I love cookies. I love baking them almost as much as I love eating them. One thing I really miss since removing gluten from my diet is a delicious peanut butter cookie. I often question why tasty gluten free treats are so hard to find. I wonder if I can find a good recipe and try to make my own gluten free peanut butter cookies. I find a recipe and get started right away. I realize after putting in EVERY other ingredient that I don’t have the molasses the recipe calls for. It is too late to try another recipe and I really have my heart set on peanut butter cookies for dessert. I’m curious if I can use almond extract instead. Did you know that a little almond extract goes a long way? I did not, but after tasting these awful cookies, I sure do now.
I hold the handmade hat in my hand and notice the cost. While I know it is worth the price tag, I also know it is not in my budget. The thought flickers; could I learn to knit? I’m curious if making my own knit hats would be more budget friendly. It just so happens that I could, and it is. I have knitted SO many hats. I am like the Oprah of knit hats now. Would you like one?
My son is a walking encyclopedia for sports facts and stats. If you want to know who won when Detroit played Green Bay in 2017 and by how much, ask Easton. I can’t say he would know for sure, but I also can’t say I’m sure he wouldn’t know. His fervor for All Things Sports grows weekly (or daily, or by the minute) which means so does his knowledge of All Things Sports. If you see him and you don’t have any sports questions you need answered, don’t you fret. He is walking around with them bouncing off the walls of his mind and is eagerly awaiting the chance to tell someone, anyone.
It is the end of the summer of 2020 and I am having a lot of anxiety about sending my kids back to school. I’m worried about how I will show up as a mom for my four year old and make sure my six year old, who has almost never used a computer and who is always moving, does his daily Zoom calls. It feels wrong for us. For me. We’ve been dipping our toes into what homeschool would look like over the summer. I have learned so much, and I want to learn more. We try Zoom/virtual learning for exactly one week in September of 2020 before committing to homeschooling. In the middle of a global pandemic I am blessed with another year to pour into my babies and learn alongside them.
Zoey has declared Mondays “Monday movie nights” in our house. This Monday we are watching Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief and Zoey asks “Am I a Demi-god or human?” I answer, “You’re a human.” She says, “But mama, God lives right here!” as she draws a circle around her heart with the tip of her pointer finger. I smile at the realization that she has faith in the Lord and that she thinks He makes her a god too. I quickly say a silent prayer that she carries the desire to know the Lord more her entire life.
I read fifteen books in the month of January. I will choose to pick up a book before turning the TV on nine times out of ten. If I want to learn more about writing, I have a stack of books for that. If I’m craving to explore in the kitchen, I flip through my collection of cookbooks. If I’m feeling overwhelmed in parenting and wondering if there is a better way to connect with my kids, I start looking for books to learn from. It isn’t just in nonfiction books either, I’m always considering the motives and actions of characters in fiction books. My belief that there is always room for growth and my desire to understand the world around me keeps my eyes glued to the open page.
Is it the chef’s hunger to understand how flavors work together that keeps them creating in the kitchen? Is it the photographer's interest in uniquely capturing a moment in time that emboldens them behind the lens? Is it the artist's investigation of colors, and textures that nurtures their art? Is it the writer’s search for meaning that welcomes them to the blank page each day? Is it curiosity that encourages the desire to engage in creativity?
Inspired by Textbook by Amy Krause Rosenthal, started in the Charmed writing workshop lead by Ashlee Gadd and Katie Blackburn. Read their takes on the prompt here and here.
15 books!! Also the Oprah of knit hats. Sign me up. This was delightful.
I could feel each of these examples of curiosity!