I think there’s a way to make PB&J out of this—to take two disparate things and make them sing together. Team one is my nesting gene at work. My eyes blink open and I think, “It’s raining. I can spend the whole day inside, decluttering, lighting a candle that makes our home smell like a gingerbread house, baking two types of cookies to freeze for the holidays, and a brussels sprouts and pancetta dish to eat later.” I can wear my slippers and amass garbage bags full of clothes to be sold or donated. I can be productive and use all my energy to cook and deep freeze. Three types of cookies.

Team two is the healthy mindset, the one that tells me to get my running shoes on straight away. Go to the gym, take a new class, lift heavy weights, forget cardio. Drink water. Then come home and try on clothes, edit your wardrobe, see what can fit better. Drink more water. Do stair pushups.

Then I hop here to the blog to write about my split personality—punctuated by fits and starts where I punch over to alternate browser tabs to read reviews of Mrs. Patmore’s Pudding Tea and read fragrance reviews of Black Opium (which makes me wonder if I should leave the house and run to Ulta just to smell it now), and wonder how I can find a perfume that smells like the Bath & Body Works Pumpkin Vanilla candle, which does not smell of pumpkin but does make this a gingerbread house of a home.

With all this talk, what’s accomplished? I’m still on the sofa, in slippers, burning a candle in a cozy cableknit, reading message boards, my mind roaming about. The house is still asleep. I will likely take out the InstantPot and make brussels sprouts with walnuts and blue cheese, even though I just drank my coffee with unsweetened vanilla almond milk, in an effort to go dairy-free. There goes that. Mind you, all this mind racing, and I’ve only had a single sip of the caffeine. This is my brain on Saturday.

To create a peanut butter jelly sandwich of goals, I was about to commit to doing a 7-minute workout at home. But in all honesty, it’s not happening. Instead I will use my energy, first, to cook the brussels sprouts. If I still have energy, afterward, I will bake the beloved Corn Cookies that my family freaks over… only I’ll freeze them. Sometimes it just is what it is. If I do leave the house today, which is unlikely, it will be to run to Ulta to sample Black Opium and then maybe to a cider mill to bring the kids home some cider and fresh NY apples.