Breathing Underwater

 For this week's Writer's Workshop, I chose the prompt: Tell us about your favorite homecooked meal growing up.  Easy peasy lemon squeezy!  Stovers What's that? You don't know what Stovers are? Well, I'm not surprised. I don't think I've ever met a person outside my own family who does. This could be attributed to a couple of things...  1. My family is Scottish and though I was born on the North Sea, I grew up in the US. Stovers are Scottish. 2. In Scotland - at least most of the country, as far as I can gather - the dish is not actually called  Stovers , but Stovies , so even if you're from there, you might look at me strangely if I said I was making Stovers. But that’s what my mama called ‘em, so that’s what I call ‘em.  I also grew up believing there was ONE WAY and ONLY one way to make them. I've since discovered this is not the case (but my way [or my mother's way, really... and perhaps her mother's way, I don't know], is the best wa

  A while back, I was scrolling Instagram and I landed on a post by a fitness coach I'd been following for a bit. I liked him initially because he really seemed to understand that for many of us, being fit isn't simply as easy as eating less and going to the gym. It can take Herculean effort that we don't always have because... well... Life. In a way that many other online coaches don't seem to understand, he gets how depression and illness and pain and plain old self-sabotage can impact health. He's no-nonsense, but also compassionate and kind. My sort of coach.  In this particular post, he said something I would hear him say many times over the course of the next few of months - he said that if you want your life to change, you have to show up for yourself. You have to show up for yourself.   I'll be honest; I didn't really know what he meant. I mean, if I really thought about it, I probably did, but I'd never really thought about it. So I did. Think a