Things I Am Thankful For #8

I have a wandering soul.

At 8 I began traveling by myself to visit my family in Texas every summer. I soon no longer needed the assistance of flight attendants and could take care of myself. At 15 I traveled internationally by myself for the first time. My French class took a trip to France and Italy, and I left a week early to visit a French exchange student in Nantes. It was a bit nerve wracking, and I must have checked that I had all the right documents a thousand times, but I loved the experience. At 16 I studied abroad for a month in France and spent an extra week visiting above mentioned exchange student at her family home in the French countryside. Not only did I have to travel by myself, I had to take a train at 4:30 am to Paris, navigate the Parisian Metro during morning rush hour, travel to Charles de Gaulle airport, and fly home, which took multiple flights. While I was a bit nervous, my mother was always confident of my capabilities.

My mom is definitely not the overprotective kind. If anything, she practically pushes me out of the nest. But it is because she believed that I could that I was able to sprout wings and fly out of the nest. I know many of my parents’ friends will do anything to tie their children down. Parents who would not let their children who are seniors in high school ride the DC metro by themselves. This was always so bizarre to me. My mother encourages me to seize the day and take advantage of any opportunity I can. She always advocated study abroad programs in high school, and I am so glad I heeded her advice and spent a gap year in Belgium. Some of my parents’ friends thought I was crazy to spend this year before college in Hawaii. Why don’t you just stay home and go to community college here? they told me. Not my mom. I was so apprehensive before coming to Hawaii. I was unsure of my employment situation and how I would manage. My mom believed in me 110%, and her encouragement helped me persevere. She told me that worse comes to worse, I enjoy a month or two in Hawaii, and then I can always come home. Nothing lost. She taught me that life is a journey. Maybe it isn’t always the adventure you expected, but there is still so much to gain by taking risks.

I am thankful that my mom imbibed me with a sense of adventure. Thank you, mom!

Today I had a little adventure in the kitchen. Inspired by the hungry hippie, I purchased sweet brown rice in the bulk bins at a local health food store. I read that it is referred to as mochi and that the sweet, glutinous rice is often used in desserts. I love sticky rice and eagerly cooked a pot of rice. It was certainly glutinous, but it didn’t have the sweet flavor I anticipated. I think I expected a bit too much, as I love mochi, so the disappointment may have been inevitable.

I topped my sweet brown rice with carrot soup infused with ginger, as Elise did.

And like Elise, I mixed it all together.

Would I buy sweet brown rice again? Maybe. Honestly, I didn’t think it was sooo much better than regular brown rice, so long as you don’t cook the rice with the grains separated (and who would want to do that, really?) Sometimes adventures don’t turn out the way you thought. But I tried something new, and it was fun! That’s what really counts, in the end.

Are your parents overprotective or overbearing? How do they react when you embark on your own adventures?

PS: Check out Holly’s blog for some an awesome protein powder giveaway–always great to support small companies!