Summer Baking Bucket List

It’s no secret that I love me some fruit dessert.  I’m talking pies, galettes, crostatas, cobblers, crisps.  I’m not talking fruit as dessert, because that is a totally different (and horrible) thing that should not even exist.  But I digress.

Every year, I put together a “Summer Bucket List,” full of things like going to Film on the Rocks, throwing a BBQ, reading X number of books and I might still make one of those lists, but for now, I’m focusing on the thing I’ve been dying to do all spring… bake lots of fruit desserts!  So without further adieu, the first ever Summer* Baking Bucket List!

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Peach Tarragon Shortcake

Rhubarb Galettes with Hazelnut Frangipane

Rhubarb and Raspberry Crostata (check!)

Blueberry-Pecan Galette (check!)

Giant Chocolate Chip Skillet Cookie (not actually a fruit dessert, but we’ll let it slide)

Blackberry-Cherry Cobbler with Honey Whipped Cream

Iron-Skillet Peach Crisp

Classic Chocolate Birthday Cake (also not fruit related, but it looks too good to pass up!)

Last, but not least… Betty Crocker’s Peach Cobbler (because you just gotta!)

Okay, this list is probably a bit ambitious (to say the least…).  In all reality, I’d be happy if I made just three of these this summer*.  Let’s do it!

*I know we’re still a month out from official summer, but it’s 75° today and I couldn’t wait any longer to publish this post!

The F Word

Confession: I am a frequent user of the F word.  And I’m not talking about the four letter F word, although I probably use that word too often too (not as much as my sister though!). The F word I’m talking about it only 3 letters long.

Fat.

And I use that word in relation to myself.  “I feel fat.”  Which is degrading and insulting and seriously untrue.  But it’s my favorite way to participate in some negative self talk.  And I, like most women my age, indulge in this activity all too frequently.  And I won’t lie, I have always struggled with it.  For a while, when I was fully immersed in the “healthy living world” and feeling really great about myself I thought I was over it, but once I got a 9-5 desk job and took on a more moderate lifestyle — with more butter and less long distance running and maybe just a little more guilt– I fell right back into the habit of talking negatively about myself.

It drives Joey insane.  But more than anyone else, it drives me insane.  So when March goal-making time rolled around, I decided to quit cold turkey.  I vowed to not use the word “fat” at all.  Not even once, and bam! it has been 31 days since I uttered that mean word.  And it has been surprisingly easy.  Sometimes keeping up a bad habit is even harder and more energy-sucking and tiring than just letting it go is.

Fat is not a feeling, and insulting myself is not productive.  Can I say that I have finally broken this horrible habit for good?  Absolutely not.  But I do know that it feels really good to have made it this far and I can do my very best to remember that before I let those kind of insults come out of my mouth again.  I’m working on it.

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Do you have a bad habit you desperately need to break?

 

P.S. HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY LOVING BOYFRIEND.  This post is all for you, Joey.  Just kidding 🙂