by Corine G.

Created on: March 23, 2009   Last Updated: October 23, 2009

In life, if you are going to be happy, you must first take time time to smell the muffins.Happiness is not a big sweeping event, it's not an on and off switch, it's a process that lies in paying attention to everyday small joys. I was recently reminded of this when I brought a small mountain of homemade muffins to my son's high school tennis match. It was my turn to bring the snacks. Not wanting to stand out as being too French, (my sons have reproached this to me before) I settled for very American muffins.

When I opened the trunk of my car and the smell of warm-out-of-the-oven pastries came wafting through the tennis courts, it created quite a stir. It was an away game but suddenly we had court advantage. The other team had, I believe, pretzels and rice crispy treats. It was almost cheating.

I experienced the joy of feeding my teenager multiplied by 28 HUNGRY boys. The nicest compliment (I think) came via one of the boys who said to my kid, your mom's a stallion!' I had never heard that one before.

The boys were so appreciative, it kind of killed me. The fact that they took notice that this was a homemade snack touched me. Life is so rushed, I thought. They have come to expect very little from their eating experience. A snack to them is something to ingest so as not to fall in mid game.

But eating and feeding other is so much more. Or it can be. Or it should be. To be able to connect with the joy of preparing food and feeding others and ourselves is a gift we sometimes forget exists. Happiness, like the devil, is in the details. So much opportunity for happiness is pushed to the side as we barrel through life.

To connect with the small nuggets of happiness that surrounds food is a matter of deliberate choice and discipline, at least at first, until it becomes a habit. The choice is ours to connect with the experience every step of the way.

Planning and shopping can be a rushed, stressed experience, or it can be a joyful process that begins in the kitchen calmly as we sit down with a cup of tea, or a glass of wine and a beautiful cookbook. A few minutes of being mindful, as opposed to mindless also applies to the time spent inside the store and inside the kitchen. Had I rushed to the grocery store, my shoulders tight with resentment at the added work to buy a tub of some sort of snack I'm not sure it would have taken any less time than the few quiet minutes alone at home when I added flour to eggs, to milk.

The moment something is done is a rush and mindlessly, soul

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>