Delight In the Little Things

Once a month I cook breakfast for women and children at a shelter program in a suburban town outside of Chicago. A longtime family friend and I arrive at 2:45 am and stay until breakfast has been served assisting with clean up prior to departing around 6:45 am. This program runs from October - April each year. I have volunteered for the program before but this was the first time for my friend. When I asked my friend if he would consider volunteering with me he immediately said yes. I was impressed. It is one thing to be able to help others; it is quite another thing to be willing to do so. I believe most of us have more to give than we realize.

More of a blessing than the abundance itself is to realize abundance in your life and want to share that abundance with others freely. When I say abundance you may immediately think wealth or excess, when I simply mean enough to share. The caveat of that thought is "what is enough"?

We run on empty with our busy lives filled with chores and errands and activities required of us to be considered active, engaged, connected. But when is enough, enough?

There are multitudes of regurgitated hypotheses written on the topic of satisfaction. The elusive condition we all seem to crave. We want satisfaction in our relationships or our work, but for some great mystery or some great UN achievable process, we the masses, still "can't get no satisfaction".

Mick Jagger Break
The Rolling Stones - Satisfaction Click here

After all, what is a blog about life, love and music with out a nod to The Rolling Stones? Maroon 5 know a great recipe for a hit song. Lie about your moves, add one of the best voices in the world, mix in clips of the funkiest front man of the best known band, stir or is that a shake, bake until the world believes you got moves. No M5 video posted as to not insult T.R.S. The M5 dude barley moves - really people?

I refer in previous post to the Bible series "Reaching Your Financial Destiny" as the spark to my current condition of thought and activity. In the study, I re learned that satisfaction is not about achieving more. It is about being happy or content with what you have now. If we looked at what we already have as abundant or enough, what would that do for our lives?

Have we stopped counting our blessing- daily? Is counting our blessings a falsehood to the reality of our lives today? Do we really feel blessed? Perhaps if we felt we had more, we would find that we could share more. More time, more love, more understanding, more patience, more Joy.

Last week at the shelter program I shared, along with my time, an easy bake apple pancake. I can tell you the women, children and my co-volunteers seemed to be delighted and it was enough.

2 recipes for your enjoyment- The first, THERE IS JOY AND SATISFACTION IN THE LITTLE THINGS! Try that recipe and the one below.

Easy Bake Apple Pancake

Ingredients

Complete Pancake Mix
2 Eggs
4 Granny Smith Apples
1 TBS Cinnamon
4 TBS Granulated Sugar
4 TBS Butter

Prep

Peel, core and slice apples to 1/4 inch thick slices
Mix sugar, cinnamon and apples together until apples are coated with sugar mixture
Preheat oven to 400 degrees
Mix pancake mix to directions on package for 6 - 10 pancakes, beat in two eggs into batter (set aside)
In 9 inch oven ready pan/skillet (cast iron is best) on stove top melt butter in pan over med high heat (turn off heat when butter is melted)
Place apple mixture evenly on bottom of pan and return heat to med high
When apples bubbles pour pancake batter over apples, spread batter evenly remove from heat and place in preheated oven

Cook Time

Bake pancake 20 - 25 minutes until pancake lightly brown or tooth pick removes clean. Turn over onto serving plate warm from oven.
Sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving.


Pic

This is not the traditional "German Apple Pancake" but a simpler version. If you want to have a batter closer to the German styles try 2 additional eggs in pancake batter.

I ate this mini version pictured for dinner all by myself. Joy!