Potatoes

Did you know that there is over a hundred recipes for just mashed potatoes alone?! That's a ton of recipes and that's not even counting baked potatoes, grilled potatoes, steamed potatoes and many many more! Wow I guess you could say that we like potatoes. You know what the really crazy thing is though? Potatoes are poisonous. Yep you heard right potatoes are poisonous! You see the poison runs viciously through the stems and leaves of the plant and while the potato is still attached to the poison source it is also poisonous. Sometimes while the potato is still forming it is a greenish color due to such a high dosage of poison running throughout the plant! All the while we still eat potatoes on almost a weekly biases. Luckily for us once the potato is fully formed it separates itself from the stem and leaves and pinches off the poison source. Which results in one of my many favorite foods! Often times in our lives we too also face a "poison source" which begins to take over our lives. When the source is first discovered only a little here and there seems to be leaked into our lives; but as we gain confidence and comfort begins to become natural the "poison" makes it's way into our lives more and more. It becomes routine, natural, a way of life. Eventually we don't even have to justify this guilty obsession because slowly the title shifts from "guilty obsession" to "obsession." The time before the "poison" slowly seems to be erased from our memories. All together we begin to turn "green," the poison has made its way so far into our lives it seems hopeless. We will surely die out, the poison is so strong and vicious that we have lost all control. We begin to shrivel up into uselessness. Though it is dark and hopeless we hear a distant foot step. Then another. With every growing step the hope is restored. The darkness turns to light. It's a farmer. As he pulls his blade out he begins to harvest; cutting the potatoes from the source that was fueling their "poisonous" addictions. Life is restored. I don't know where you've been or what you've endured. I don 't know your highs or your lows but I do know that we all suffer "potato" moments throughout life, and sometimes the "poison" seems too strong not to give into; but I also know that right when things seem to far gone to make its way back is right when harvesting season rolls around. And when the stems are cut; life itself is restored.

The Mixtures of Life

I remember sixth grade science, a time when we were just starting to learn new and exciting things using chemicals and matter. However, the one experiment that vividly stands out in my memory is one that simply used only water and cooking oil. The days leading up to the experiment we discussed the differences between heterogenous and homogenous substances. It absolutely amazed me how two very similar substances would not even begin to mix. It was like magic to a bunch of sixth graders! Sometimes we are so sure that two things should mix. Regardless if we are an expert on the subject or just a beginner. I still feel as if oil and water should somehow mix together even though I have seen the result time and time again. In the real world things naturally mix. Peanut butter and jelly, milk and chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter and chocolate. Those are just a few of my favorite foods to mix, but food is such a boring mixture. Look at a friendship that cannot be broken. A love between a man and a woman that can't be tarnished. And even a man's best friend, his dog. Mixtures are a beautiful and special thing. It's like adding seasoning to a secret recipe. The recipe needs the seasoning to thrive. As do we. We need to form mixtures with people and develop our relationships into our own "secret recipe." But as the water and the oil time and time again will not mix, sometimes we don't mix with certain people, which results with us trying to change ourselves in order to "mix" with the cool group. We change the way we dress, our hair, the way we talk, and even how we act. We do everything in our power to be "water." We want to smell like water, look like water, and even taste like water, but when the two are together there still is water and oil. Not just water. Did you know that oil is being used to grow hair now? And that certain kinds of oils keep our world in operation mode? It adds flavor to our foods, and allows us to cook more efficiently. Seventy percent of the world is covered with water which makes water way more common then oil; however 96.5 percent of that water is unusable and undrinkable. Water is so common but yet so unspecial. So don't change for anyone. Mix with the ones who you mix with. Be who you were meant to be and put your "oil" to good use.