It's not you, it's me

Oh boy, I've sure been avoiding this one. I promise to bring some sweetness again soon. In the mean time, here's something that'll likely make you feel crappy.

Isolation, why I don’t want to talk to anyone, ever.

Contagious.

The reality is, it isn’t fun to talk about depression, it is inherently depressing. In many cases when I talk about my depression it causes others to get depressed. This is especially true if a person has a propensity toward depression. I don’t enjoy being the reason that someone feels worse.

Helplessness.

When I talk about the effects of my depression, people feel terrible for me. They aren’t sure what to do and feel bad that they can’t fix or help me. Again, I don’t like making people feel bad, and talking about my depression is a sure fire way to do exactly that. I don’t know what would help or what others can do, if I did, believe me I’d ask for it. Causing someone to feel helpless makes me feel guilty.

Why you can’t come over.

I’m tired, possibly irritable or crying. I can’t unload my dishwasher, put things away, or get off the couch. I’m certainly in no place to entertain and don’t have the energy to put on my poker face. Add the lack of joy I bring to the table and well, it's mighty unpleasant. It is hardly tolerable at times, it is painful, exhausting and sad. Knowing all of this, it is extremely hard for me to subject others to the experience. I feel bad and guilty putting people I care about in that environment. I know I don’t want to be in it, ever.

Flake.

Often, I am totally unreliable socially. It can be a monumental challenge to make myself presentable and prepared for public consumption. My mood is completely unpredictable from day to day and can change by the hour. It is likely that I will break any social plans I’ve made. I get tremendous anxiety leading up to most events/get together. I just don’t want to be around people, I don’t want to be around myself. I’m reminded of lyrics from Flake by Jack Johnson, “It seems to me that maybe pretty much always means no.” Indeed. It sucks disappointing people, being unable to function outside of my self-deprecating, exhausting and craptacular thoughts. Yay! Let’s make plans so I can make you miserable and we can both feel worse. Doesn’t that sound fun?!

Hi, it sucks to meet you.

My disease also makes it close to impossible to meet new people and actually bring them into the fold. If I manage to become friends with someone new I know that our relationship will be negatively impacted by my depression. I know that it is extremely likely that I will hurt them at some point. I am also hyper sensitive and disappointed easily, likely looking for another reason to push people away. My behavior can be difficult to understand or explain and it can be very hard not to take it personally. People who have known me when I am not as deep into my despair have some understanding and they do their best not to take the fallout from my dysfunction personally. They’ve likely been through it before and they know that when I’m functioning as non-miserable me I can actually be fun to be around and am a committed, supportive friend. It makes it a little easier to get through the bad times but it’s still not fun.

So there it is, it really isn’t you, it’s me. I’m fighting hard to get out of this place but it has an extremely firm grasp and has been identified as chronic and treatment resistant. It’s a nice way of saying we have no freaking clue how to help, but we’ll keep throwing things at you and see if we can find something that sticks.

Now, don’t you feel great? Yeah, didn’t think so.

A Sweet Start to Christmas

What am I thankful for this year? The abundance of new (and old) Seasonal Christmas candy! I'm thrilled to report that I have already run across several new sweets. A much needed boost after the lack of creativity and existence of new Halloween candy this year. Admittedly, I haven't tried many of these but I'm happy to share my finds and look forward to hearing your reviews should you pick up any of these new treats.

One of my favorite finds is the ginormous gift package of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Weighing in at hefty half pound a piece, this novelty is almost too good to be true. I've often been irritated by companies that call their miniature candy bars 'Fun Size,' I don't think having a smaller version of a candy bar is all that fun. These crazy huge cups are much better qualified to own the name Fun Size. For a bit of comparison, the traditional Reese's Peanut Butter Cup is .75 ounces and their Big Cup is a measly 1.4 oz. The one pound gift can be found at Target for about $10 along side two additional novelty candies, chocolate Scrabble tiles and a huge Tootsie Roll (which isn't really made of chewy Tootsie Roll, it's just chocolate in the shape of a Tootsie Roll = lame).

Next up, Cinnamon M&M's. I held out on purchasing these since I haven't been a fan of the Cherry or Coconut flavored varieties. I may be alone in my distaste since they recently moved those limited editions into regular rotation. Cinnamon and chocolate is a popular combination and is often referred to as Mexican chocolate. I've only seen these M&M's at one Target (yes, I shop multiple Target locations hunting for different treats). This is a good opportunity to revisit Mint M&M's, you can catch up on my thoughts here.

A bit fancier, Toblerone has been one of my favorite special treats since a trip to Germany when I was 10. Their traditional variety is made of Swiss milk chocolate with bits of honey and almond nougat. The new limited edition Snowtop bar adds tips of white chocolate to the traditional milk chocolate bar. You can also find most of their products in special holiday packaging.

Of course, peppermint is a common flavor this time of year so it's no surprise to find Andes Peppermint Crunch. These three layer sweets are imprinted with a candy cane and contain bits of candy canes.  These are cute but I'll take their traditional Creme Menthe version (with chocolate) over this version any day. I have also seen a truffle version but missed the opportunity to take a picture and haven't been able to find them again.


In additional to Christmas sleeves of red, green and white gumballs, Rainblo has introduced Snowballs. Creative and cute these all white gumballs are even better because they are the original flavor instead of mint!

Also in the category of 'cute' are these Holiday Malts by Brach's. Perfect for a sweets table these malted milk balls are bright and cheery. Brach's recently changed the packaging of their regular lines and it is terrible, it gets lost in the sea of bright candy packaging and looks cheap. It's nice to see they didn't carry the packaging over to their holiday line.

The first new seasonal candy I ran across, the Skittles Holiday Mix is a disappointment. First off, call it what it is - a Christmas mix. Second, the flavor mix is the traditional line up replacing orange with wild cherry. Lime and grape are the same shade of green and the wild cherry and strawberry are the same shade of red. I missed the orange flavor in this otherwise traditional mix and was underwhelmed with the lack of differentiation of colors. Skittles has introduced so many varieties that this seems like a sleepy approach to what could have been a fun new mix. Even having more than three colors would be an improvement.

Hopefully there will be more seasonally inspired treats to come, in the mean time I'll be making candy and baking up a storm as I move even closer to the official launch of my confection business. You can see some of the sweet things I'm working on by liking The Sugar Kitchen on Facebook. Stay sweet!

Bye Bye Butterfly

It has been tough having pet caterpillars over the last month. I spent lots of time worrying about my friends Peanut and Butter, knowing they were late to the scene and that they needed to move quickly if they were going to survive. They were anything but quick in their entire transformation. In fact, they took so much longer than Yipes did, it was really like learning the process a new. The four pictures below are all of Butter, she packed in on 10.12 and emerged on 10.30, 8 days longer than expected. I was lucky enough to see her break out of her chrysalis and caught some video footage. 

  

Let's not forget about Peanut who amazed me when he packed in on 10.21 nine days after Butter. He emerged on 11.2 and was much more eager to leave. I spent several days trying to convince Butter to fly, she was not interested in leaving. Even after Peanut left on 11.4, Butter just stayed. I brought her in at night and began wondering if she might hibernate in my house. Finally, after sitting on the roof of her cage for several hours yesterday (11.6), she took off. I didn't get to see either of my friends on their maiden voyage but I am incredibly hopeful that they have headed South. My butterfly friends are gone for the year, time to think about planting for them to return in the Spring.

Peanut gearing up to take off

Peanut and Butter, being beautiful and reluctant to fly

Time For A Midnight Snack, If You Dare

Following the adage to accentuate the positive, I am sharing several fantastic Halloween candy items that I found at a Walgreens yesterday. A little late to be rolling out new holiday products but man, they are great! Perfectly creepy and gross, these last minute additions will make your little ghosts and goblins squeal with icky delight. They are made by 'It's Alive Diner' and are packaged as grab and go food. You know I'm a sucker for punny sweets so these really hit the seasonal candy mark.

Creepy Crawly Sandwich

Body Parts Sushi

Handburger with Finger Fries

 Eye Popping Pie

I Scream Sundae complete with partial finger

Who needs Halloween candy anyhow?

In the absence of new Halloween candy I have discovered two new candies worthy of review.

On the market since late this Summer, Mamba Gummies, available in both regular and sour varieties, are fantastic! Both the Sour and Regular boast real fruit juice flavorings represented in Banana, Orange, Raspberry, Pineapple, Watermelon and Cherry. The Raspberry is particularly delicious and the banana isn't even too objectionable although I would prefer lemon. The chew is great, on par with Haribo gummies, although the sour variety is a bit softer and more like a pectin candy. The shapes are funny if you can identify them and include sharks, birds and fruit characters. While the sour doesn't compare to a Sour Patch Kid they do deliver a pleasant tang and I wouldn't change a thing. The Sour version reminds me of one of my favorite college study snacks, Sour Gummy Bears. With so many positive attributes I wasn't surprised at all to learn that they are made in Germany. Hooray for the German Gummi makers!

Starburst has introduced a great new variety called Flavor Morph. Orange chews morph to Orange-Strawberry and Cherry morph to Cherry-Lime. Both flavors are delicious, I'd love to try a raspberry lemon or strawberry lemon version. I urge you to find and try these before you figure out how they work. In this case the less you know the better, it's way more fun to have a little sugar molecular gastronome experience. I promise this flavor changing sweet won't turn you into a giant blueberry ala Violet Beauregarde and the 3 Course Meal Gum. Spoiler alert - here's how they work. There are little flavor beads throughout each chew (they are visible). As you chew, the pockets of flavoring burst open, voila flavor morph. Although the fun factor of the flavor morph is lessened when you understand the basic magic, they are fantastic. Hooray for a creative new candy!

Skipping to my first new Christmas candy find, I'm looking forward to trying the Skittles Holiday Mix.  In shades of green and red, flavors include Cherry, Grape, Lemon, Lime and Strawberry (the traditional mix includes Orange not Strawberry). I didn't pick them up yet so stay tuned for a flavor review. Let's hope this is just the beginning of many new Christmas candies.         

Fall PB and J

A bit of news on the nature front. Much has changed since I first introduced you to Yipes the Monarch caterpillar. If you haven't met Yipes yet, get to know him here before reading the rest of this post.

And now, the continuation of Yipes' arrival...

09.14 Starting to see Yipes' wings

09.15 Yipes' colors are showing

After much anticipation, Yipes emerged from his crysalis on September 15th. He spent more time gearing up to fly than I expected he would so I spent a day worrying he wasn't going to make it. As a nervous first time butterfly Mother I used every trick I knew to help Yipes succeed. I made sugar water and put a sponge full of it in his cage, I gave him a bloom from his favorite milkweed plant, I brought his cage outside into the sun. One of the many reasons I like butterflies is that they thrive in sunshine, I can relate. The sun did the trick and in just a few hours Yipes was fluttering about in his cage and it was time to say goodbye. You can watch his maiden voyage here. Yipes is likely well into his big flight South to winter in Mexico. Since he was born in the Fall, he is tasked with a great migration of about 2,500 miles. He'll hibernate with his friends in a tree and return in the Spring to mate before his life ends. No GPS, no map, just instinct. Another way Mother Nature amazes me.

09.16 Tada! 

His home served him well

But wait, there's more!

Last week I exchanged some of my Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk cookies for two Monarch caterpillars (Peanut and Butter) that my Parents found in their prairie.

09.28 Peanut the Monarch caterpillar

09.28 Butter the Monarch caterpillar

We all agreed that it seemed quite late for these guys to be getting started in life but I enthusiastically made them welcome in their new home. Then it got cold. Peanut and Butter stopped eating. They stopped moving and I began bracing myself for a very sad goodbye. I diligently provided fresh milkweed daily and even moved their cages outside during the warmest time of day in hopes of a recovery. All the while thinking hurry up you guys - you have a lot of work to do and thousands of miles to fly ahead of you. For a week the only signs of life came when I would nudge them to see if they were still alive. No eating, no pooping, no walking. Very unusual behavior for a caterpillar. So today, when I saw Butter (who had been the least responsive of the two) speeding around the ceiling of his cage I was thrilled! I swiftly moved both cages into the sun and added some super fresh milkweed leaves. Both have been chomping away all afternoon.

As if the news about P&B wasn't exciting enough, I get to introduce you to another new caterpillar friend, Jelly. I found Jelly hanging out on the same milkweed that I found Yipes on. Truth be told, I was freaked out by him at first. He seemed slimy and creepy for some reason. Then, before I could get a good picture of him the temperatures dropped and he seemed to shrivel up, hiding under a leaf. But today, he joined P&B in their sunshine party.

10.06 Peanut and Jelly (in the background)

I haven't seen Jelly eating today but he was scooting around a bit. Not sure what kind he is yet, I'll keep you posted as I learn more. In the mean time, if you see any Monarchs make sure to tell them to head South.

So Long Summer Sugar, I Hardly Knew Ya

The shelves have been filled with Halloween candy for weeks. I consumed my annual bag of Mary Jane Peanut Butter Kisses over a month ago. So naturally, it’s time for my Summer Seasonal Candy Review. I’ll keep it short, which is easy considering the total desert that was this year’s Summer Candy scene.  

The folks at Tootsie continue to impress, they seem to have a new specialty version of Dots or Tootsie Pop at least each month. This summer they introduced three Sour Slices Dots varieties: Grapefruit, Peach and Watermelon.  I’m a fan of regular Sour Dots, they have a great texture, sour factor and flavors. I was surprised to see a mainstream Grapefruit candy, so they earned bonus points for trying but its flavor was pretty tame and somewhat forgettable. The Peach Dots were good, but I found myself wanting Haribo Gummy Peaches instead. I didn’t pick up the Watermelon Dots due to a flavor aversion. 

Despite the lack of competition, Tootsie won the prize for most Patriotic candy with their 4^th of July inspired Tootsie Pops. The red, white and blue assortment included standard favorite Cherry along side new comers Strawberry-Vanilla and Blue Raspberry. The Blue-Raspberry was ok and certainly stained my mouth blue. I really wanted the Strawberry-Vanilla to rock but neither flavor was potent enough, I would love to try it with a vanilla Tootsie center. With all of the flavors of Frooties and with Tootsie’s adventurous roll out of new flavors I really hope Tootsie is working on some new combinations, oh the fun we could have. Be on the look out for the new Pop flavors (Green Apple, Pomegranate and Banana) which are being introduced via an interesting rotating strategy then vote for your favorite new flavor. 

When I wasn’t earning my Clean Stick Award this Summer, I was busy eating licorice. Twizzlers were on sale everywhere I turned plus they introduced three new products. The super fun Extra Long Strawberry Twizzlers hit the novelty mark, they were twice the length of a typical Twizzler. If you’re in the market for this extra long licorice I ran across some earlier this week at a Shopko. Also introduced this summer were Super Long Cherry Nibs, these are awesome! They are basically Nibs that haven’t been cut but having the additional substance really improves the Nib experience. If you like cherry Nibs you must seek these out, Target had them earlier today and instead of being marked as a Limited Edition they were marked as a New product, hopefully they are here to stay. A limited edition Grape Pull 'n' Peel was also around this summer, it was pretty nasty and not a good companion to the Cherry Pull 'n' Peel. It smelled like Grape Hubba Bubba but only offered a mild grape flavor with an odd after taste.

I’m disappointed to share that although we are approaching the holiday when people buy candy just to give it away, the Halloween candy I’ve seen this year is lack luster at best. Very few new product offerings and most are just pretending to be seasonal by changing the color of their packaging. I did see a Russell Stover Buzzard Egg but come on where is the creativity everybody? Hopefully this is just a momentary glitch in the sugar stream.

There is a fantastic Limited Edition candy on the market right now that you’ll want to get your hands on. The folks at Tootsie have knocked it out of the park with their Caramel Tootsie Pops, seriously yummy. Get yourself a bag before they’re gone and see if you can earn your Clean Stick Award too.