I wish I was writing here more but I’ve been pouring my creative energy elsewhere. Into my bakery, my loved ones, my self, my environment. I still write, just in my journal that I’ve somehow used all the pages in already. Filling up a journal faster than usual makes me happy because it means I’m out living life and I’m reflecting deeply & consistently.

However, I want to share on here how I’m experiencing little and large shifts and subtleties in my life lately. As a former influencer, I’m adverse to promoting anything that I’m not passionate about just for personal gain. I’m disinterested in performing for strangers. In the attempts to write about experiences succinctly, so much is left out. Left out because of wordiness, because of privacy & because I truly just don’t remember every detail. Nonetheless, here’s how life has been recently…

Foraging

Whenever I forage on land once tended to by enslaved people, and before that by indigenous people, I feel a sense of connection to wisdom and ways of living beyond what any book could tell me. For the first time, I found a field of yarrow growing wild and free. I borrowed just enough to try out at home. And I do mean borrow because I always return plants back to Mother Earth directly instead of leaving it trapped in a garbage bag for years. I place the remainder of the flowers underneath a tree as a way of laying it to rest and to decompose with another.

A few days prior, I had pulled a tarot card from my deck called “Healing” which depicts yarrow in it (which is where my interest in the plant had stemmed from.) I added it to some peppermint tea. I’ve been drinking peppermint tea daily to help with sleep since chamomile wasn’t doing it for me. Combining yarrow & peppermint is so delicious to drink and soothes me so lovingly to sleep. I have more drying in a room and some steeping in oil to make a healing salve soon. It’ll come in handy for my son’s scraped knees from all his adventures. Highly suggest leisurely studying herbs in your spare time.

Birding

This has been the most exciting time to bird because many are traveling & breeding now. I spend most of my time in nature listening, looking, & learning from these messengers from beyond. As I tend to the garden, I’m accompanied by anyone between an Eastern Bluebird to a Cape May Warbler. We don’t have many human visitors at the cottage but seem to attract many animals. It’s all good company. Even at the cost of expensive bird seed.

Sometimes my son & I go hiking to look for birds. He’s so cute with binoculars. He’s learning how to count and identify colors through birding with me. How cool is that? Nothing quite makes me want to tear up like hearing him say “hear that bird?” because he could’ve been born without the ability to speak or hear, or born somewhere without access to nature. I don’t take for granted my child nor the time with him I’m blessed with.

Yeehaw Agenda

I’m very deep into listening exclusively to country music right now. I love the storytelling & sounds of country music in particular. My top song recommendations are:

weren’t for the wind by Ella Langley

Jenni by Kashus Culpepper

Need to by Gavin Adcock

Whirlwind Album by Lainey Wilson but specifically 4x4xU , Somewhere over Laredo and Bell Bottoms Up

Secret Studies: Intuition Course

If you are not familiar with Sarah Faith Gottesdiener’s work, I highly suggest it if you’re looking for spiritual guidance without the fluff. What she teaches is potent and applicable at many stages of life. I’ve been a student since 2019 and nothing she’s put out there has been off putting. What I also love is how real, honest and proactive she is. There’s no spiritual bypassing, it’s both let’s protest genocide and reflect on where our capacity is at in our personal lives. My mindset has changed so much in the first few weeks into the course for the better. An example is that I’m far more trusting of myself to make decisions than I have been in years. No more consulting with others or flipping a coin, just going within and trusting myself. I cannot explain in brevity how liberating it is to finally trust myself. So consider listening to her podcasts, taking any workshop or getting on the waitlist for the intuition course in February. And fyi, because of Sarah is why I even started this newsletter on this platform!!! Here’s her Substack.

Summer hibernation?

Normally, we as a family hibernate between January through mid-March. This year, I had to start working much sooner than desired. As much as I’m grateful for success in my bakery, I’m tired. On top of that, I deeply dislike the summertime. Longer daylight means less sleep. Hotter days means more discomfort. I’d like to say I could work around it all but I’d burnout trying. So I’m considering a summer hibernation from July through August.

This feeling to retreat also stems from my growing disdain for hyper-connectivity through our phones/online use. I love reading on Substack about the sociological and philosophical aspects of privacy, performance & privilege. I’ve been assessing my attachment to my phone as well. I’ve grown to not like feeling it on my body. Removing all push notifications except for texts. I’m deleting photos instead of scrolling on apps AND taking less photos. I even deleted the weather app because why do I compulsively check something that’s never accurate?! Am I becoming a Luddite? No. I’m just old and young enough to remember life where technology didn’t dominate every second of my life. There just needs to be some balance.

Baking

If you ever come to my house, 10 times out of 10, I’m baking. You know, I didn’t know how to bake well until really a year ago. I’m really proud of how far I’ve come. I love the process of becoming. I’m at a point where I have moved away from basics and now curating my own style of vegan baking.

I’m currently trying out fillings for cakes and different flavored gluten free cookies. Chocolate cake with date caramel has been a favorite yes but apparently lemon curd is something people are very into. As far as cookies go, there’s two I’m smitten by and they are my almond croissant cookies and orange sugar cookies. Both make my brain sparkle like a disco ball with ideas of what else is possible with gluten free baking. If you’re ever interested in trying my treats, check out my site I spend maybe too much time working on lol.

Featured Writing

I wrote a small piece for a local magazine that got published!!! Read it and eat!

All in all, life has been full and fulfilling. All these shifts have helped me grow as a woman and as a mother specifically. It’s like I’m navigating the seas with a new boat, map & compass if that makes sense. I hope life is being kind to you & if not that you have someone to hold you.

With buttercream coated love,

Carri