Happy New Year! Welcome to 2021.

The new year is always a chance to change things up and try something different. I don’t make resolutions, but I do make plans. 🙂 Sometimes they come together and sometimes they don’t – 2020 was certainly a good example of things not proceeding according to plan. What about this year?

One of the changes brought by Covid-19 is the produce section at my local grocery store. The produce is a lot less fresh than it used to be, and sometimes it’s more expensive. The discounted produce section has grown and often that produce isn’t much different than what’s at the front of the store. I always check it out. This week, there were lemons in the discount bin, probably hundreds of them. I brought home more lemons than I need, because you don’t often get 14 lemons in Canada for less than $1 and I couldn’t resist them. Then I had to figure out what to do with them.

This brings me to an old saying which I’m choosing as my slogan for 2021:

2020 gave many of us a lot of lemons, maybe too many lemons to manage well. But maybe you’ve caught your stride in this new world of ours or can find a better rhythm. I know a writer who treated 2020 like a personal retreat, focused on her work and produced more new books than she ever had before. I wish I’d done that myself since people were reading more last year and hungry for new content. (I was busy catching lemons.) My plan is to give that strategy a try this year and put this situation to work for me.

What about you? Is there something you’ve always wanted to try? I learned to make sourdough bread last year, which was new for me and now is part of my weekly routine. Is there a book you’ve been waiting to read? An online course you’ve been wanting to take? A new skill you’ve never gotten around to learning? If you’re in lock-down, quarantine or self-isolating, this might be the perfect opportunity to do any or all of those things, and create some lemonade of your own.

I’ll tell you a bit next week about what’s in my writing and publishing plans for 2021 and will post my monthly feature on Monday, but today, have a think about what you can change to have more lemonade in your life. Let’s make 2021 a year of lemonade!

As for those lemons, I’m working my way through them. I made Mr. Math’s favorite sour cream coffee cake already (it’s lemon) and will be making our version of Chicken Piccata this weekend (we grill the chicken instead of breading and frying it). I’ll make my mom’s lemon loaf recipe today and put some in the freezer to give to her the next time we meet. I’ve always wanted to find a recipe for lemon poppyseed muffins. We’ll have Madhur Jaffrey’s Lemony Coriander Chicken for dinner one night, too. The list goes on and every single item will be yummy. I’ll be out of lemons in no time!