Happiness is your birth right

This was the message on my Yogi tea this morning and it got me thinking.

Happiness is your birth right.

Isn't it a wonderful sentiment? And isn't it true? Certainly in my belief system, we are here because we want to be here, to grow and to learn, to become the best people we can be. Our souls, our true selves, believe that we can become the best people we can be during this lifetime. Surely that includes happiness.

Happiness is your birth right.

Why is happiness so hard? Why is it so hard to hold on to? Why do so many of us question whether we deserve it, even after we've experienced it? I admit to these thoughts myself and I'm sure I'm not the only one who sometimes wonders exactly how happy I'll be allowed to be before it's taken away or before things go wrong.

Who is allowing me to be happy though? Who has the power to take happiness away?

Happiness is your birth right.

You're the only one who controls your own happiness. With your words, with your attitudes, with your actions. We are the ones who are creating our lives, either happy ones or less so.

So let's all decide to be happy, let's choose happiness and see if it follows.

Remember,

Happiness is your birth right.

I hope this positive message brightens someone's day, like it did mine.

P.S. I LOVE Yogi tea! I drink so much more of it since I discovered that each tea bag comes with a message! :-)

Weekend Cooking: Savory Muffins

One of the things I'm doing while on medical leave is cooking. I really, really like to cook and bake, but only if I have plenty of time. I hate the day-to-day quick, stressed out cooking and the constant question about what we'll have for dinner the following day and if anything needs to be prepared ahead of time. This wasn't such a problem before Shane came along, but now I find it extremely important that we have a nice meal together every evening.

Where do I get my recipes? From magazines, from blogs, from websites, from cookbooks. The blogs are the hardest to track, but ever since I found Pinterest, things have become easier.

I pinned this recipe for Savory Muffins with Sweet Potato and Feta a while ago from one of my favorite food bloggers, Alanna. She blogs at A Veggie Venture and is truly inspired when it comes to putting together healthy meals that focus on vegetables. (The photo is Alanna's, from the original post with the recipe. I was too busy eating them to think of taking a photo!)

The muffins were fabulous. I pretty much followed the recipe, except I used less green onion and subbed grated cheese for the parmesan as I didn't have any. We had the muffins with this simple carrot, sweet potato and coriander soup:

Melt 50g butter in a pot, add 500g sliced carrots, 300g diced sweet potato, 1 diced onion, toss in the butter until coated. Cover and cook gently for about 10 minutes, adding a little water if necessary. Add 1.2 liters of vegetable stock, a couple of potatoes, loads of fresh coriander and simmer for about 20 minutes or until all the vegetables are soft. Whizz and serve.

We (I mean Shane) finished all the soup in no time, but we had leftover muffins that Joe took in to work - they were a hit with his colleagues too!

Since the muffin recipe came from Pinterest, this is my first 'task' for the Pinterest challenge that Trish is running in May.

It's Monday today, but I'm also entering this post into the Weekend Cooking weekly event hosted by Beth Fish Reads.

Happy Bealtaine!

(photo credit)

Today is the first day of May, when we celebrate Spring and the uplifting energy it brings with it. The day was called Bealtaine by the ancient Celts and marked the second most important festival of the year. It was all about fertility and hope, optimism for good harvest. Bealtaine is still the Irish Gaelic word for the month of May.

I like to see it as a new beginning, which seems to be very fitting for me this year, as I struggle to figure out what my next step in life should be and when I should take it. Loads of people around the world celebrate May 1 in one way or another and many of the associated traditions (like the maypole) come from long, long ago. All that energy that accumulated through time and also the energy used today must create a perfect environment for making dreams come true.

To all of you out there who can use some positive energy to introduce change into your lives, today's the day!