Good Morning, Sunshine.

Today, I would like to share one of my favorite things with everyone. Excuse me while I wax philosophic about my favorite meal of the day: breakfast. Health professionals will tell you it's the most important meal of the day - this is because it boosts your metabolism and gives you energy for the day. I primarily like it cause it tastes awesome. In my opinion, the greatest thing in the world is having breakfast food for dinner. I liked it when I was five and my dad made pancakes because nobody bothered to cook anything, and I like it now.

There is something ridiculously indulgent about making great breakfasts, even, like, on a Monday. I've found ways to make myself feel like I'm getting a treat, even if it took five minutes to prepare. And seriously, even if you're sitting in a cubicle all day, how much better does your weekday become if you start it off with waffles? It's like a mini-celebration that makes my mornings so much better. Weekends, on the other hand, are for brunch, because of the pleasures of sleeping in and cheating on your diet. Or because you get up on Saturdays and run several miles, if you're nuts like me. But then you've really earned your brunch. Just saying. Either way, the morning meal is the best part of the day.

So, assuming that you are now convinced that eating breakfast every single day is the best idea ever (and you should be, clearly), you may be wondering to yourself, "Self, how in the world do I work elaborate breakfasts into my daily routine when I allow myself only 5 minutes to eat?" That's an excellent question. I tend to like sweet things in the morning (and at every other time of day), so I don't eat a lot of eggs or anything, and obviously my meals are meat-free. But if you like eggs, a sunny side up egg literally takes two minutes to cook, and you can toast some bread with some cheese while you wait, and then, voila, you made a sandwich! And sunny side up eggs are the most delicious, melty things you'll ever eat with your bread. You can add spinach too, if you like healthy things like me.

Blueberry smoothie deliciousness. Poor camera work brought to you by the iPhone.

If you like sweet things in the morning, you are in luck, because I may actually have more than one idea for you. I have a variety of smoothie recipes that taste indulgent and interesting and take all of a minute and a half to blend. Many of them originated from the blog Oh She Glows, but if you hate vegan things you could use real dairy products, I suppose. Did you know that you can use cocoa powder or chocolate protein powder and dark chocolate chips and make yourself a milkshake for breakfast that is actually good for you and filled with fruit and nutrients? Well you can, and I do, frequently. Breakfast is a magical meal, people. The other day I made a smoothie that tasted like blueberry pie, using a banana, blueberries, almond milk, vanilla protein powder, oatmeal, ground flax, and these coconut crumbles that I accidentally created using sweetened shredded coconut in a failed attempt to make coconut butter in my food processor. You can do it too!

I also like Van's waffles a lot. Frozen waffles are the greatest way to make your breakfast exciting. I usually spread mine with almond butter or greek yogurt and fruit, but I recently purchased some part-skim ricotta cheese, and I made some tropical waffles with a sliced kiwi and that coconut stuff. That was a great morning. And on the weekends, when I have more time, my fiance and I like to make brunch together, just your classics, eggs and bacon (none for me!) and something carb-y and delicious (biscuits, cinnamon rolls, french toast, or pancakes are the usual suspects).

Tropical waffles start your morning off right!

You may think that this has no deeper significance than metabolism and nutrients and making you hungry, but you would be wrong. See, I spent most of my life dreading mornings, hating getting up, always late so I could get five more minutes of sleep. But now, I'm recognizing that life is short, and the sun comes up early for a reason. I don't want to spend my life asleep. And bringing joy into my life, even through something as silly as what I make for breakfast, can point my day in a positive direction. It feels good, and it feels right, and I think that God smiles to see me excited about my waffles. And really, this life is about bringing glory to God, and we should realize that he delights in seeing his children enjoy his gifts - even the little things. Getting up early and enjoying creation while I go for a run, and then coming back to a hot cup of coffee and a breakfast that makes me feel great - that's a celebration. Spending time cooking with the man I love and enjoying what we made together is a celebration, too, and it happens to be one of my favorite activities. I feel like breakfast has a lot of potential to bring us back, recenter us on what matters in life. It's not just about the food.

Making Waves

Today I am writing about a topic of great significance and importance. Some would say it's so crucial, it may just be earth-shattering. This is truly a subject that is life-and-death, which has often moved people to weeping as they become overwhelmed with its magnitude.

Obviously, I'm talking about my hair.

Okay, maybe earth-shattering is a slight overstatement - but seriously, my hair takes up a lot of my energy. Less, probably, than some of you with naturally curly hair. If that's you, you may want to just check out now, because you almost definitely will not relate to the things I'm about to say.

For the first 23 years of my life, I lived under the crushing reality that my hair would not curl. Don't misunderstand - I genuinely love and adore my hair. I have never dyed it to this day, and it happens to be very nice hair, soft and shiny and whatnot. I don't use any special shampoos or anything, I just wash it semi-regularly. I didn't even know what product was until about two years ago. Seriously. I think I purchased my first bottle of hairspray about a year ago. I just ran out. I haven't bought another yet. It just doesn't seem like a necessity. But regardless, all that low-maintenance stuff comes with a heavy price. I tried and failed to curl my hair for years. I find beachy waves in particular exceptionally appealing, but what's the use in paying $14 for salt spray to curl it up when it's so unlikely that my attempt will be successful? I once marked a minor victory in 2008 at the Dallas Junior League Ball, which was won only through the tireless ministrations of my good friend Elizabeth and a can and a half of hairspray. No, every attempt to get my hair to hold a curl, no matter how dirty it was, no matter how much mousse or curling spray was used, ended with me conceding defeat in the face of limp, ratty looking hair that more or less just looked unwashed.

My hair stylist, Jeremy, whom I seriously love to death, has been doing my hair for over a decade now. He's known me longer than many of my close friends. Seriously, I was in 8th grade when he first cut my hair, and now I am engaged. That may be more sobering for him than for me, but it's still a very long time. The last time I went to get my hair cut, I had been contemplating bangs, but my little sister beat me to the punch. I think maybe he felt bad for me that I never do anything interesting with my hair (since I don't like it too short and I don't dye it, and, to recap, it's pretty much just straight 24/7). And after he cut and dried it, he said something magical: "Do you mind if I give it a little wave?"

Let's just say, I thought he was losing it. I've never been able to make my hair curl in my life, dude. What makes you think that your fingers are any more magical than mine? But he smiled and he pulled out his straightener, and I ended up leaving the salon looking like this:

He didn't even use hairspray. My mind was blown. And he also showed me how to do it myself, and I tried it, and guess what? I can have curly hair. At last!!! This may seem insignificant to some of you, but I think it actually changed my perception of myself. See, I like my hair, but I always found it kind of boring. I'm not brave enough to dye it, so I just kind of carried it like a burden I was forced to bear. But it turns out, I just needed a new perspective. And now it's more like a choice to wear my hair straight or not blow dry it or use product, because I'm not doomed to one particular thing. I can change it if I want! No longer is this I-went-running-this-morning-and-didn't-have-time-to-dry-my-hair hair:

This is I choose to wear my hair in this weird, not-straight-not-curly-kinda-need-a-haircut-again form! Some people even said they liked it! Who knew?

The point (if there is a point) I'm making here is that a lot of times, we think we're held captive by something, but in reality the only thing holding us back is a misguided understanding of the full situation. My hair is kind of a shallow example, but there are deep and serious conclusions we can draw from this. For all you have convinced yourself that you're stuck in a dead-end job (or no job), or in a bad relationship, or living with your parents when you want your own place - you're not. Yes, responsibility and wise choices are still at play here, but at the end of the day, we always have choices, and recognizing the freedom to make that choice is a great and amazing moment.

I think I'm gonna curl my hair tomorrow. What are you going to do?

Daily Bread

My Challah does not look like this. I've never mastered the braiding thing.

This weekend, I spent part of my Saturday (in between the parts where I was addressing my save-the-dates) baking Challah bread for Easter. It's a traditional Passover bread, although I think the recipe I use must have been heavily edited from the original, because it contains large amounts of yeast, sugar, eggs, and butter - I'm pretty sure at least some of those things aren't Passover-approved.

Baking is one of those things that just takes me to a warm, happy place mentally and spiritually. I love the simplicity of baking, that you put what's right into the bowl, that you make it into dough or batter, that it comes out of the oven sweet (or savory) and warm and delicious. I love that it's honest - you know what went into that bowl, and you know what you're putting inside your body. And even if what's in it isn't the most nutritious, you can still use good, honest, whole ingredients like real flour, real butter, real milk. No preservatives here.

I find baking to be soothing mentally. I like to experiment and try new recipes, and I like the recipes I've always made. I love the enjoyment that others get from what I make. It's nice to just tune everything else out and bring your world down to one lump of dough and what you're creating from it. And, most significantly, I bake because it reminds my of my mother.

Some people get scared off by complicated things like bread - I don't own a breadmaker - but that's never really bothered me. I think it's because, as in the case of the Challah, I bake from the recipe I saw my mother use for years, and it always came out right. I watched for a while, and then when I was old enough I helped. And then when she passed away, it was natural, and necessary, for me to step into that role. Someone had to make the caramel pecan rolls for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Someone had to make the Challah for Easter. Someone had to make the chocolate chip cookies, because what is a house with three girls and no cookies? I know someone else would have made these things if I didn't, but I did what I had to do to be where I needed to be. I needed to carry on the traditions that she started, to affirm her memory and honor her through mixing the yeast and the flour and the eggs and the butter, as she had done for so many years. And now, baking brings me back there, to a memory of a woman who put love into every single thing she made, including her daughters.

That's why every Thanksgiving, every Christmas, every Easter, and pretty much every weekend in between, I'm spending time in the kitchen, making something full of carbs and love. It may be for a holiday that I'm not even spending with my family. It may be a recipe so full of fat and sugar that I'll barely eat any myself. But it doesn't matter. The joy is in the process and the completion, and the watching of others enjoy what my hands made, not in eating it myself. The joy is in the memory of the best woman I ever knew, pouring herself into the bread she was kneading in her hands for the love of the ones who would eat it.

Welcome to Real Life

Life is a funny thing. Wake up on the right side of the bed, begin the day with a workout and a hot shower and a nutritious breakfast, leave for work on time, and you get a feeling like you can conquer the world, like you've got it all together. Then one rescheduled meeting or rude e-mail from a client or spilled coffee on your shirt can bring you down so fast it feels like you're falling off a cliff. Then someone says you have cute shoes, or your paycheck clears, and all of a sudden everything is okay again.

This week has been very tumultuous for me. I'm not entirely sure why, but somehow when Monday morning rolled around, after a great, refreshing weekend, I just felt heavy. I had that weird breakdown about my driver's license, and a bad attitude at work. Tuesday was a little better. The boy and I have been looking for a house, and we thought we found the perfect place in a cute neighborhood, and we submitted our lease application on Tuesday. On Tuesday night, we drove out to a church where one of his coworkers is involved in their young professionals/college ministry (I think that's what it is) to see a performance by Jim Munroe, an illusionist who does a tour called The Maze. It was possibly the coolest thing I've ever seen - you should check it out (here) if you have a chance.

Wednesday started off okay. I ate a healthy breakfast and made it to work on time. After work I had a very satisfying gym experience - I really love the feeling of being tired and happy and post-workout sweaty, knowing you did something hard and earned the right to relax. But then Wednesday night, we came back to the house situation and realized that we can't really afford the rent on the house that I fell in love with - well, actually, we can afford it, but it's at the top of our budget and doesn't leave us with the wiggle room we'd like. So we had to tell them no. And I know it's not a big deal, really, because there are a million rent houses out there and we still have almost two months to look. But I wanted that one, and it made my heart hurt to pick the smart financial decision instead of fulfilling my desire to live in that house. Sometimes being a grown-up is not too fun.

I don't know if this story is really about celebrating my life. I don't know if it's really going anywhere at all - which is kind of how I feel about my life a lot of times. But there's still something beautiful in the transitive and mysterious qualities our lives have. There are always going to be hard decisions, like whether I can afford this or that, and why can't I spend $900 on a pair of shoes (I ask myself this a lot), and things you have to do but don't want to do, like doing your dishes and spending money on the cell phone bill and showing up on time to work. But there are also these moments of sunlight that break through the clouds of your day, like a good hard workout followed by a nutritious dinner, like a show that makes you laugh and then makes you think, like cuddling with someone you love until its way too late at night. And there's still a little thrill in wondering where you'll live, what path your career will take, who you'll meet tomorrow. It's those things I want to cling to each and every day, rather than living in flux, wondering when the next incident will shatter my mood. Life is exciting (yes, even yours, even mine) if we take the time to think about it instead of letting everything roll right by us. I don't know about you, but I'd rather see my life as an adventure.

Priorities

I think I have a case of the Mondays... pretty much every week. It's getting really serious.

For example, this morning I realized that I took my id out of my wallet yesterday afternoon to go on my bike ride, and I have no idea where I put it. This is pretty typical for me - I lose things almost as often as I trip on things or run into stationary objects. It just happens. But anyway, I remembered that my license was not in my wallet when I was rushing trying to get out the door, and I panicked because I was already late, and no license means no speeding which means Kristin is going to be late for work. After ten minutes of searching, I still don't know where my license is. It's not really a big deal. I could have managed, but instead, I took the high road and had a freakout completely disproportionate to the situation. My fiance tried to talk to me on the phone and I screamed at him like it was his fault.

Clearly, I am awesome.

What's ironic is that earlier this morning, I was reflecting on Holy Week and the celebration of something that matters so much more than my daily life. One of my prayers this week is to have a heart of reflection on the suffering of Christ, to not overlook the true story behind this week. And as I got my tardy booty to work (still speeding), it was hard to ignore the fact that I'm not off to a great start at that.

But it smells like rain outside, and it's one of those great breezy mornings with dark clouds that just makes everything seem green and alive. I love mornings like this. Actually, I just love this time of year, when nature seems like it's screaming "I'm alive!" and green and flowers are just exploding everywhere. It's overdone, it's excessive, gaudy, teeming with life. This is a celebration of who God is, and everything points to glory. It's this kind of expression that brings me back to reality, reminding me that life isn't just about fitting in a morning workout, running late to work, packing lunches and feeding the cat and folding laundry. There is something greater, deeper, ancient and powerful at work in this world, something that makes ordinary life extraordinary just by its existence.

And I'm worried about where a stupid piece of plastic is hiding, knowing that regardless of where it is, I have a search parameter of less than 800 square feet of space. Hello, priorities.

In closing... here are a few of the little things I'm savoring this week:

1. New shoes - not just one, but two delicious pairs for my tootsies!
2. Frozen yogurt
3. Game of Thrones - excessively graphic? yes. addicting? totally. 
4. Sweet potato-white bean-tahini veggie burgers
5. The Meaning of Marriage by Tim Keller