Tag: Acceptance

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Peanut Butter and Jelly Moments

This past weekend marked a special event. After thirty one years of living with us, my daughter has moved into her very first house.

It has been quite a transition for us, a big time reality check that includes a stark awareness of how time really does march on. We have all been through much together, thick and thin, and weathered it all with the grace of God.

“And still, after all this time, the Sun has never said to the Earth,”You owe me.” Look what happens with love like that. It lights up the sky.” ― Rumi

I am in the right place (I hope) about my daughter’s departure. She is a love that lights up the sky and it is her time to have the freedom she has long desired and worked so hard for. Her leaving is a testament to having goals. She went to school, got good grades, worked part time then full time, She saved her money and pursued this little house with a big yard because she’d like to have a small farm someday.

My son has been gone for five years already so I am used to him not being here (except for holidays). I think Jim is apprehensive about the quiet around our house but I feel ready. Maybe I will change my mind, but I know time cannot stand still and we all have to move on.

finishedpeanutbuttercookies1Through all this, I’ve been thinking about peanut butter and jelly. And eating peanut butter and jelly. It is the basic comfort food, the quintessential sandwich of childhood, the “everything will be all right” kind of nourishment that we all crave when life gets alittle challenging.

I found a wonderful blog recently called “Confetti Diaries” and asked Natalie if I could publish the delicious picture of her peanut butter and jelly cookies. I’m going to make a batch of these soon. And then I think I’ll take some over to my daughter’s house.

Click HERE for the link to Natalie’s cookie recipe.

What’s your favorite comfort food?

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The Fountain of Youth

Photo- Carmine Sarazen
Photo Courtesy of Carmine Sarazen

There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age. Sophia Loren

Recently, I was reading a magazine article (Think Like a Guy, Oprah Magazine, May 2013) written by Gabrielle Reece who published a new book entitled My Foot is Too Big for the Glass Slipper. A thought provoking excerpt from that article really got me thinking about age and growing older gracefully.

Gabrielle writes “Perhaps the ultimate lesson of getting older is learning to check our egos at the door. Losing our dignity and independence is the fear beneath our anxiety about aging. It’s not so much the lines and sunspots on our faces; it’s more what the lines and sunspots sign; that life moves in only one direction. Yet every day the sun rises, and each day is our own. I’m reminded of the Emerson quote: “No one suspects the days to be gods.”

I looked up the entire Emerson quote and here is what it said: “Heaven walks among us ordinarily muffled in such triple or tenfold disguises that the wisest are deceived and no one suspects the days to be gods.”

When we are young we think we will live forever. We take daring chances more easily, we don’t break as hard, we push forward thinking we have all the time in the world. As I age, that time seems smaller and smaller, though with life expectancies what they are, who knows how long I’ll live?

I used to think retirement (kind of) meant the end. Done. Gardening, long cups of coffee in the morning, maybe a bit of travel, pans of pastichio for the church food festival. But lately I’m thinking there is more. I am starting to open my mind to think that the fountain of youth is in new challenges, new ways of growing. It’s also in “giving back”; passing along some help, friendship and wisdom to those who may need it at just the right time.

Faith can also provide the necessary ingredient to guard against age panic. I find that when I touch that grace filled spot within me, I am young all over again. Physical being can always be transcended; it is in our mind and heart where we can drink from the fountain again and again.

How do you feel about age? 

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