A Year of Gratitude – November 2, 2024

I found my gratitude in a cookie today. More importantly, I found myself being thankful for the reminder of how much I love to bake these cookies for the people I love.

Do you ever forget how much you love to do something in the simple pursuit of doing it? I had done that this week. I had two recipe deadlines and all the last minute writing, editing, and photographing that goes along with it.

In the midst of that work, I lost sight of just how much I love to be in the kitchen. I looked past the joy I find in creating a recipe that is delicious and then doing my best to describe my method for making it so that you can create it in your kitchen.

Instead, I was focused on the deadline and hitting the target. I did hit the target in both cases, but I lost the joy somewhere along the way. While it was important to deliver the recipes when I promised, it would have been better if I had remembered that the joy shouldn’t have been optional.

Today, the baking was purely for joy, for the warm feeling I get when baking these cookies for my family and knowing that they will have that same warm feeling when enjoying them. I’m going to try and carry that joy along with me into the next week, and the next recipe. I like to think that the recipe will be even better if I do.

This post is part of our A Year of Gratitude Series. You can find the introduction, inspiration, and entire year’s gratitude’s posts here.