It’s Tuesday morning and I am struggling to write. Not here, I look at this site as a place where I can put just about anything. But I’m really trying to get into the practice and habit of sending out at least two Substack newsletters a week and I am floundering.

Part of the trouble is that I’m not entirely sure what kind of writer I am anymore. My recipe development skills are super rusty, but at least when I’m writing about a recipe, I am on familiar ground. These days, I’m trying to find my way through an in-between space and figuring out what that looks like is proving harder than expected.

I do need to acknowledge to myself that I’m still coming down from five years of intensive parenting, where the pattern of my days was dictated by the needs to two little boys. We are only in the second month of kindergarten, so it’s okay that I am still finding my way. Thinking about it now, I realize that there was part of me that thought that once they started school, I’d be able to leap right back into my old levels of production. And I’m just not able to do that because I’m not the same person I once was.

As I sit here and write this, it also occurs to me that I am actually trying to do something different than what I did in the past. Yes, I do want to get back to Food in Jars and my goal there is to be producing new recipes on a monthly basis. But I want the Substack to be something different. I am hoping to be writing more thoughtful things. And so it makes sense that it is feeling like a challenge, because it’s not just leaping into the same old thing. It’s something new. And it’s okay that it feels challenging.

This was helpful. Thanks.