Falling in love with runny egg yolks

I wasn't born in Oklahoma, it doesn't take a native Okie very long to figure that out.  For a long time I resisted new foods and phrases and tried very hard to preserve my northern-ness.  You know that age old phrase "If you can't beat em, join em?"  I always thought that joining em meant giving up who you were and becoming someone foreign to you.  This isn't entirely true, you do become someone completely different but it's a process that is completed over your lifetime in bits, pieces and daily surrenders.  

I have measured my comfort with my new state through food.  When I first got here I wouldn't have touched beans and cornbread with a ten foot pole.  Now I make it on a regular basis, because it's delicious, comforting and costs about $6.  I have even successfully attempted my first brisket and receive multiple compliments every time I make iced tea.  You may all be impressed... now.

I have developed a major girl crush on Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman.  I read her blog and plan to have a week dedicated to cooking her recipes exclusively.  I have her to thank for my new found love of sheet cake and egg in a hole.  Thanks to her eggs over easy are now on the table and savored with gusto.  So, am I becoming a full fledged Oklahoma girl?  Lawdy no!  But I am adopting pieces of Oklahoma that will stay with me wherever I go.  Things even more life changing than cornbread and runny egg yolks.

Have you ever thought about what would happen if you introduced 30 year old you with 15 year old you?  Lets bite the bullet, round up and say that I am 30 for this post.  I may as well be.  If 15 year old me knew that 30 year old me would be a full time mom living in Oklahoma and riding next to a Pastor in a mini van, she would be shocked and disgusted.  Simply because she would be completely unable to see the steps that led from 15 to 30, and I would never want to fill her in on all those steps at once, it would be more than anyone could handle.  

The long and short of it is that you have to be where you are and bring who you are into play.  To break that sentence down, you won't bring anything but misery on yourself and those around you if you endlessly complain about your current circumstances.  A little complaining is probably okay, we are only human, but you have to pick yourself up and play the hand you were dealt.  And your circumstances are just waiting for you to happen to them.  If God put you somewhere he wants you to unleash all that he made you to be wherever you are.  Even if where you are is over an hour from the nearest Panera bread and is still over 90 degrees at ten PM.  (see a little complaining is human...)

So If you wake up this morning somewhere you never thought you would be, take a deep breath, own your life and be exactly who God made you to be exactly where God put you.  Make a big pot of beans and cornbread, or better yet make something uniquely you and bring it to someone who could use a little you in their life.