What's Good This Week

Last week my company announced that after nearly six months of remote working, they'd like us to start coming back to the office a minimum of twice a week so we can get some time together IRL.

My first reaction was like, wait a second, you can't tell us to come in to work! What the heck?! But then I considered the fact that we've kept schools open the entire time and that's gone perfectly fine, so I decided to give it a try.

We have a big office, and with roughly ⅓ of the company let go due to restructuring, there is plenty of space to spread out. They're providing masks for those who want them (although mask use is not widespread here), plenty of hand sanitizer, and disinfecting spray for desks and tables.

Additionally, you can choose which days to go in, and you can see who else will be there on a given day and therefore how busy the office will be. Work hours are fairly flexible, so you could avoid commuting in rush hour traffic if needed (though I commute by bike, so it's a non issue for me).

I had my first day back last Monday, and honestly, it felt amazing to go in. My plan is to go in on days that I don't have the kids because it'll help break things up a bit, and I can also stay as late as needed on those days.

Our office is on the top floor of an old building, and it's been hot in Stockholm over the last couple of weeks, so the office felt like a freaking oven. But our office manager stocked the freezer with ice cream bars, and I must say sitting spread out in a conference room eating an ice cream and chatting with my colleagues face to face felt like one of the most luxurious things I've done in many months.

This week was kind of quiet on the blog, but that's because there was lots happening behind the scenes! We launched a shiny new homepage this week, which has actually been in the works for nearly a year, so it feels great to finally have it done.

The main point of the update was to have the site become faster, more SEO friendly, and also provide a better user experience and become more accessible. It looks best on desktop, but the mobile version is a lot easier to use too.

If you were on the site while we were making changes things might have looked a bit weird, and some people experienced images not loading for a while. Those issues should be resolved at this point, but please do let me know if you're having any problems with the site.

The morning after we made the changes live, I woke up to an email from a longtime reader (hey Amanda!) letting me know how upset she was that the blog feature, where you see all of the most recent posts in reverse chronological order, was gone. That kind of blog set up is actually becoming quite antiquated, which is why you're probably noticing a lot of serious blogs moving away from it.

But I get it, if you're used to that feature, it's a pretty big change and since this site is here for YOU, my dear readers, I wanted to make it work. So I reached out to my developer to see what we could do, and before I knew it she'd created a page with all of the latest posts in a feed. The most recent post will always be on the home page, and you'll be able to access the blog feed by clicking "Latest Posts" in the top menu.

There you go!

I want to thank you all sincerely for the outpouring of support I received after last week's post. I got comments, emails, and DMs from people thanking me for sharing my story, telling me I was a role model, and sharing their own stories of separation.

A few people were quite sad about it, and I just want to say, don't be sad. I'm not sad!

Of course it's tremendously difficult at times, but what would be sad is keeping our original family structure together at all costs even though one or more of us was completely miserable. I have learned these past few months that there is a difference between pain and suffering. The separation is sometimes painful, but it has ended years of suffering, and that's a good thing.

We all got together for a family dinner this weekend, and that was lovely. I played with the kids while Paul made dinner (he invited me over) and we had our belated anniversary wine (a bottle we picked up in Paris when we were there for a marathon a couple of years ago) and nobody was stressed out or cranky. Nobody was sarcastic or passive aggressive, and we thoroughly enjoyed each other's company.

I said goodnight to the boys as they got into the bath, and rode my bike home full of affection for our little family that is working hard to find our way through this.

Today I got behind the camera again for the first time since June and shot five recipes while learning the light in my new place. The light is great, with two windows in a corner, so I'm hoping for good results.

I'm reviving a couple of ancient recipes from the archives, and also have a few new recipes up my sleeve. It's nice to have my energy finally coming back and to have bit of bandwidth to focus on this site after some months, so I'm excited to share this stuff with you.

If you have any requests for specific types of recipes or nutrition posts, please let me know!

ON HEY NUTRITION LADY THIS WEEK

Like I said, it was a big week behind the scenes so a quieter week on the front end. Just one recipe this week, but a good one: Chocolate Energy Bites!