family Archives – Pies & Prejudice

Hello Friends!

I hope you’ve been having a good winter so far, and if you’re lucky you got to sneak away somewhere warm and sunny. If you did, I think you may have forgotten to bring me? (Whoops!😂)

One thing is for sure–we’ve had WAY too much snow and it just keeps on coming. We’ve even broken a few records for snowfall amounts this winter (trust me, these are not the kinda records you want to break lol). Meanwhile, the cherry blossoms are coming up in BC!! (Bastards😁). I’ve been wanting to call my brother in Vancouver to catch up but I think I’ll wait ’til our deep freeze is over. I just can’t bear to hear about their t-shirt weather while I’m wearing long johns and four layers every time I step outside. Update: I took a risk and called him anyway and they’ve recently got snow. HA! I feel a little better now.

I am SO looking forward to Spring. Who’s with me? I’ve got a Spring Counter on my blog now (and by “now” I mean since last October), so you can count down along with me. 18 days, people! It can’t come soon enough.

I guess you’ve probably noticed a lot of crickets around here lately, hey? I figured it’s about time I shared an update as it has been a couple of months. As most of you know, last year was a pretty crappy one with the loss of my mom and some work/career changes as well. So, after the busy holiday season I finally had some time to kick back, relax, and re-evaluate where I was going and make some changes. One of them is this blog (again).

It was a little over a year ago that I decided to turn my blog into a food blog. I was baking way more than travelling at the time and I’d always wanted a food blog so it seemed like a good idea. But clearly (ie: crickets) it’s not going very well. Ya’ll know I love to bake but I just don’t spend enough time in the kitchen to keep coming up with new recipes. Most of my food blogging friends share several recipes each week whereas I’m lucky if I post one per month. I loved being part of the Recipe Round Up and a big thanks to my friend Kelly ‘Cereal Bar Queen Extraordinaire’ who graciously invited me to join the fun. It encouraged me to share more recipes but I still struggled to keep up.

It also doesn’t help that most people don’t like to bake pie. Pastry can be really finicky and it usually takes a lot of practice before it doesn’t drive you crazy. I’ve been baking pie for years and it still drives me crazy (ha ha). As a result not a lot of people have been trying my recipes– which is the main purpose of having a food blog, really #majorblogfail.

As you can probably tell by my geeky pies, I enjoy designing pies more than anything. But for some reason no one else wants to go to the trouble of putting Darth Vader, Superman or Doc Brown on their pies!!? What is wrong with you people? 😜

….Wait a minute, Doc… Are you telling me you built a time machine…out of a PIE??

So you’ll see a few changes to this blog as I’ll be posting more lifestyle-related content such as travel, local stuff, fun stories (quite a few people have recently told me really they enjoy my stories–who knew?), fitness & sports (I just joined a tennis/squash club at my local gym!) and, of course, loads of nostalgia. Especially anything 80s-related (with or without a geeky pie).

Now that I’ve officially declared this not a (designated) food blog anymore, I can go back to random ramblings and road trip stories now, right? (please say yes). It’s funny because I’ve been wanting to share some of my recent travels but I’ve hesitated because this is supposed to be a food blog haha. Thanks for (hopefully) sticking around, guys. I hope all my foodie friends will still visit, too. Because you know that you can ALWAYS count on me to bring you back in time with my nostalgic pies. No DeLorean required.

Ok, it’s time for my winter recap. I really don’t want to say ‘Holiday’ because that was so long ago now. But since I started writing this post at the end of January (let’s blame my friend Al for going away to NZ for most of February which made me extra busy, shall we? haha) I technically made the cut. You might recall how I feel about Christmas talk (or holiday movies) once January is over. But no more holiday talk after this post, I promise!

You’d better go grab a coffee as you may be here awhile 😁Because you have nothing better to do with your Saturday or Sunday than read my ramblings, right? (here’s where you lie and say “no, no, of course not” haha).

…

Blueberry pie. It’s gotta be the ultimate dessert of summer, especially during the height of blueberry season. And it’s even better un-baked because the fresh blueberries completely shine through. It essentially tastes like summer on a plate (the flowers and twisty lattices are optional).

This was my mom’s favourite pie. Which leads me to my next bit of news….my mom passed away unexpectedly last week 🙁

I started writing this post awhile ago to share my favourite blueberry pie recipe but I hadn’t finished it yet as my summer has been off to a busy start, especially with my new market. But in my original post I’d been enjoying reminiscing about how my mom loved blueberry pie, our summers together as a family at the cottage while growing up, and the amazing blueberry pies we used to always get at a bakery on the way to our cottage. But with my mom’s recent passing, this post has suddenly turned into a tribute instead.

There’s nothing like losing both of your parents to make you feel so lost and unrooted. I’ve never felt more alone in my entire life, especially while sitting in my parents’ house (aka my childhood home) going through all their belongings. I was expecting them to walk in the door any minute and catch me going through their stuff. The day after my mom’s passing it suddenly dawned on me: I’m officially an orphan now.

But I’m finding solace and comfort in knowing that I was blessed to have my parents as long as I did (some people aren’t so lucky) and I’ve got so many wonderful memories of them to treasure.

I’m still trying to make sense of it all while my brother and I are cleaning and organizing their paperwork, getting the house ready to sell, cancelling everything and planning the funeral—all whilst grieving and trying to cope with her loss. Through this process, I’m also realizing how much my mom had still been grieving my dad (who had passed away 5 years ago). She kept everything of his and nothing had changed in their house since he’s been gone– it was almost like he was still there. I know grieving takes time and everyone moves at a different pace (and I’m sure one never really gets over the loss of a spouse) but I hadn’t realized how bad it was and that my mom may have been more depressed than she’d let on. While doing some reading on grieving (for my own benefit), I learned that my mom may have been experiencing ‘Complicated Grief‘–which is a prolonged and more intense form of grief that also incorporates depression. If you know someone having trouble getting over the loss of a loved one (especially years down the road), do some research on this. There is tons of great info and resources that may help.

Last week, when my mom hadn’t returned my calls for a couple of days and a worried neighbour called me to tell me her newspapers were piling up, I knew something was very wrong. I called a good friend to come over with me and she suggested (thankfully) that I call the police to do a wellness check. …

Blog Recap, Childhood Memories and Almost Spring!🌼☀️

Fresh Blueberry Pie & Tribute to my Mom