I want to introduce you to the work of someone you may not know, but who is by far and away one of my favorite online personalities. And I’m not going to lie; it’s in no small part due to her amazing accent and extreme Aussie-ness.
I was introduced to Sarah Wilson via her mostly recipe blog I Quit Sugar several years back. The recipes were colorful and fun; I made a ton of them and never quite got around to a ton more. There were books and online classes as well, but I never felt like I needed them because I could get such great content for free (sorry, Sarah).
Then about a year ago she closed down the business. And while you can still access many of the recipes, the blog is no longer active. Which I’m still very sad about.
But she also has her own blog that I look at from time to time; although, that has changed a lot too. It’s fewer articles about her thoughts on life - which I super dig and highly recommend checking out - and more about what she’s up to as a newly formed entrepreneurial philanthropist (I’m not sure if I just made that up).
What I’ve come to love about her regardless of her platform, however, is her spirit. Her spirit of wanting to share - her thoughts, her struggles, her money; it doesn’t much matter what it is - and also her spirit of restlessness. She moves around a lot, once having no more than a literal shack in the woods to call home, and she’s always traveling. While I prefer to have a more solid home base, I definitely feel a kinship to her in the last bit.
I feel a kinship too, with her tug of war between needing to be alone and wanting not to be. She recently opened up about her difficulty getting pregnant on her own and her subsequent decision to give up on being a mom, which I found incredibly brave.
She also speaks a lot and wrote a book about her anxiety; she’s very candid about how she deals with and sometimes struggles to deal with, this part of herself. It makes me interested to know how much of her restlessness stems from her anxiety or how much it’s the other way around.
Regardless, it’s likely a combination of both that has been the driving force behind her varied and interesting background from journalist, author, and magazine editor, to TV show host, to starting and running I Quit Sugar, to minimalist and activist, and on and on. I find this willingness and ability to constantly reinvent herself fascinating and I’ve got to admit to a little envy. I can’t help wondering if she goes through the same hand-wringing that I go through when she decides to change direction.
I also admire her commitment to shining a light on environmental issues, with a heavy focus on food waste and living with less. All of this speaks to my nerdy, economical, need-for-efficiency heart! For instance as a quick aside, if I’ve already spent money on it I can’t stand spending money on it again until/unless I absolutely have to. Example: before my recent trip to Spain I realized I had no idea where my electric plug converter was and had to buy a new one. It was $40. It crushed me.
But back to Sarah. She even has a book filled with recipes that focus on zero-waste. I’ve learned a lot from her on this topic and credit her with making the whole trying not to throw food away thing both creative and actually enjoyable. It’s because of her that I use my tea bags twice.
And on that note, I think we’re done here.
It’s time to get out there, I beg you, and check her out for yourself! She’s well worth the trip.
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