Why did I disappear?
Let's just say that 2025 has been... eventful. Between awesome and awful, I've had a little bit of everything over the past year or so. Because of that, a few months back I kind of disappeared out of thin air and many of you have been asking why and when will things will get back to what they were. So here I am to finally give you guys a bit more context and slowly ease things into a new groove.
(Picture from my Apple Crisp Cookie recipe)
Let's go back to about a year ago
Late in 2024 I shared with you guys that I was expecting a little peanut to be born in the summer of 2025. This was more or less of a surprise baby, although we were already planning for a baby #4 for maybe 2026... but life had other plans.
As we went through the Christmas and New Year's season last year, we started to make some plans for a move from Canada to the US. With me pregnant and three little kids in tow, we were working on a very tight timeline -- if you guys ever had kids, moving to a different country with a newborn baby might be actually close to impossible. So we had to sell our home, most of our stuff and pack up shop to move south before I got way too pregnant to go.
Settling down in sunnier skies
I think we kind of underestimated the ordeal we were putting ourselves into. We've sold homes before, we've moved to different countries before and I've also been pregnant a few times before. However we've never, ever done all of these things at the same time. And frankly... I do not recommend.
Even with the help we got from movers and trying to streamline most of the things with the kids, half of my things are still in boxes (yes, to this day) and probably the whole stress of the move got me into prodromal labor for about a month before my baby was born. Definitely do not recommend that either.
One way or another, we've settled in the DFW area in Texas, and we have been loving it so far. I'm pumped with all the Cottage law changes there were around here recently and it truly feels like home. The people are amazing, the community feeling around here is beyond exceptional and the only thing we may need getting used to is the weather (especially considering we've lived in cold climates for the past 15 years) and the traffic (which, in all honesty is much better than places like Toronto, for example). Other than that, I truly only have amazing things to say about here, and we feel very blessed for having the opportunity to live in such a wonderful place!
Hello baby!
Baby Tommy was born safely in mid-July this year, after some worries he would probably be a 4th of July baby! He's a wonderful baby, very handsome, easy going and friendly. As it wouldn't be otherwise, we're struggling a bit with sleep now on the fourth month, but hopefully as he starts sleeping better (they all do... mostly lol) I will struggle less with brain fog, chronic tiredness and messing up all my kids names (they get so mad when I do it!).
When things don't go as planned
You may have read or heard that the blog was going to go online at some point in September. Very well. I was on track to do that, all the way until it wasn't. I'm talking about loss of a loved one below, so if that is a sensitive topic to you, please feel free to skip ahead.
I haven't shared that with anyone as I tend to be a private person, but also earlier in 2024 I got word that my mom's health wasn't doing quite so well. She had been struggling with some health issues since 2017, with a series of surgeries and procedures that have been successful so far, but this time around she was actually suffering of moderate dementia.
If you've ever had a parent of loved one suffering from dementia, you'd probably know how devastating this is. No disease is ever pleasant to deal with, but I think that of all of the ailments that gets to aging people, dementia might be the worst. You lose a bit of self daily, for a very long period of time, until you no longer can function properly. You lose not only the ability to remember things, but also to do basic things like eating, showering, using the toilet or even walking. It's devastating for the person and to basically to everyone around them.
Knowing that, I consciously made the effort of visiting my parents as often as I could (remember they live in Brazil, while I'm at least 10 hours away on a direct flight), and with every visit I could see my mom's health and self deteriorating considerably worse. In February of this year I've visited them for a few weeks and that was the last time I saw my mom relatively doing well. She was no longer able to do many things by herself but there were still glimpses of who she used to be. Not often, but they were still there occasionally.
With the move, me being pregnant and all of the things going on, we could only go back to visit them in late September this year, which we did. It was really hard to get to make it given I needed to get all the proper documentation for a newborn baby (which you may know it's not easy at all, not to mention it takes time), pack them all up on what's usually a day-long trip with an overnight flight, and go see them.
In September she was already not doing well at all. We were staying at my mother-in-law's place for a family event we were also attending, and my parents came to visit. That's when I knew that would be the last time I would see my mom.
In the back of my head, knowing how things were progressing very quickly, despite all the efforts my dad was putting into taking care of her, I figured she would probably pass within the year. I was trying to put a plan down to having someone coming over to help him out to take care of her for the next few months or so, but there wasn't enough time -- she had a stroke about 3 weeks after this visit, and never woke up again.
As soon I as heard about the stroke, I went back with Tommy to see her in the hospital, but she passed three days later.
Losing my mom so suddenly (although not unexpectedly, giving how things were going) has been, at the very least, challenging. Especially considering all the above - moving, having a new baby and all else. Needless to say that getting the website up was very low in the list of priorities. But now we're here, and we're back.
What comes next?
I don't want to give false expectations about how things are going to go, but I am excited to make this corner grow. I currently have 50+ recipes on the pipeline to get tested and photographed but this will all come over the course of the next year.
I can't promise when it's going to be, but it's going to be soon-ish. I expect that once I finally settle on a new house (which has been another whole set of shenanigans), and the baby finally starts getting some solid sleep, I'll be able to get back to it. I would like to say close to the spring... but I don't want to make any promises.
However, in the meantime you guys can go around some of the awesome the recipes I already have around here, like these below:
- Brown Butter Fudgy Chocolate Chip Cookie
- Apple Crisp Cookies
- Lemon Blackberry Cupcakes
- Oreo Crepe Cakes
And what about your paid recipes?
Good question. These will take sometime to come back for a bunch of different reasons. When they come back (which I hope they will), it will be in a full collection format of some sorts (like the Cake Slice and Creamy Fudge Collection, for those who have them) so it's easier for me to manage and market them.
The Etsy store as is will no longer be able to come back to life -- I tried, but the store is tied to a specific country and I no longer live in Canada, so I'll have to start from scratch. I might start a new store from scratch since Etsy does have a bit of traffic but I'm leaving it open ended for now. It may come back, it may not, we'll see.
In the meantime, you guys can get the recipes from the website here keeping in mind they might not be fully cottage-friendly in your region.
Thank you everyone for joining me in this ride and I hope you stay around for what's to come!