I'd Totally Watch...

...a cooking show featuring Boy1 (11) and Boy2 (9). Witnessing the two of them make PB&J Oatmeal with Apples over the weekend almost had me peeing my pants. They are too funny to watch.

PB& J Oatmeal with Apples
(serves 4)

2 cups rolled oats
4 cups water
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 apples, chopped
4 tsp. organic strawberry jelly
4 tsp. natural peanut butter (one tsp. on each spoon as oatmeal is served)

This is the easiest oatmeal ever. Mix oatmeal, cinnamon and water and cook according to directions (in Microwave be sure to use huge bowl so oatmeal doesn't cook over usually 7 min). While oatmeal is cooking chop apples.

Mix apples and jelly with oatmeal and place in serving bowls along with tsp of peanut butter.

This is our easy go-to breakfast most mornings (we usually add a scoop of vanilla or chocolate protein powder to the whole recipe and omit jelly). Since the kids can't take PB&J to school, they can have it at home as a good start to their day.

We are More Alike than We are Different

My interests, like those of most people, are varied and even divergent. Lately I've noticed too many people who are dissatisfied with some aspect of their lives, and feel the need to find some 'other' to blame and demonize. The thing is - no matter how you feel about the government, or religion, or the legitimacy of cable news - you probably love your family and want to help people. The people who you are pointing your finger at love their family and want to help people. The person who annoyed you at the grocery store, or the PTA meeting, or the gynecologist - loves their family and wants to help people. Lets be more gentle to ourselves and more understanding of others - even if it's inconvenient to our sense of self-righteousness.*



*I am regrettably often guilty of this, and am writing this to remember that because I don't agree with a bumper sticker on an SUV doesn't mean that the driver is a jerk.

Welcome

I love the feeling of stepping into a new place; looking around while trying to get a sense of the rhythm and patterns of the people surrounding me. Finding out how to fit into the flow seamlessly is a real thrill. I love the potential of an empty page, one that I can fill with words or color or mindless doodles.

Seamlessly fitting into the flow carries the same feeling through all facets of life: love, family, work,  running, writing, painting.  It's the feeling of being in the zone, when we're not experiencing everything only through our brain, but when the whole of our being works in league with the world around us.  The body moves in exact and perfect coordination, and we're surprised to acknowledge that we have been able to accomplish so much more in so little time because  we've been carried beyond our doubts and worries, beyond  limitation and what we think the brain knows.

This is where I take a deep breath, trying to breathe in that feeling, that consciousness.  The mood instantly lifts just thinking about our potential - how much we can accomplish if we just let go a little bit. 

This is the beginning of a journey, sometimes serious often frivolous, and I'm so elated to let it begin.