As Time Goes By....

 Homemade Black Bean Soup w/ham

Are you a fan of the New Year, New You Movement?  I'm undecided.  I think it's important to acknowledge the ending of a year.  I like to imagine burying it and tapping the soil before walking away like Bill Murray in Caddyshack after leaving the lightning struck reverend on his last hole.  All mistakes and unpleasantness forgotten.  Gone girl.

But a celebration of a new persona promising major changes to our existing foundation brought on by  nothing more than a good thought and a turnover in the calendar?  I can't buy into that.  Sounds too good to be true.  I do like the idea that we can start over or begin 'being' at any time with things like kindness, thoughtfulness, compassion, eating right, losing weight.  We can choose to stop smoking, stop drinking, stop whining.  You can put efforts into being a better sister, friend, wife, etc anytime I suppose.  As time goes by though it gets harder to trust in the ability to change major fundamentals of one's core.   Dreamy thought gets clouded with all this logic. 

I soaked dried black beans and used my ham bone along with lots of fresh vegetables and spices to make a really flavor forward (yes, I said that, I apologize) soup.  And it was a change, for me.  I've done it before but maybe this was better.  Maybe you could say an improved version.

Perhaps it is possible to be an entirely different person than we were yesterday if we kill our egos and any understanding of who we believe we are.  In fact, I've done this several times before in my youth without any thought or hesitation because I had no preconceived notions of who I was at the time.  

 early morning spinach chicken sausage scramble