Tutee Fruity PB Sandwiches

Did you grow too old for some good old fashioned PB & J?!  After a small analysis, I realized that with a couple minor modifications, PB & J sandwiches create a delicious, low-cost, healthy lunch!

Step 1: Whole Wheat Bread

BEWARE of the packaging LIES!  Whole wheat bread contains 100% whole wheat, and the food advertisers LOOOOVE to trick us with their dirty games.  Always read the ingredient list.  The word “100% WHOLE WHEAT” is the only acceptable FIRST ingredient on any bread you buy!

Step 2:  Add 100% natural Peanut butter

            

Why natural peanut butter? Read here

Step 3: Add some tutee by slicing up fruity

Skip jam or jelly and give your body real delicious 100% original vitamins and minerals.  You can slice up almost any type of fruit and add it to your sandwich: peaches, pears, apples, strawberries, plumbs…the list goes on forever

-If you want a little extra pizzazz, add a few dashes of cinnamon!

Did you know that one tablespoon of smuckers concord grape contains 12 grams of sugar, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, pectin, and citric acid?? I don’t know about you, but I feel safer eating real food.

http://www.smuckers.com/products/ProductDetail.aspx?groupId=1&categoryId=5&flavorId=4

Does everything happen for a reason?

My pursuit as a nursing philosopher continues and today I believe that I might actually understand the minds of some of the greatest thinkers in our history.

How did I overcome my philosophical anxiety?  First, I purchased the book: Philosophy Made Simple and second I altered my thinking surrounding this seemingly “useless” material.  How blessed and lucky am I to have the opportunity to review and attempt to understand the thinking of amazing individuals in our history?  Furthermore, the opportunity comes to me with a full scholarship and assistantship: I am being paid to read about thinking.  I do not think it is hat bad of a gig.

Today’s philosopher, Spinoza, believed that happiness is determined by our ability to recognize that events in our life contain two properties: rational and emotional. 

Rationally, all events are predetermined in our life.  Emotionally, we can choose to accept or reject the events.  Spinoza believes that when we emotionally choose to accept that both good and bad events will occur, we will experience happiness.

We do not need to pretend that bad events are not bad; however, he states that we control the emotion tied to the bad event.  For example, we choose to accept fear, anxiety, and unhappiness when something bad happens to us.  Therefore, nothing is actually good or bad it is our emotion that determines the goodness or badness of any event.  When we adjust our outlook on the world, we are liberated and freed from the slavery of our thoughts and emotion.

Real life example:

You work with a difficult co-worker, and you obsess about his or her annoying qualities.  Your co-worker is a “bad” event in your life.  Or is he?  Is he bad, or did your emotion make him bad?  What if you viewed your co-worker’s “bad” traits as opportunities to improve your tolerance, patience, or peace?  If you change your views about your co-worker, is your co-worker still “bad?” 

I believe that James and I always experience situations that challenge our weaknesses.  For him, road rage is a weakness.  Interestingly, every single morning when we drive to school, he will get behind a slow driver, a “cutter-offer,” or a “failer” to follow driving rules.  He gets enraged, and his blood pressure spikes to extreme levels!  But, is it interesting that he experiences these types of drivers consistently?  Is God trying to teach him a lesson in patience?  Are the drivers on the road “bad” events, or is his emotion related to the drivers perceived as bad events?

For me, I always seem to develop relationships with slow individuals.  I say this loosely because I love most of the people that I label “slow.”  My college roommate, Katie (who I love dearly), she is one of the slowest people I ever met.  She could not talk and tie her shoes simultaneously.  We were late to class every day for four straight years in college.  I also experience slow co-workers, or slow partners for group projects.  My patience is tested, and I think: “why does this always happen to me? But, what if I need to slow down?  What if God strategically places these people in my life to help me take a breath, smell the coffee, and SLOOOOOWW DOWN?  If I view the situation this way, is slowness a bad event?  No. 

There we have it: philosophy 101: Rationally, events will occur and our emotion labels the events good or bad.  When we accept this, we will experience more happiness….according to Spinoza that is.  Give it a try, I will too.

Can someone drop some happiness into my philosophy book??

I officially attended my first week of classes to begin working toward my PhD in nursing.  The anticipation of moving and starting a new journey was thrilling and exciting until I sat down to begin studying my most dreaded topic: philosophy.

I read one page and immediately began drifting into dream land…I kept trying to focus my mind: 

“Kelley, think..this is important”

 My mind replies: “Kelley, this is not important- in fact, this is the least important information you ever encountered…I swear these guys were on drugs when they wrote this stuff, Kelley. Just put the book down and go do something fun.”

My mind and I argued for several hours; I believe that our argument turned vicious after we tried to study together more than 9 hours yesterday.  Finally, I conceded to my mind: 

“Wow mind, you are right.  Either this makes absolutely NO sense, or I am just DUMB!!”

When you sit down and feel like you wasted an entire day reading a Dictionary written in Chinese (and you speak English) you kinda get depressed- I’m not going to lie here.  So to try to pull me from the depression, I had to pull some interesting, applicable, laughable, spiritual, and sensible quotations from my philosophy book.

Interesting: “Philosophy” literally means ‘love of wisdom’” (what happens if you don’t understand it? Are you incapable of wisdom??? I need to know STAT!

Spiritual: “We observe a world of many things over which we require a sense of its unity into one world.”

Spiritual:  “We observe a world containing a plurality of objects; behind this there must be something that binds this diversity into one permanent unified cosmos.  Without such a “something,” we lack an overall and ultimate explanation for the world.”

Laughable:  “Sun on moist things, whereby fish developed, and within fish adult humans were originally formed who appeared when the fish form was shed.”  Yep- you got it- we are created from fish skin!

Sensible: “Everything is a process; there is no beginning, only becoming.”

Applicable: “What seems good, from a certain point of view, is good, and we cannot say objectively that one view is more legitimate than another.” Finally, we can outlaw arguing…we are ALL right!

After hundreds of pages of: X denotes X if X 1 is abc and abc isn’t a form if X 2 is def….I can comfortably pull five quotes…yep….five! Should I laugh or should I cry?? I am trying to keep things "optimistic,” I will stick with laughing.  Wait! I don’t think optimistic situations involve lying…so I change my mind- my primary choice is crying!

Shand, J. (2002). Philosophy and Philosophers: An introduction to Western Philosophy.  Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press.  ISBN 0.77735-2445-0

Do dreams come true?

In my 26 years on earth, I learned at least one fact: life is short.  I blinked, and I was a married woman with a career.  Now that I am more than 25% through my life, and I need to ascertain that I do, get, see, feel, and live everything that I want.

On June 26, 2010, James and I decided to take our life into our own hands and create a lifetime “dream list.”  What are dreams?  Are they something we sometimes think about, but always believe they will never happen?   We decided to drop our attitudes about believing all our dreams that would never come true.

  

We spent several hours brainstorming everything we want in life including: vacation destinations, family, career, community service, houses, extreme dreams…everything.

While we were documenting dreams, I look at James and said: “My biggest dream is on that will never come true; I want to meet Oprah.  But, since this will never happen, I am going to leave it off the list.”

James replied: “Kelley, write that on the list!! What is the point of creating the list if you do not intend to include your biggest dream?"

He was right, and I proceeded to write: “*meet Oprah*”  Not just go to a show, I wrote: “*meet Oprah*.”

This is a picture of a snippet of the dream list created in June!!

Flash back to November 20, 2009: I was driving from work to a physical therapy appointment when the radio show announcement in the background brought me to tears: “Oprah Winfrey’s show will end after 25 seasons.”

I could not believe my ears.  I never watched television until I moved in with James (who loves TV!), but throughout my lifetime, I always committed to Oprah.  Her show taught me some of the deepest and most precious lessons in my life.  Furthermore, she inspired me to create a life of optimal health and wellness, ultimately leading to my nursing specialty.

Immediately, I knew that I must thank Oprah for her tremendous influence on my life.  I planned to write her a “thank-you” letter by the end of the 25^th season. 

In early August, I received a mass e-mail from the Oprah.com website (of course I am a subscriber!)  The subject line read: “are you an ultimate viewer?”  I thought to myself, “why yes I am!”

At that moment, I decided to compose the deepest, most heart felt letter to Oprah.  I wrote everything I wanted to say to her as if she was sitting right next to me. I copied and pasted the letter into multiple electronic fields allocated for specific “ultimate viewer” promoted questions- breaking all the rules.

Did I ever believe anything would happen to me after submitting the letter? No.  My absolute, number one priority was that Oprah would maybe read and accept my sincere thank you.

Much of what happened between my submission until today, I cannot share.  But, the point is: I was invited to attend the Oprah Winfrey show audience. 

The day I received the invitation, I cried publically at Montez catering in Bangor.  Some women sitting behind us thought I won the lottery!

On September 9, 2010, I attended what I believed to be an ordinary Oprah Winfrey show taping.  When I arrived, I was shockingly surprised.  With an audience filled with “ultimate viewers,” we watched the season premier show together.  The experience was remarkable, better than I could have ever dreamed.  I lived a moment I never believed possible. 

Oprah’s big surprise solidified my big dream: I will meet Oprah Winfrey.  Furthermore, on James’ list of dreams: visit Australia.

Another snippet of our dream list!  I couldn't figure out how to rotate- but, you see the "Visit Australia" 

Do dreams come true?  I was a naysayer: “I will never meet Oprah.” But, now I am a believer.  When your dream is yours, not your parents, your friends, not your boss’, not society…but, when your dream comes straight from within your heart and soul and when you take time to think about the dreams that you really want to live in your life….they will come. So, start dreaming, and start living.