The Deebs Digest #10: IT'S A MIRACLE, I FINISHED THE ARTIST'S WAY!
Plot twist - I was apparently too legit to quit
Welcome back to The Deebs Digest - your weekly dose of food, creativity, books, entertainment, and more.
This week we’re talking: a quesadilla upgrade, a couple podcast recs, what I accomplished from doing The Artist’s Way, how I learned that I’m getting old, and much more, so let’s get into it!
If you’re looking for a quick and easy meal that is more exciting that an regular quesadilla, may I suggest this BBQ Pineapple Chicken Quesadilla? Based off this recipe from Dash of Mandi, I piled shredded Monterey Jack cheese, leftover Mississippi Chicken (but any shredded or chopped chicken would work), barbecue sauce (I used Kinder’s Gold), shallots, cilantro, and crushed pineapple into a flour tortilla, pan fried it until crispy, then served with sour cream mixed with extra BBQ sauce! It’s simple, but it feels a little fancy, and the flavors just work so well together!
READING
As I mentioned the other week, I was very excited to read Taylor Jenkins Reid’s new release, Atmosphere. I didn’t know how intrigued I would be by the NASA setting, but I found myself fully invested almost immediately, and sobbed through the entire last chapter. I found some of the dialog to be a little stilted, but I loved the slow build of the romance, the camaraderie and friendships shown between the team of astronauts, and maybe most of all, the relationship between the main character, Joan, and her niece, Frances.
After 12 weeks, I also finished The Artist’s Way!!! More on that below.
WATCHING
I haven’t been watching much tv lately because I’ve been trying to spend that time writing, but I’ve heard good things about Stick (Apple TV) and Sirens (Netflix), so I may try to check those out soon.
LISTENING
I really enjoyed this episode of Monica Lewinsky’s podcast with Miley Cyrus! I’ve always like Miley, but it was really nice to hear her perspective on some of the situations she went through after growing up as a child star, as well as how she reflects on those experiences after maturing.
I also got very invested in a new podcast called Catch Me if You Ken. I am just a sucker for a scam podcast.
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I made it through all 12 weeks of The Artist’s Way, and nobody is more surprised than me! I typically have great motivation in the beginning when I am excited about something, but I’m not always great at following through, so I honestly did not have high hopes of keeping up with this for 3 whole months.
I wrote a lot about the Bare Minimum method I followed and what the program entails, so I’ll try not to rehash that too much, but essentially, I treated the program as something I will likely do multiple times in my life. Instead of feeling like I had to do every single exercise to completely it “properly,” I picked some of the things to do this round, and then figured I can always choose different things the next time I go through it.
When I first started out, I was reading the chapter, doing Morning Pages every day, completing many of the exercises, listening to ’s podcast about the chapter, and then doing a check in at the end of the week. That was still a lot to keep up on, even though I was maybe doing 50% of the recommended course work. Luckily, I had already given myself permission to “bare-minimum it” as much as I needed to instead of giving up when it got too time-consuming, so I wasn’t hard on myself at all if I didn’t complete as much in a week. By the end of the course, I was typically just reading the chapter, listening to the corresponding podcast episode, and doing Morning Pages a few times a week. Even reducing the course work that much, I still got a ton out of this program and would highly recommend it to anyone who feels creatively blocked or just wants to better embrace their creativity.
I have been thinking about writing in some capacity for well over a decade (creating a blog, writing a children’s book, writing a cookbook, working on some short story ideas, etc), and hadn’t made much progress in that time, but in the 12 weeks since I began The Artist’s Way, I have:
started this Substack
started writing a full-blown novel
I wouldn’t have thought I was a “blocked” creative per se, but the recent output might say otherwise!
Why not find a way to introduce a little whimsy into your week à la ? I love her concept of being the “Creative Director of your own house” and the idea of crafting restaurant menus for your home as a fun visual of what you’re going to make that week.
I was inspired to make my own coffee menu last week to get myself out of a rut of just making the same thing every morning!
Might need to try one of each of these Summer cocktails!
I am very obsessed with this Summer Splendor candle from The New Savant. I was super intrigued by the scent notes (charred artichoke, white wine, green olives, sesame seeds), but I almost didn’t pull the trigger on my cart because it was more than I have ever spent on a candle. (Fingers crossed that my husband saw the word candle, and then just skipped over the rest of this paragraph lol). However, since my book is set at an Italian restaurant, I decided that I would use this as a ‘writing candle,’ and light it every time I work on my novel to help get me in the right frame of mind! So basically, it’s a tax write-off? 😆
Feeling very seen - and also personally attacked - by this post from
The first sign of an interest in birds happened earlier this year when I watched The Residence on Netflix. The main character is a birder, which is something I found intriguing for the first time in my life. Then, in the early Spring, we suddenly had hundreds of birds returning for the season, and I found myself drawn to sitting on my back deck to listen to them; it was so loud it sounded like I was living inside of an aviary. Finally, over the last few weeks, I have been trying to get a good picture of the birds I have seen around, but I never seem to be able to get close enough. None of these things really stood out to me though, and then I got hit with this post and I was like, OMG this is happening to me!!! I’m considering purchasing a camera bird feeder (which is a sentence I never thought I would say) because this is my life now.
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P.S. While I possess a natural gift for spotting other people’s typos, I prefer to maintain the delusion that my own writing is flawless, so please disregard any errors you may find. Thanks so much!
Thanks for the shout-out! And please know I regard you and all birders with the deepest respect.
Love seeing what you are up to! Your coffee menu looks great!