I was trying to figure out what to write for this week’s blog post on the way back from the gym today, but I just ended up singing “The Worst Pies in London” to myself instead. (I still might have most of Sweeney Todd memorized, despite not having listened to it in quite a while.) Rachel and Mrs. Lovett would absolutely be friends—or at least frenemies. 

Speaking of pies . . . baking . . . cooking in general, I've been leaning into cooking as "a thing I like that isn't tied to work." I have a hard time maintaining interest in hobbies--they quickly start to feel pointless unless I can attach some urgency to them i.e. "You will die if you don't do this" or "You will be in big trouble if you don't do this." Since cooking conveniently ties into one of the basic requirements for survival, I've been able to stick with it more consistently, but I'm still having trouble motivating myself to do it as much as I'd like.

My theory right now is that I need to consciously carve out more time for it--it makes sense that my brain is having trouble caring about cooking when I've only carved out an hour a week for it on a Monday night. It's the scheduling equivalent of, "This is some stupid unimportant thing you do after the important things are done." My solution for this week is to make way more cooking plans than I normally do, which may be a massive over-correction! We'll see.