones. Food is a comfort and a unifier even in the toughest of times. I wish I could make you a pie right now and invite you into my kitchen, pour you a cup of freshly brewed decaf coffee because it’s getting late and sit with you at my table as I serve you a slice of pie. Doesn’t that sound like heaven? I wish I could create a cocoon of love and hope for everyone reading here, but since I can’t do that, I’d like to share my current favorite pie.
My aunt used to make this when I was growing up. It’s the kind of dish you make and bring to a potluck. It’s easy and nutty and shockingly good. It’s a special alchemy that springs from the humblest of ingredients: cool whip, jello pudding and cream cheese. It’s just delightful.
Pecan Delight Chocolate Pie (slightly adapted from allrecipes.com)
Ingredients:
1 stick of cold, unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 cup flour
1 cup chopped pecans plus a little bit extra to use as garnish
Pinch of salt
1 package of chocolate jello pudding
1 package of vanilla jello pudding
3 cups milk
1 block cream cheese (8 ounces)
1 cup confectioners sugar
1 container of cool whip, thawed and divided
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350
Combine cold, diced butter with flour and a pinch of salt and mix with your hands until the butter is just incorporated into the flour. I like to mash the butter a bit and then roll it in the flour until I get little pea-sized butter bits. Add the pecans and mix until combined.
Press into 9X13 baking pan or large pie plate and bake for about ten minutes, until golden brown. Remove from oven and let cool.
Whisk pudding mixes with milk until they become…pudding-y?
Using an electric mixer in a separate bowl, cream together 1 cup cool whip with cream cheese and confectioners sugar for a couple of minutes until well-incorporated.
Pour half of pudding mixture into cooled crust.
Layer on cream cheese mixture.
Add rest of pudding mixture.
Top with rest of cool whip and garnish with chopped pecans.
A little note about this pie: she’s not going to cut into pretty slices like a typical pie. This is a humble, blobby type of pie. I like it that way, completely unpretentious and utterly delicious.
I’m going to sign off for now, but before I go, I just want to say that I truly love everyone who takes the time to read here. I hope to make this space inclusive and fully worthy of your limited attention and also a place of joy, unconditional acceptance and love.
We’ve been in the thick of moving for weeks now, which means that life is just completely upside-down and I’ve been utterly consumed by orchestrating this change in our lives.
BUT.
I’ve missed the blog during this little hiatus.
I can’t wait to get back here. I have so many fun things I want to share. I’d like to share how we found our house, how we’re decorating thus far, organization updates, some fun fashion posts and so much cooking.
How are you doing? Are you still quarantining or is life opening up ever so slowly for you? I feel completely conflicted about everything related to covid and opening things back up. I just don’t feel like I have the capacity to educate myself on the risks, so I just try to follow the current rules in place here in our county and wait.
