Cheese Witch

                I love cheese… all cheese. Well, that’s a lie. I don’t like American, and I’m not the biggest fan of Velveeta. But other than that, I’m not a cheese snob. My neighbor has a cheese store and, during the pandemic, would put together DIY charcuterie boxes and drop them off at my door. Getting a cheese delivery was the height of luxury. We also have bread delivery, but that is for another blog post.

                Anywhoozal, back to cheese. I’m scrolling through TikTok, and I discover that there is such a thing as a Cheese Witch. This isn’t a joke, this is 100% real. I have never been so excited to join a coven in my life. I have done zero research on this so far. Right now, I am just riding high on the knowledge that someone out there is reading a cheese plate like tea leaves, which makes me so happy. I don’t really want to know more because the thoughts running through my head are delightful, and I don’t want them to turn out to be false.

                I have images of women using cheese to cast spells. I can see them standing around at the Whole Foods cheese counter, trying to decide which kind of cheddar will produce the best results and deciding that extra-sharp is the best answer (because it is always the answer). I imagine them lounging about, indulging in cheese, and this makes me immensely happy.

                Someday I will grab my best friend and head off on a cheese witch road trip to have our cheese plates read. Until then, I will stay content thinking about fondue night with the cheese coven.

Puzzles and why I love them.

My family has a cabin in Colorado, and I have been vacationing there my whole life. It's my favorite place in the world. When you arrive, there is always a puzzle waiting to be finished, so from a very young age, I have associated puzzles with the greatest place on the planet.

We have countless puzzle stories about our time at The Cabin, from working on a murder mystery puzzle with my grandmother to the Christmas when we couldn't eat dinner until the puzzle was complete. For the longest time, puzzles only belonged at the cabin. I never dreamed of doing it in my own house. Puzzles were something you did on vacation.

When my grandmother was in her last days, I started a puzzle at the dining room table. I thought that people who didn't want to talk could sit and be with the family but would also have time for themselves. It was the perfect little escape for so many.

After my grandmother passed, puzzles moved from just being a cabin activity to me putting them together at my house. I loved the tranquility of working on a puzzle. However, the serenity of puzzling didn't last long because I soon discovered a documentary about the world of speed puzzling.

This combined my new love of puzzles and my love of a good competition. I thought I won't ever be able to go to the Olympics... but I could go to a speed puzzle competition.

Luckily, a friend of mine also loved puzzles. She and I started "training" to prepare for the day we could start competing for real. It took us a couple of years, but we finally have a full team and have already competed in three events. (There is a fourth, but that is for another blog post)