Work Continues Across the Pond!

[this update was previously posted to the Kickstarter! I've also just posted a letter to my blog.]

Dear fellow adventurers,

tl;dr-- with my health and health care secured, I am finishing the cookbook now in my new home; England! I have confirmed the lovely indie Colorado-local folks at Geekify to fulfill the Kickstarter once the print run is done(thank you John!!! <3), and both my mental and physical health are steadily improving. I am up and working again! Thank you for your patience and kindness while I moved across the ocean; regular updates will now resume! <3

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this past month, I undertook a long anticipated adventure, one many never get to try, a path my family tree has chosen over and over again. In the seven weeks since my last update, I successfully moved across the pond. I am alive, safe and sound, in England now!

On both sides of my family, which we are very lucky to be able to trace, there are many passages that brought us to the Americas. From Ireland to Canada, from Scotland to Appalachia, from the Netherlands to the newly established New York Colony, my family overwhelmingly hung their fortunes on a new adventure for themselves and their loved ones, and chose the New World.

Whether they were running from the potato famine, or from the theft of their ancestral lands in the Scottish diaspora, or for the promise of a fresh start without caste and title-- the lines that intersect in me chose the great unknown.

So many variables go into a choice like this. It's personal and political, private yet literally public. This choice was made with utter seriousness, three years of deliberation and planning-- yet there is a flavour of whimsy, a whiff of adventure in the air that kept me on the path. The desire for new horizons in my bones and blood. It is the heritage of humanity; not a discontent with what we have, but a yearning for the new. A roll of the dice, curiosity for the horizon just over the next hill, a wizard at the door who I could not ignore. It's the same thing that ignites my love for Hyrule, for Link, climbing over everything, and overturning every rock.

Why move to the UK? I feared that it was now or never; we've been trying to do this for three years (my partner is a dual citizen), and while the plan was a Summer 2025 cookbook fulfillment, followed by an Autumn 2025 move; life has happened and events are now out of order-- much to my own shame. Of course I would have preferred the last year had happened differently, that none of my health emergencies had happened, that the cookbook was done on time, but it is what it is. I thank you, again, for your patience and love while I play the hand I was dealt as best as I can.

(This Summer and Autumn, my health insurance was lost and expensively regained, over and over. The uncertainty of health care and the medical bureaucracy surrounding it, while I go through the health nightmares themselves, was not bearable. Facing a potential mountain of medical debt, the worry and shame of not having enough money to fulfill the first, and likely only, print run of the 2nd cookbook, was literally keeping me up at night. In the UK, I can rest assured that I will be taken care of in an emergency without ruining my life. Whether or not I am in the US or UK, I will have to take out loans to pay for the print run. But I know my move to the UK will get the cookbook into your hands faster than my staying in the US; as strange as that sounds. My ability to work hinges on my mental and physical health; and it's already much better here.)

I know this cookbook is just a silly unofficial fan project; but I believe in it. I know it will help you over the next few years, just as it has helped me. I am still working on it, and your patience, your kindness, your understanding, is the foundation of my ability to make art and finish it. Thank you.

The long delayed and long awaited masterwork I have promised; it has survived my many life threatening illnesses and surgeries over the last year. The project began in the throes of my appendectomy recovery, it has continued despite the emergency room visits, the procedures, recoveries, four months of bed-ridden CSF leak and muscle atrophy, then relearning how to walk and function again, the ectopic pregnancy and bleed out; all of the emotional break downs amidst it all.

But working on the cookbook was my anchor along the way. I have life-insurance in place in case the worst happens; otherwise, this cookbook is still coming, and is closer than ever.

In a way, I think it has taken so long because I needed it, the cookery bookery, in order to get through all of this. A tether, my project to keep my eyes on the road while I journeyed through hell. Now, as my health is improving; I can finally finish and let it go.

So Happy New Year at last! 2025 is ending, and we have a fresh beginning.

Now that I am settled, regular updates will resume. Show and Tells on my website will also continue (to my darling patrons there; expect a New Year's post this week!). And, with the taste-testing done before I left, finishing and publishing is within my grasp. A year late, perhaps yes-- but I'm still here. Amazingly. I am still here! And you are too. <3 Thank goodness.

Talk to you again soon,

With love, light, and hope again,
Aimee <3

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ps-- I have never lived by the ocean before! I was raised in the rural rocky mountains in Colorado. The ocean is terrifying and fascinating. I feel like a tiny child when I look at it, when I walk along it, the wind whipping life into my face, the crash of waves onto the pebble shore; what a wonder. It makes me scream! Seashells are heck disgusting, yet those smooth pebbles are a dream in my pocket, warming against my palm; a calm wave followed by a violent crescendo, froth rushing unexpectedly to my feet when I thought I was safely out of her reach. AHHH! The ocean is life and death itself, wild and undulating, every day the same and yet shocking, the water changing color on a whim, a capricious pink sky followed by pristine white for days. A crupuscular sunbeam-- sacred. And at night; I can hear it. waiting. watching. eating away at the shores. this year has humbled me; disabled me, taught me about pain and joy, dragged me to the beautiful depths. The ocean humbles me in the same way. It is absolutely horrifying and I cannot look away.

motion is lotion, and while I am still in daily pains, walking the pebble beach every day is doing more for my health than I thought was possible. I hope you get to exist amidst nature, even for a few stolen moments, sometime soon. I look at the moon, and I think of you. I hope you're doing ok too.