cooking 101

look at my big girl!! she helps me with breakfast and makes oatmeal!! when i was young i used to ask my mother if i could help her, this reminds me so much of that time. i love teaching Haley, she always wants to help and i think 4 is as good an age as any to learn to stir oatmeal and flip pancakes and french toast.
i love my stainless steel pans, you can use a lower heat and it makes it safer for little ones to teach with. see how she tries to be gentle and not spill, ever the perfectionist just like her mother.
she even wants to pour it into the bowls. did i mention i don't even like oatmeal? can't bring myself to eat it but my girls LOVE it so they should be the ones making it!!
i love these moments, it puts things in perspective for me to know what is truly happiness. my sisters friend passed away this weekend. he was 43, worked 2 jobs a new mortgage a new car payment and a wife with no insurance. my sisters husband works 2 jobs and has no insurance either. he wants to accumulate enough money to retire at age 50, if he makes it. what is the point of working yourself into an early grave? and yet there are so many out there doing just that. suze orman says money does not make you powerful, money itself is not equivalent to power but so many of us base our lives on having it. i myself wish to have a job so i may have some power in this house, so that i may have a say and have something to bring to the table. why do i feel i need money to have a say? i know for me, i am fortunate, i have a program and i can work on this and become more aware of what i need and what i want. i can check my motives daily and so a spot inventory to see if i am happy in my life today. more people could use a program, more people need to remember what we are doing here and how short our lives really are.

i read an article today about a couple celebrating 80 years together, married. she is 102 he is 97. together with kids, grandkids, great-grandkids and great-great grand kids they have 57 total. and he still holds her hand and they still kiss each other every day. they have never been rich in the sense of having money and power, but they have a real gift of life and love and family. to me that is the real power in life. i hope to teach my grandbabies to cook someday. todays thought;
"Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember
that what you now have was once among the things only hoped for."--Epicurus