salty bake club

Cozy Season, Without The Pretend Perfect

• sara grace • Season 1 • Episode 24

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Here is where you get in touch. Work with me, share your experience or requests > this is how to reach me. Love, - Sara

The candles are lit and the blankets are plush, yet something still feels off when the days get short and the feeds fill with perfect fall scenes. We get honest about the gap between the cozy-season fantasy and the lived reality, and we map out a humane plan for making autumn feel supportive instead of performative. From nervous system care to practical rituals, you’ll hear how small, consistent shifts can carry you through darker months with steadier energy and a kinder inner voice.

We start by reframing what “cozy” can mean when life is full and the pace refuses to slow down. Think sticky notes by the weekly planner that whisper “breathe,” quiet phone-free mornings, and intentional date nights that anchor your week. We share a Stockholm weekend story, comfort-bake peanut butter cookies, and reflect on a fast-moving pregnancy that turns time into something sacred. Along the way, we talk physiology in plain words: moving from summer’s hustle to autumn’s rest-and-digest, why digestion and mood respond to pace, and how to build a routine your body can trust.

Then we get tactical. A firm no-text-your-ex rule to protect your peace. A winter schedule with soup days, bath rituals, and self-dates that romanticize life without the crash of unrealistic expectations. Movement as medicine to burn off stored stress and make rest land deeper. And if loneliness creeps in, we choose connection on purpose: reach out first, propose the plan, and let community be something you build, not something you wait for. Expect warmth, candor, and a toolkit you can use tonight.

If this sparked something, tap follow, leave a quick rating or review, and share it with a friend who needs a softer fall. Your notes and reposts help us bring more grounded, heart-forward conversations to your queue.

Speaker:

Welcome, welcome, welcome back, Bake Club. This episode, I am envisioning you driving through the most serene autumn. I'm picturing you fluffy, cozy, and wrapped in your gorgeous fluffy blanket at home or cuddling your beloved at the fireplace. But no matter if you have or do not have a beloved, a friend, or anybody at all to cuddle, this week we're gonna talk cozy season. And this episode shall be, yes, for all of you guys who live that perfectly romantic dream of cozy season. But but I was not you. For so many years I did not feel cuddly, cozy, and comfy in this season where the weather turns bad, where everything is gray and rainy, and actually, ugh, like I wanna say, I wanna say yuck. Like I love cozy season, don't get me wrong, but I wanna frame this episode around the moments or even the life phases where this season that is so romanticized is giving us a hard time to cope in life. For this occasion, I baked nothing less than my very favorite cookie. It is not my own recipe, it is by Sally's Baking Addiction. Sally, I love you. I've been baking cookies with Sally for over a decade, and I am a devoted fan. This is her big bakery style peanut butter cookie, and it is so good. It's the comfort food you need when you're having a shit day. So grab a cup of tea, lean back, close your eyes. If you're driving, do not close your eyes. I want to have you safe throughout that season, and let's enjoy some moments together. First of all, I want to give you a little bit of a life update. It's been so rich and so full, and I'm catching myself saying, having really pure intentions of slowing down, but I do not. I do not slow down, soften my workload, schedule less appointments. I simply find myself in the loop of doing again and again and again. All the while, me knowing that it is that time of the year where you gotta slow down. Like speaking cyclically, autumn and that transition into winter, even it requires for us to rest deeply. It requires for our nervous system to maneuver from the sympathetic drive that we had in summer, that we love so much that we get rewarded for in our culture towards the parasympathetic drive where you rest and digest. Like literally, that's when your digestion kicks in. So if you find yourself in the hustle and you feel yourself constipated, girl, you should rest. Literally. That's how easy that system runs. Speaking of a lot of experience here, but that's not what I want to talk about. I just want to say if you are like that too, I think we collectively need to remind each other a little bit more often to carve out little time windows of slowing down. Because I will not expect a miracle of myself and not of you that life will all of a sudden be completely different because you listened to me saying that you should slow down in autumn. But I do believe in our collective effort and strength that if we want to do something with intention, we gotta start somewhere. We cannot expect big leaps right away, but we have to almost force ourselves, nudge ourselves to have smaller time frames where we put our phone away. Whether that is in the morning or in the evening or in your lunch break at work, even what if we would spend some time that we have more or less off in a more mindful way? For me, that very much looks like scheduling date nights with my partner. It looks like not looking at my phone for the first few moments in the morning, but instead really consciously allowing myself to wake up and feeling that new day that is ahead rather than jumping into it. It it also looks like reminding myself over and over again with little note with a little notes app on my phone and the little sticky notes around the house that I gotta slow down. And it's really effective if you put those sticky notes next to your weekly planner. I have this weekly planner on my kitchen and it really helps me a lot. I only remembered that method today, but it already it's mmm, yeah, girl, it works. Now, in this beautiful, full, and rich life that I'm living, I was in Stockholm for the past weekend. It was my best friend's birthday, and she is a literal angel, and she deserves to be so spoiled that I had the idea of stealing her away and gifting her a surprise weekend in a city that she loves, and we had such a cozy time. Our hotel was insane. We had a heated rooftop pool, we had sauna, we had this exquisite bar with fireplaces in the room. Oh my god, oh my god, it was everything and more. I have my other best friend in Oslo, so I was in Scandinavia before, but I didn't think that I would love Stockholm so much. How cool is the city, the food places, the sceneries, the people, everything is so chic, so chill, so beautiful, and the aesthetics, oh my freaking god. I am completely blown away. And this is also where the cookie comes in. I made a big batch of these huge cookies for my good friend Elive because she borrowed me the coolest coat that I ever wore for the weekend, and it was this oversized coat, it was my entire personality for the weekend. Literally, I felt like such a cool girl. We walked around the entire day. Oh my god, it was just everything. And I baked these cookies for her to say thank you for borrowing me the coat. Anyway, snuck one aside for you guys. Find the recipe. It is so good. Apart from my Stockholm time, what's going on? I am getting so round. Bakeb, I don't know if you see it, but I have a huge baby bum. And it just it feels like it just popped out. And honestly, this entire pregnancy, it feels too short. I was sitting on my mom's couch yesterday, and this woman noted that in 10 weeks, I repeat, in only 10 weeks, my baby is fully baked. That is not the date of birth yet, but from that moment on, in 10 weeks, my baby could come out anytime. And my reaction to this statement was like, excuse me, miss, what did you say? What what? I just I I mean I was just impregnate impregnated, impregnated. Wait, how do I say that? You know exactly what I mean. But genuinely, I feel like that time was speeding away. And yes, I keep repeating myself, that is a pattern of mine, and it's also such a beautiful and painfully bittersweet, privileged thing to say because I have heard so many voices of women entering the third trimester being like, Well, I'm pretty happy when it's out, or I'm pretty done with being pregnant, and I don't feel like that at all. I know that I am super lucky that my body's so strong that I can do everything, and then I'm feeling energized, and I'm not having any health issues. And uh thus for me, it really feels like I'm already being a little sad that a pregnancy is only nine months long. And maybe that's gonna change. Let's see what I'm gonna say in January. Maybe I'm still gonna be full of it then, but for now it feels like the time is racing away and it shouldn't. Like, literally, uh, it's such a sacred time, cyclically for everybody speaking, as I mentioned before, but also for me right now, and I really have to make a conscious effort to enjoy the time that I've been given with my baby in my belly. So that was my little life update. Let's get into cozy season. I know we all envision it so beautifully. You probably have all the cinnamon bun recipes saved on your Pinterest board or in your Instagram folders. Or is that only me? I have folders with different categories because you can save posts on Instagram probably since a couple years. I know this is not a new revelation, but I love that. I am a neurotic saver of everything that I like. So however you handle that, however often you have watched the holiday already, I want to get into a little reality check. As I said in the beginning, maybe you are schmoozing away with your beloved by the fireplace, but for so long in my life, for so many years, now for the majority of my life, I even want to say, I always felt quite depressed in that season. The weather is changing, that's changing our hormonal cycle, the expectations around ourselves and what we should do and how we should live change with all that we see on social media, and it's really tricky to live up to that because let's be honest, who has time to bake cinnamon rolls every week? Oh my god, also the cinnamon rolls in Sweden, people, it's insane, like it's heaven. But it's also something that intimidates me. The time it takes for the dough to rise, it really needs to it needs to be in a warm surrounding, but then when you actually fold it, it shouldn't be too warm because then your hands will kind of incorporate the cinnamon butter structure. Like it's just I I'm I'm intimidated by cinnamon buns. I'm intimidated by cozy season. And even though I am really blessed right now, I still feel it in my bones how lonely I got at times when all the rom-coms hit. And I felt like I couldn't live up to that kind of life. And instead of complaining or talking about that much longer, I want to go through some action items with you of how to not only survive that season, but make it about you and make it nurturing as it should be, without it having to be anything like you see it in the movies. The first point that I will mention, and I'm dead serious about this, is a consequential do not text your ex policy. I've done it many times. It never served me, it only invoked drama and even more misery. Yes, maybe you guys will hook up but it's but it's not gonna work out. Babe, you're not gonna get the camera and dias through Barrymore ending. You're just lying to yourself. And you wanna numb the loneliness for a short amount of time, but I'm gonna repeat myself. Whatever you do, do not. Do not do not text your ex. Yes, you will get lonely. Life is gonna feel shitty, but you got this, baby doll. You got this, and I will be your reminder. You can listen to this episode again and again when you feel the urge to do so. But honestly, I think you should have a little life vest in a plan. Like make a list now. What could you do before you text your ex? You could, for example, text up your bestie instead. You could get in the kitchen and bake fucking cinnamon buns. You could masturbate. Honestly, I think that would probably do the trick. Don't just do it for satisfaction. Get in the bathtub, light some candles, love yourself up, make it a the sexy date that you wish they would have done for you, and take the power back. Be whatever they couldn't be for you for yourself. Okay, I think you got that point. Do not text your ex. Proceeding. Create a winter schedule. Instead of forcing cozy season and forcing yourself to slow down, which I'm very guilty of. You gotta create a new routine. It's quite something to say, create a new routine. Like that's a lot of work. That requires a lot of dedication. But I mean start somewhere. Create little rituals along your week that shift your focus, that shift your your nervous system. And we overall only feel healthy if our nervous system is constantly able to bounce back and forth as we need it, right? You need those times when you gotta be alert, when you gotta be in your sympathetic drive, but then you also require more than ever now those times where your parasympathic nervous system has to take the lead. And only then we feel safe, only then we feel grounded, only then our bodies can function in a healthy way. So, what I'm proposing here is create a soup day. Once a week, you're gonna make yourself a delicious, nourishing soup. Maybe you don't like soup. Make lasagna, have meatballs, whatever is your comfort food, but get into a routine or habit of nurturing yourself. Maybe that is bubble baths. Maybe once a week for a window of three hours, you are gonna take a bubble bath, you're gonna do your nails, you're gonna wash your hair, you're gonna pamper yourself, babe. You are gonna spoil yourself so good. And maybe it's gonna require something that is more you, but then sit down and think about what makes you slow down, what gives you that feeling of exhaling, and then implement it into your week and stick with it. Because as I said, our bodies function only when we go along with our cycle, and that is also nature's cycle. Now, the next action item on my mental list for you is move your body. And I know I'm speaking a lot about slowing down and doing things that will shift you into your rest and digest mode. But some of you, you really gotta get out of the house. You really gotta kick your butt. And so often our bodies are stuck with a lot of stress stored in our system, and we have to get that stress out. So if you feel yourself jittery, if you feel yourself like there's too many electric impulses in your body, maybe you just gotta move, maybe you just gotta sweat. Ignite the fire. Even though it's cold outside, even though you would rather not join a gym, make it a habit to wake up an hour earlier and kick your own butt. And if you don't know where to start, there's so many YouTube tutorials, there's so many kick-ass workout videos online. If you don't want to search around, if you do speak German, I have so many videos on the Yoga Villa Media Take. They're all rather old ones, but they're not expensive, they're really cheap to get. So stop the excuses, move your body. The next one I want to introduce rather carefully. I'm a big fan of romanticizing life. But there is a point where we can lose ourselves in that vision. Because romanticizing life for me looks like making a Pinterest board, fancying up my days, getting into something cozy and cute to wear. It means dating myself and making the mundane beautiful. But we can even be eccentric in that and sometimes lose ourselves in the vision without really putting the vision into action. Or we lose ourselves in once again another expectation setting that is way too high and then getting disappointed. You shall not get into a loop of more disappointment when already the outside is not really promoting that in a sunshine. So, yes, romanticize your life. Light candles while you eat with yourself on the dinner table. It doesn't have to be a date with anybody else. You can have a date with yourself, my love. Go to a movie theater. Yes, you can even do that alone. And how cool would it be if you grow into that version of yourself who can, in fact, do things on their own for themselves. You don't have to schedule a date with a friend or a lover or your ex in order to go out. Go to the Christmas markets, have fun, be that person who does it for themselves. And if you do so, wear a cute outfit. Go shopping and get one of those little hats that only Kimerandias can wear, but for two months of the year, we all think they look gorgeous on us. And the last thing that I will say is that if you need community and people around you, reach out. Do not wait for other people to schedule dates with you. If you need another person, well, guess what? It is your responsibility to reach out to those people that you love and create time in order for that longing of yourself to be filled. So however many excuses your mind makes up, or maybe you are too proud because you feel like, oh, I'm always being the one who's reaching out to my friends and scheduling things. Well, yeah, obviously I would ask why is your friend not doing that? But they're all in different life circumstances, and maybe you just have a lot of time thinking about what you could do while your friend's life is really, really full, and there is just not a lot of space where he or she could do that. So get down from your high horse and reach out. That's it from my side, but I know there are so many more things. If you have listened to the interview with Alena, you know that this girl is really good at creating beautiful spaces and making everything a little more sacred. So I'm gonna reach out to her, see if she has some cool ideas for us, Bake Club. I would also love if you DM me on Instagram and tell me what are your ideas of sparkling up cozy season? What is those safety anchors that root you in reality all the while the fog is getting more and the cold is creeping into your bones. Ah. Thank you so much for spending time with me. Remember, do not text your ex. And I'm gonna see you next week for another episode of the Salty Bake Club. Follow us on social media. It also really helps if you comment under this podcast wherever you watch it, rate it, like it, follow it. And that's it for this week. Thank you, love you, bye.