Season 1, Episode 1. Hello, Honey!
Guest: Daniel Martin

I’m giving this beverage this specific name, because lemon and ginger, duh, but the spicy hubris + my cooking inadequacies require me to give cayenne its proper place in the title. Cayenne can make or break your recipe, depending on your tolerance to spice, but even if you’re a non-spicy, do give it a go with a pinch!

_{Some of the links below are affiliate links, which means if you click and buy, I might receive a small thank-you commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend things I love or actually use.}

I started watching With Love, Meghan, on a Tuesday. That morning, our neighborhood had a tornado pass over, destroying parts of all our fences, picking up my trampoline and gently placing it (kidding, ripping through and destroying) in my 2-doors-down neighbor’s back yard. $1200 later, their gutters and fences are repaired, and I’m too traumatized by the experience to re-purchase my kids’ favorite thing about our back yard, and yes, that includes our garden.

Austin came into my room – We have a sleep divorce. It is life-changing – at 5am to tell me, “Our fence is down, and our trampoline is gone.” I was already up from the rattling of the windows and the roar of the wind, but you can possibly imagine how the news of your 18ft trampoline being simply no longer in your back yard might hit. Eventually, because of course our PTA Board text thread was hopping, the President let us know we’d been upgraded to a warning, so Austin and I made the choice to pull the babies out of their rooms and take shelter in our primary closet. A choice I don’t regret, because I wasn’t sure our windows wouldn’t shatter in on them sleeping in their beds, but it did upset our oldest, who thought Austin picking him up from a dead sleep “was bad guys coming to take me away in the middle of the night.”

Daycare had normal hours, elementary school had 2hr delay, during which time my oldest and I took a hike in our Wellies to see if we could locate our missing trampoline, and then, it was back to work and life. What luck, what privilege, we were all fine.

I had a client cancel that morning, so I decided to treat myself to a sub sandwich, and because I had time and was still a bit shaken up, I decided to (gasp) actually sit not at my laptop, put my phone away, and eat a proper lunch sans work stress and the never-ending obligations of being a small business owner. I popped on Netflix, and there she was…

With Love, Meghan.

I’m a bit of an Anglophile, I’ve always been interested in pageantry and protocol, so when the paralegal from Suits ended up on the cover of Vanity Fair announcing she was dating Prince Harry, I was most certainly intrigued. We are going to skip over all the drama that has ensued for her and the royal family related to her relationship, again, what privilege, because this space is my safe space.

It is my pleasure and honor to be able to sit and listen to my clients and ask them questions with the goal of helping them consider how best to navigate life’s trickiness and conflicts and, well, life, and also, there’s a lot going on right now, and I need moments of escape. Moments of peace.

Dare I say, Quiet Luxury? (wink)

I was so taken with the show, the energy, the interplay. Indeed, there’s a lot of pandering to the host, but also, can we not agree we can all use some cheerleading from our besties?

The following evening, I already had plans to spend time with my girlfriend for our two-person book club reviewing the first two chapters of Mel Robbins’ Let Them, and y’all already know I can’t resist a them because it’s got it’s own tab on this webpage, so I looked around the house and in my grocery app to see what I could whip up in under 36 hours. Let’s make this a whole thing, let’s make it special, in comradery, in mental health support, and in cute gifts and treats for my beloved guest.

And my oldest was going to be downstairs because he gets to stay up a little later than his younger sibling, so he got in on some of that good popcorn action!

During this gathering, I also created the Brown Paper Bag Popcorn from Episode 1, and I didn’t have time to pop over to our local beekeeper to make our own bespoke candles, so I made her a custom label over a store-bought citrus candle that smelled refreshing. I added an image of a cake on it, because, we love Mel, but they Let Them logo isn’t really the vibe I was looking for. Instead I went with some Marie style, Let Them… Eat Cake. Get it?

Look, if you’ve read this far, you’re likely either related to me, or you’re into With Love, which means you know our Duchess of Sussex hits those puns HARD on the show.

I have every intention of taking the littles to our local beekeeper to see what sort of goodness we can get into, as well as most definitely getting some, That’s not Parmesan cheese, Daniel, to make our own candles at home. That’s a future project and will most definitely be documented in full here and on Insta.

I also used items I had from home to make her a silk tea bag of Recovery Lavender Citrus Mint Bath Salts, because she had I had been training for her first-ever 5k, which we were supposed to do at the Fort Worth Zoo but was canceled due to weather. Ugh, is weather going to be a theme on this blog? Hope not. Boo. I will talk more about that as well when I do a post on gifting, because I put together a lil something to celebrate her hard work and excitement and us getting to this common goal, together.

Without further ado, because I could talk for ages but also know we’re all busy people, I present to you, my take on

Cayenne Lemon Ginger Tea

Heads up, I most definitely had some spice hubris and way (way) overshot our cayenne, as I mentioned up top. We were able to pivot and save it with some sugar and milk, but if you get the right ratio, it requires neither of those.

And also, the first night, I didn’t have turmeric and have since made the recipe a number of times. My turmeric and cayenne ratio is 1:1, but you make it as you like!

I’m excited to have you here and elated to have this space to document my experiences. See you here next time, where I share my take on Season 1, Episode 1 Bath Salts!

Want to know more about the products I use in my re-creations and daily life? Check the links below!