What’s Wrong with a Wish?

One of my favorite musicals is Into the Woods. I saw it for the first time as a sophomore in high school when our music/theatre departments collaborated to bring a very difficult show to our stage.

Mesmerized by the witch in the show from the first rehearsal I snuck into and for multiple performances there as well as over the years following, I have spent most of my adult life believing that the most compelling message of the show had to do with needing to disregard finding fault in our situations and instead pulling together to find solutions.

I recently flew from Minneapolis to Dallas on a Southwest flight on a Saturday. I rarely fly on Saturdays as I find that most of the best deals happen on Tuesdays. This particular fare sale aligned with my desire to be in Texas for specific dates. As I approached the gate area for my mid-morning flight, the gate attendant’s voice announced that the flight was overbooked and that there would be a decent amount of money granted to those willing to change their plans by two hours.

I accepted the offer and jumped on a flight connecting in Chicago rather than Kansas City. This is a risk – the Chicago area can claim many hours of a traveler’s time should the travel occur while Chicago has precipitation. Phrases like “I hope” and “I wish” rattled through my brain – all for nothing because it was sun-sparkling awesome in Chicago that day.

As “I wish” traveled through my mind, it turned into the song from Into the Woods.

In the fifteen minute character-introducing first song of the musical, various characters enter the stage as they sing the same two words: “I wish.” From Cinderella to Little Red Riding Hood to Jack, characters share their desire for life to be different.

Cinderella wishes to go to the festival and dance before the prince.  The baker and his wife wish for a child. Jack and his mother wish to get out of poverty. Little Red Riding Hood just wishes for some bread.

Their wishes are all metaphors. Each lacks satisfaction in his or her current condition and things that a change – the wish – will bring satisfaction.  Without ruining the musical too much (impossible because these words don’t do the musical justice), the point of the show is to realize that satisfaction is found in being happy with what we have and in our relationships – good or bad, family or not – rather than in what we could have.

Side note: if you can see the show on stage, you should spend the money to see it. Even the junior version used by middle schools will be delightful. One of my nephews was recently cast as Cinderella’s prince in a junior version, and I can’t wait to see him in it.  If you do not have this opportunity, Disney does a decent job with the musical in movie form.  And – Meryl Streep plays the witch.  Say it with me, “Cool!”  Seriously.

I write down ideas when they come to me so that I can use them in future blog posts.  My notes from that thought time on the plane included concepts about going after what we want, setting goals, and making our wishes come true.  As I sifted through and deleted various notes from that trip, I realized that even I – the one thinking about the dissatisfaction that the characters in Into the Woods experience once their wishes come true and they return to living life – continue to miss the point.

Yes – goal setting is a great idea. I do not know anyone who can jump on a plane to Europe tomorrow just because they feel like it.  The people I know have to save, sacrifice, and let ideas simmer before they take that trip.  There is nothing wrong with setting goals and having a bucket list.

Where we go wrong is when we think that attaining the goals and achieving the bucket list will bring our soul the complete satisfaction it seeks in finding a joy-filled life in the here and now…the today…the present moment.  I can certainly have an Amazon Wish List as long as I balance that with the truth that I have enough already.  Even if half of my belongings were carried out of my home tomorrow, I would have enough.

It is not about the amount of things left after a bunch of things have left my possession.  My attitude and my willingness to find joy in what I have today determines if I am satisfied regardless of what I have.  My attitude and my willingness to find joy in what is right now determines what I am and who I become.

The final song of Into the Woods catches me off-guard every time I see it.  With a touch of melancholy and a heaping cup of warning, the characters caution the audience about their wishes:

Careful the wish you make
Wishes are children
Careful the path they take
Wishes come true, not free

I think that the serious nature of the song is what surprises me, but I also think I do not want to listen to its warning.  I want to dream, to hope, and to wish.  More than that, I want my wishes to come true.  Sometimes, this can be all consuming: a new job, a new house, a new outfit, and so on.  I can be so wrapped up in wishing that I also do a lot of missing.

If I am off track about human nature and how we wish, I hope that readers will correct my path a bit.

Happy Wednesday, my friends!

tapping, rocking, and laughing

I smelled him as soon as he passed me on the way to finding a seat on our flight from Spokane to Denver.  It was the combination of the smells that struck me (not just alcohol, not just cigarettes, and not just something sweet that could have been marijuana). It seemed unnecessary for all of the smells to be tied up in one person at one time.

As soon as he sat down one row behind me in the opposite aisle seat, he started to move.

First, it was his legs and feet. Wiggle, wiggle, jiggle, jiggle.  Nervous energy that seemed to have no end.  It started with toes, then moved to his knees, and finally both of his legs were working up a storm.

Next, it was his fingers. Tap….tap…tap, tap, tap.  A rhythm that only he could hear. One that definitely needed to get out of him.  More energy.  Tap…tap…tap…tap, tap, tap…tap, tap…tap.  Try it – each ellipses set is a pause.  It started with one finger, then moved to his whole hand drumming, and ended with both hands -sometimes alternating while at other times combining in rhythm.

Finally, it was his whole body in motion. He rocked, he swayed, and his head turned and bobbed. He seemed to be at his own wedding dance with really loud rhythms that only the exceptionally carefree (or intoxicated, in my experience) enjoy.  The seat could not contain him.

This was all before take off.

A friend of his sat next to him a few minutes later, and he calmed a bit.  However, the rhythms returned.

“Are you high?” his friend asked.  No response.

“Dude, seriously, are you high? Drunk? Both?” his friend asked again. No response.

The movements continued, and the airplane physically moved with him.

We need to pause here for a moment.  This flight, for me, was a return from a serene – almost retreat type – weekend.  I had enjoyed calm, had learned to drink tea, and had slept well.  Having the world around me forced into movement by a young man kind of shocked my system.

When the plane reached cruising altitude, I had figured out how to ignore the constant rhythm behind me.  Somehow the next hour and a half went by without my mind engaging in the potential anger I could have for the young man’s dance party behind me.

As we started to land, the movements intensified.  And then the laughter started.

I had disengaged to this point, but I could not help but eavesdrop. Nonsense, total nonsense, poured from the two young men’s mouths.  This was followed by an amount of laughter that I rarely have witnessed.

“We are so high,” the friend said, and they both broke out in floods of laughter.

I had clearly missed something during the flight.

By the time we landed, the tapping, rocking, and laughter made it impossible to ignore them.  As we all stood awkwardly waiting for the cabin doors to open, I glanced at these two men.  Clearly, they knew each other well, and this was not their first flight in such a state.  They thought they were extremely funny while at the same time it was clear that they knew they were only funny to themselves.

The good news, for the dance party young man, was that his body had calmed.  Perhaps flying caused anxiety for him.  It is quite common.  Perhaps he had too many chemicals at war within him combined with the movement of flying.  Whatever it was, it stopped when he stood up. I was thankful that he had not vomited at some point during the flight.

As I walked off the plane, stating the required “thank you” to the flight attendants as I did, I thought about how many of us stifle the movement we feel inside of us in order to conform to the social norm.  This man had no conforming in him, and it seemed to free him enough to laugh…and laugh…and laugh.  Lucky man, really.

While the social setting does always permit this sort of freedom, I think we sometimes create an additional layer of reserve.  When I do that, and then you do that, we lose our ability to laugh – or cry – or even engage with emotion at all.  A bunch of stiflers with no access to emotions makes for a tough society, and we all suffer when this happens.

This semester, rather than teaching a class at UMary, I am taking an online class from Brené Brown about vulnerability and being authentic. One of my take-aways so far has been that we do not set each other up for engaging in real conversation with one another.

When we are real with one another, we learn to ask much more authentic questions with the intention of  creating a safe space for the other to respond and expand on that response without any personal agenda (including that the interaction be quick) for that conversation.

This young man was real – a bit too real perhaps? – and part of me envied him for being able to let out all of that energy and laughter with 135+ other strangers around him.

As January comes to a close, I want to encourage us all to identify one place where we need to show up, be present, and provide that space for others to be present.  We cannot change and move airplanes overnight, but one small step in the right direction can happen.

A Library Find: “The Disappearing Spoon”

Those who follow this blog (thank you for sticking it out, by the way) know that I travel often for my job and love to listen to books on CD to keep me company.  An 11 disc book is just about the right length for many of my trips, and The Disappearing Spoon has not disappointed me.

I rarely go to the library with a specific book in mind. In fact, I have found that I rarely enjoy those that I seek out specifically.  Instead, my library seeking goes something like this…

 

Go to the library.

Return books that I have finished or have chosen not to read.

Go to the row of books on CD.

Look through the usual fiction authors that I love such as Mary Higgins Clark to see if anything new has appeared.

Side note: I took a road trip from North Dakota to Rhode Island during the summer after my sophomore year in college.  A friend lent me several Mary Higgins Clark books on tape (no CD player in my car “back” then).  They are the perfect companion except very late at night as one crosses the state of Pennsylvania. As the dew-infested fog takes over the early morning (and one has had little sleep), they are pretty scary.

Back to the bookshelves.

If no fiction books pop out, I then go to the non-fiction to see if there is something “fun” that I could learn. 

Side note: Malcolm Gladwell is always a great find, but I have now read almost all of his books.  I think that I still need to read Blink.  Ok (as the huz likes to point out) – I have not read the books.  I have listened to them.

Non-fiction is a huge genre, and one cannot tell what one will find in this part of the shelves.  Last week, as I chose books for my trek north earlier this week (yes – in the slowest moving Minnesota snow storm of the season), The Disappearing Spoon stood out as a possibility.

I have decided that the trick to sucking in readers for these books is to have a great title along with a descriptive back cover. 

True here.

The Disappearing Spoon is a book for smart people (or people who want to be smart – that’s me)…at the very least, one needs to have an understanding of the fact that the periodic table exists.  It delves into the history and the science behind the creation of the periodic table, but more than that – it covers some of the mysteries and scandals that came out of its development.

While I have not had a chemistry class since college, the book was accessible enough to me (I brushed some cobwebs from parts of my brain that had stored information form “Chemistry for Non-Chemistry Majors”).  This means that most people could probably glean something from the book.

Side note: I took the above-mentioned chemistry class in the last semester of my senior year in college.  It was the same year that I missed several days due to having our first child. I would not have made it through that class without the help of my friend Heidi who tutored me for hours.

Another side note: the entire point of generals in college is to help us discover what we might want to do when we grow up (as well as to develop well-rounded citizens).  Allowing me to take the chemistry class at the end of my college career was a huge disservice to me.  What if I was actually a budding chemist who might have won a Nobel Prize some day?  All of that is lost now…hopes dashed against the wall of poor scheduling.

It is unreal how many rabbit trails I have taken in this post!

I have not finished the book (I have disc remaining), but I have heard the information which drew me to the book: why lithium works to stabilize bipolar illness.  I listened intently to the first 8 discs just sure that – at any moment – the author would delve into the chemistry behind the psychological illness whose tendencies live (and sometimes rage) inside of me.

The opening of disc 9 dove right into what I wanted to hear, and I feel that – like no other time – I finally understand bipolar tendencies.  The author stated that sunlight stimulates proteins to attach to DNA in our brains.  This attachment creates our awake state.  Darkness at the end of the day causes the proteins to fall off, and we need to sleep.   

The proteins hang on to the DNA in the brains of people with bipolar illness; thus, the continued awake state – or mania.  Eventually the body and mind have had enough, and the depressive side comes in.

Lithium breaks the bonds between the proteins and the DNA.  During the day, sunlight helps to keep the bonds together, but – once darkness comes – the lithium wins out. This resets the circadian rhythm and essentially balances out the person’s awake and sleep cycle.

So cool!

That is what I am reading…what about you?  What are you reading?  What is the coolest thing you have learned lately?

PS: If you want to know why the book is named The Disappearing

Life in “Standby” Mode?

It is the second half of the school year, and I am traveling quite a bit around the state of Minnesota.  As the dean of students for an online school, my primary role is to deal with attendance issues.  Yes – we take attendance in the online setting; it just looks a bit different than in a seat-based school.  If you ever want to attend a training on it, let me know – I have connections (or I will just run a webinar for you and you alone).

This role takes me to far-off place like International Falls where I can see Canada just across the river from a gas station on my way to court.  I drive almost everywhere, and my trusty Honda Civic’s stereo is my best friend as it pumps out the tunes or a book on CD.

On a recent trip, I realized that I was in complete silence as I drove. I could not remember when or why I had I had chosen silence over noise, but I had.

I played with the volume knob a bit before I glanced over to the stereo and saw that it was indeed in “standby” mode.

Standby….waiting….

As I drove through the frozen tundra of Northern Minnesota, I realized that I was missing all of the beauty that was there for me to see.  I drove, day-dreamed, and “spaced out” – completely lost in thoughts that no longer have much bearing.  I doubt that the thinking was productive.  I doubt that the day-dreaming truly involved dreaming – by that I mean that I was not making future plans for great things in my family’s life.

I just stood by.

Well, in this case, I was sitting…and driving.

Regardless of what the position is – standing by, sitting by, laying by – life is going past us as we stand by.  Sometimes we have to wait. We wait on the Lord. We wait on other people to make decision. We wait.  But most of the time, at least in my life, I am not waiting on anyone else…I am just not being an active participant in life. 

I am letting it pass by me, allowing it to go on without much thought, and lacking much interest in how it impacts me until I am so unhappy about something that I stomp my feet and say, “Stop! This isn’t how I wanted it to be.”

But I had not taken any time to consider how I did want it to be.  I had not actively done anything to make it go differently.  So when I get to point B without realizing I had left point A, I want to blame everyone else rather than looking in the mirror.

When I live in standby mode, I am to blame for life going in certain directions.

I give life implicit permission when I do not explicitly take a daily inventory of how I want it to be.  And – if I do not take time to consult God about how He might want my life to go, I certainly cannot blame Him when it just goes poorly.

Is this happening to anyone else?  Are there some times that we let this happen more than others? Or perhaps in certain areas of our lives more than others?

I would love to hear your thoughts today in the comment section!

PS: I have a renewed sense of wanting to write in this blog; however, I think that a daily submission might be overly ambitious at the present way that life is.  I am hoping to have  a Monday-Wednesday-Friday submission routine down.  It’s March 1, and some things need to change and be re-prioritized.  I hope that this sense of ambition remains!

How are you all?

She Cooked on Vacation

I am not a cook.  I know that this sounds odd as I am an American female, a wife, and a mother, but the truth is that I am not a cook.  I, however, do like to eat.

Last month, I went on a vacation during which I had a few days to myself.  In preparation for my time alone without a car and with shopping more than a mile in either direction, I went to Trader Joe’s and bought the staples that one needs for a few days alone.

My Shopping List

• 3 bananas
• 3 apples
• 3 nectarines
• 1 red pepper
• 1 orange pepper
• 1 yellow pepper
• 1 lb chicken breasts
• 1 bottle Italian dressing
• 1 box pasta
• 1 lb asiago/romano/parmesan grated cheese

My days looked very much the same as the one before.

Breakfast: banana and apple

Snack: nectarine

Lunch or Supper is pictured above.

When I arrived at the condo on the first night, I had already eaten supper (by the way, it was a delicious fried shrimp plate at Ellen’s Harborside in Rockport, MA. Yes – I would go back again in a heartbeat!).

I put all of the chicken breasts into a container, dumped the entire bottle of Italian dressing in to the container, and put it in the fridge.  I also cut up the peppers.  Then each day – for supper or lunch depending on if I ate out (ie – walked to The Lobster Pool…click here to read about my lobster friend who I then ate.) for the other or not – I made up a plate that looks like this.  I baked the chicken in the oven at 450, flipped it every 10 minutes or so, for about half an hour.  For the last five minutes, I broiled it after covering the chicken with the grated cheese.  I baked the peppers in the oven for those last few minutes as well.

I ate well on my own – even without Chef Huz along.

What have you been cooking lately?  What do you like to eat when you go on vacation?

So Glad That They Share

In a post last week, I detailed an experience that I had with signs that kept me out of a place that I thought I really wanted to see.

No trespassing.

Private.

These are signs to keep others out when we think we have something to protect.

What if we had something really great, and we chose to share it?  Not 200 feet from a sign that kept me out were two signs, though hidden initially from my view by foliage, that welcomed me in and took me somewhere that I longed to see and that I loved to experience.

The word “public” comes from the Latin word meaning of the people.  “Public” places do not exclude for any reason…they are open to all.

I could not have dreamed that anyone, given the choice, would choose to share what I saw on this public foot path!  I am not sure if I would have shared, but I am glad that they did.  When others share, we need to respect and care for what is theirs so that we honor them for sharing what they have no need to share.  This is pure kindness.

The view in the photo above is the house protected by the “private” sign from the previous post.  Although I am sure that the view from that home is amazing, this view is also amazing.  There is actually little difference, and this is just the beginning of the marvelous along the public foot path.

There is beauty when we share.

I climbed over these rocks for hours.  I saw few people, and I had a great time.

The smell and sound of the Atlantic Ocean cannot be replicated anywhere else.

For me – they are sanity, comfort, and healing.

And there is a whole lot of fun when we share.  I really am as close to the water as this photo suggests. Behind me is a beautiful home of someone who has chosen to share.

If by weird chance someone who owns a home along this footpath is reading this post, I thank you.  Though words will never express what a gift this is, I thank you.

As I think about how impactful the “simple” act of sharing by these people was on me, I have to ask myself what I should share with others.  I doubt that I will ever have a view such as this to share with others, but – as I learned – I do have.

And what I have, I should share.

An Obstructed View

I find nothing more frustrating than having my view blocked.  To only be able to see a bit of something wonderful is quite possibly something that could me over the edge.  I remember as a child attending a MN Vikings football game and having an obstructed view ticket.  This did not bother me that much because the conversation with the women around me was much more exciting than the game in front of me.  Side note: this has nothing to do with the Vikings themselves –  though, now that I am an adult, I might have to say that was the root of the problem.

However, if this had been a University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux hockey game, I am quite sure that I would have been upset.  I love the Sioux!  And I love hockey…so missing any of that game would have been a tragedy (side note again – mostly for my son’s amusement): I realize that using tragedy in relation to a mere hockey game is an exaggeration, but I do love hockey!).

In the same way, I love the ocean, and missing any of that view makes me upset.

On my trip to the east coast a few weeks ago, I spent a few days alone in Rockport, MA.  I did a lot of walking, and I saw a lot of great views.  I also saw a lot of views through gate doors and between houses.  I found that my view was obstructed often, and that bothered me.  I like to be able to see what I love.

Sometimes the only thing to do is to move so that I get what I want.

Very often, we forget that we are the mobile ones in most scenarios.  If I wanted to see the ocean better, I just needed to move.  The ocean was not going to go anywhere, and the Blue Gate had no intention of letting me inside.  I needed to move if I had any hope of getting what I wanted – a view of something beautiful.

I realized some things as I stared through the Blue Gate and contemplated this.

• I tend to focus on the door (or something/someone who seems like a door).
• Sometimes I do not think about the fact that I am the one who needs to move in a situation or relationship.
• Quite often, I refuse to do what is necessary to move beyond a road block in a situation.
• I miss out on great things because of this.

In this particular situation, it was pretty obvious that I just needed to get moving in order to get a view of the ocean.  However, for those times when it is not so obvious, I need to consider how I can change and make a situation better.  When not-so-physical doors get in the way of great opportunities, I need to step back and consider how my “location” in a situation or relationship could change in order to bring about an excellent result.

In what way will I need to move today?  In what relationship might I need to be the one who makes a step around a barrier?  How will I focus less on the door and more on the view?

Story Street

I have always loved anything that involves a good story.  Good books, good movies, good theater, and even – when I was much younger –  good radio plays. Before you get any ideas, I am not ancient – these memories are from the 80s!  I remember that there was a radio drama that came on about once a week about a chicken-man who would save people from things. I’m pretty sure it was a spoof on super hero comics, but it was awesome.  The only thing that I really remember is when they would announce that the hero was on his way to someone in despair.  The booming voice-over would say, “Chicken (pause) man! He’s everywhere! He’s everywhere!”

We all have a story to tell…

While girls seem to have the market on the chatting, all of us have something to say.  The fact that WordPress has 374,607 of blogs with over a million posts each day says that a lot of us have something to say.  We seem to want to share our stories.  And we should! Stories are what draw us closer to one another in deep and meaningful ways.  When we open up to another person (or the world – thank you, blogosphere) with our story, we can connect on a different level than what we could before we shared.

When I found Story Street in Rockport, I was immediately challenged.

It seems that I am sharing my stories all the time through this blog.  I write when I am sad. I write when I am happy.  I write when I am angry.  I write when I feel victorious.  And I talk a lot (I am Italian…).  But am I really sharing stories?  Am I really and truly opening up and delving down beneath that shallow shelf of the “safe” stories?  And should I go any deeper?  Does my public sharing of my one-sided perspective of how my life has gone provide an accurate telling of any of the stories?

Sharing stories must be done with care.

My story may contain someone else’s story, and it may not be my place to tell that story.  When that is true, I need to take a minute and consider before I just blurt it out to the world.  This is how I attempt to move forward with my blog.  I try very hard not to share something about someone else without having received permission.  I did not do this when I shared about my own adoption.  Even though it is a great story, it has a lot of other people’s stories in it.  There is really no way to share that story without other stories being involved.  I need to get better at this.  After a year of blogging, I still struggle with this.

As I move forward, wanting to share my story, I need to keep all of this mind.  I want to be authentic.  I want to share my perspective with others.  And I want to share what I have learned so that – maybe – others can skip the lesson and go right for “what I learned.”

But if my story crosses over into your story, I want to intentional about allowing you room to approve of my use of your story.  I realize that it takes a bit of humility to ask someone’s permission before I post something.  If I do not get that permission from you, please call me out and let me know that I have crossed a line.

Lastly, I want to encourage others to share their stories.  Whether you start a blog and write every day like I have or not, your story is important.  Finding a way to share your story is important.  Others will connect with you, and you will feel blessed by their stories as well.  Sometimes we just need to listen; other times, we need to share.

A friend and fellow blogger had series called So. Many. Stories. through which she hosted the stories of others.  What a great concept!  Without totally stealing her idea (I have credited her here!!), I have been considering doing something similar.  To a certain extent, I have done this a few times when I have allowed others to share their thoughts via this blog.  As I consider how I could do that more, I ask you to consider how you could share your story either in writing or in person with others.

We all have a story to tell…

If you liked this post, you might like some of the others that have come from my vacation to the east coast:

• A Perfect Vacation
• Lobsta!
• Salt Water Taffy – Yum!
• What Do You Have?

What Do You Have?

I had been warned about signs like these before I arrived.  In fact, I have seen signs like these in the past when I have been on the east coast because there are all kinds of properties on which others are not allowed. I did not expect to react to the sign the way that I did on my recent vacation in Rockport, MA.  When I saw it for the first time, I thought that I could just let it go.  I thought that I would simply ignore it.  I thought that I could walk away and not feel anything.

But this time I was so angry…

I was not angry because the sign was there.  I was not angry that I could not do as I pleased and continue my walk in another direction with equally beautiful views.  I was not angry about what it said.  I was angry about what it implied.

Those who can put up signs such as these tend to be those who have.  They have something valuable enough to protect behind a sign such as this.  They have; therefore, they protect.  And the sign implied that I was not someone who has; therefore, I must be a have not.  And that thought made me angry.

I want to be someone who has.  I want to be a have!

As I walked along the public footpath (for those who do not have), I came to a sobering and humbling realization about myself and my reaction to this sign.

I am a have.

To say otherwise would be ridiculous when you consider the following:

• I have enough (probably too much) food to eat on a daily basis.
• I have a house that is heated to my satisfaction during the winter and cooled to my satisfaction during the summer.
• I have (and so does my husband) a job.

And the list could go on….and in considering the list, I realized that I do not want to be a have.  I want to be a have more.  It is not those who have who put up signs like this because I am a have, and I have nothing valuable enough (like a potentially AMAZING view of the Atlantic Ocean from my backyard – yes, still struggling with this!) to put up a sign that keeps people away from my valuable things.  But those who have more than I do are in that situation which is clearly shown by these types of signs.

Please do not comment that this is a normal reaction due to human nature and that it is reasonable for me to respond this way.  Sure – I’ll buy that it is normal human behavior to have what we want.  It’s called sin, and it is not reasonable at all.  It is thankless and selfish for me to consider myself a have not when I am clearly a have. 

In fact, I think – were I truly a have not and were reading this post – I would be upset with me after reading all that I have.

What I mean to say is that I need to be thankful for what I have and not to want more than what I need.  I am not condemning those who have more in this post either – please don’t hear that.  But whatever we have, we are responsible to use well.  What I have – what more I have than I need for daily use – needs to be used well.  I need to consider how best to use the resources I have.

More than that, though, I really needed this lesson in thankfulness because I am so clearly a have.

How do we stay content with what we have when we are confronted with those who seem to have more?  How do we walk away from the temptation to follow what the have mores are doing when we do not have the resources but might have the credit to do so?  How can we use what we have to better the lives of those who have not?

These were the questions that plagued me throughout my time of rest…and I hope that they continue to plague me even when I am miles away from these signs.

Salt Water Taffy–Yum!

I love one flavor of salt water taffy: peppermint.

I tolerate another: vanilla.

I believe that all other salt water taffy has been created equally: nasty.

While on my personal vacation in Rockport, MA, I happened upon Tuck’s Candies (where they make their own salt water taffy) and thought that I should check out my salt water taffy beliefs to ensure that they still held true.

They do, but I must say that Tuck’s has some of the finest peppermint salt water taffy that I have ever tasted (and that is saying a lot!!).  Yum and thank you, Tuck’s!

I also was thrilled to see that they have a window view of their salt water taffy making process.  I think that more candy shops should do this as we all want to know how they make the candy.

I realize that the photo is a bit flawed, but you get the point!

Would I buy their salt water taffy again?  Indeed – and I did go back for round two.

In case you are wondering, they do have an online store and will ship just about anywhere.  Click here to get to their website.

Happy taffy-ing!