Make lemonade.

Literally. Go make it.

I woke up in a writing kinda mood and decided to take on the mammoth task of creating a post about my favorite dumpling recipe. Someday I’ll post it and you’ll see why it’s such a mammoth task. I settled onto the couch and started writing, editing and compiling photos all morning and I was about 3/4 of the way through when I accidentally closed the tab on my browser, deleting the entire thing! At least 2 hours worth of blogging, gone before my very eyes.

My first thoughts, in this order, were:

1. MUST-EAT-CHOCOLATE.

2. I think I have a stash in the cabinet.

3. I could really go for an adult beverage right about now.

4. I want to crawl under the covers and pretend this never happened.

That sequence of thoughts showed me that I’ve got issues, and reminded me that, like my mom always told me, I have a flare for the dramatic. I mean seriously, it’s a blog post, not a rough draft of War & Peace.

My next thought, I hate to admit, was that overused cliché about lemons.

Then I thought [I know, lots of thinking] “Hey, I have lemons and what better way to blow off steam than to squeeze a few and whip up a batch of that refreshing goodness?” Don’t eat yourself into a coma, don’t sleep away your frustration, and most certainly don’t pour a glass of wine to numb your disappointment. Make the best dang lemonade you’ve ever had.

So I did.

My mom and Nana make the best lemonade in the entire world. Honestly. You’d think lemonade would be hard to screw up, considering it’s just lemon, water and sugar, but it is. It’s all about the ratio. 1-1-5. Remember that. Engrave it in your mind, like Hurley and “4-8-15-16-23-42.”

1 part lemon juice

1 part sugar

5 parts ice cold water

This number will comfort your many disappointments. It will taste like sunshine on a cold, cloudy North Dakota winter’s day. It will crush your neighborhood lemonade stand competition. It’s perfectly sweet, tangy goodness will make you smile, and that my friends, is better than any blog post.