GROW.

An innocent little girl named Katy has inspired the upcoming year of blogging. She was sitting at the kitchen table a few weeks before Christmas, tinkering around with a very small container of Play-Dough. The kind you get as a party favor. Not much to work with. I was of course telling her to hurry up, put it away as we were racing out on a Christmas errand. I wasn't really paying attention to what she was doing. My focus was the clock. I paused. She had taken all the clay she had to work with and created the most beautiful message. So simple. I marveled at the art before me. She had taken a concept which I'm sure started out as a flower and ended up with this. I wished at that moment to be a kid again.

A part of my blog mantra this year is going to focus on Growth. As I mentioned in my last post, it's time to challenge ourselves. Learn new things. Life is too short to think there's always going to be a tomorrow. It's time to drink up every moment that life has to offer. The good, the bad and the ugly. I read an article recently that suggested that you need to create a jar that you put your happy moments and accomplishments into throughout the year. And at the end of the year on New Years Eve, you reach into the jar and read what made you happy. What made you grow. In the same vain, I'm going to add another jar for the thorns thrown our way.  Because by the end of the year, it will be interesting to see how we resolved them — demonstrating what made us grow.

Example: Hannah finished finals and walked away with a B in Math and Chemistry. Maybe not an A, but a real accomplishment for the girl that doesn't have the math-science brain! Her thorn... we;; yesterday she cam home and told Andy that her Debit Card quit working. She said she had used it in the morning and then when she tried again, it didn't work. His response: "you ran out of money". Yes it's true, our working girl finally depleted her summer savings from being a lifeguard. Life lesson. Kind of thorny... well, she immediately applied for a job and has an interview on Monday!

Here's to the jars of life!
Happy is.

Happy New Year!

Wow, what a whirlwind the last few weeks have been. I sort of went off the social grid in order to live in the realities of life at home. We survived the snow storm and the Christmas and the New Year. We kind of aborted the last two weeks of countries due to the craze. I can assure you that the kitchen was working overtime, baking up a storm. Here's the top 11 list of what was made (in no favored order):

Buckeyes

Oreo Truffles

Pecan Tassies

Haystacks

Dipped Pretzels

Pretzel Wreaths

Almond Bars

Spritz

Christmas Cut-outs

Sweet Cereal Mix
Peanut butter Chocolate Sandwiches

It's now a New Year. Everyone is asking what I'm going to do with my blog. Am I going to keep traveling in the kitchen? My immediate answer is NO. Dad is taking back his duties in the kitchen:) Andy had a great idea. We are going to revisit our favorite meal from each country this year. It sounds easy. The recipe is already there. I now need to rename every blog entry with the recipe title. I guess I wasn't thinking ahead...so you can see, it's a late start. It's now the 2nd week in January and we have moved into our 2nd week of travels to Italy. Completely missed Japan, though we DID make our Asian Chili on 12/28 while celebrating Ugly Christmas Sweater moment with my sissies and kin. So that counts!

So still the question, what's my blog path this year? I'm actually kind of lost in the kitchen right now. Meal planning is hard. I know longer have an assignment, a challenge. It's funny how motivated you are when you are directed or assigned something. Sort of like the gym. I do better when someone is telling me what to do. Elie even mentioned that she hates swimming a workout on her own without a coach telling her what to do. What if we all challenged each other to do something this year? I can imagine the success and accomplishment. Maybe that's it. Maybe I'll come up with a weekly challenge for all of you. 

Stay tuned. I promise for something entertaining!

Happy is.