Homemade Tortilla Chips

 Have you ever made your own tortilla chips?  They're actually so easy to make and so good!

Fresh tortilla chips resting on paper towels.

All you need is some kind of oil for deep frying...I use beef tallow...and corn tortillas.  After that you'll need a candy thermometer, a pan, and something to get the hot chips out of the hot oil.  (If you have a deep fryer, that is even that much easier.)

Pulling a batch of tortilla chips out of the oil.

Cut your tortilla chips into six pieces (like a small pizza).  Then heat the oil in the pan to the "deep fry" temperature on your candy thermometer and put some tortilla pieces into the oil.  Then you let the pieces cook to the desired color and pull them out of the oil, and let them rest on something that will absorb the grease like some paper towels or a brown paper bag.  Salt and eat!  That's it!  So easy and so good!

(If you use beef tallow, you can reuse the melted tallow--just let it cool a bit and put it in a glass container and store in the refrigerator until the next time!)

Love Where You Are Right Now

 One of the greatest lessons I've learned over the years is to figure out how to love where you are right now, even while acknowledging all of the imperfections in your life.  Look, I freely acknowledge that I am wired to be an optimist, but still, it takes practice to see the ways in which your life is good, even as you're wondering how you're going to pay your bills this month or worrying about the decisions your adult child is making or the bigger questions like, will you ever get out of your apartment and buy a house or should you make a career change.  (In case you're wondering, for us getting out of an apartment and into a house took a LONG time!)  Daily life can beat you down and loving where you are despite the pressure, is challenging at first.  It's a muscle you have to flex regularly, so you can default to looking for the positives in life when they're hidden under layers of burden and true concerns.

In my previous life, I had a boss who told me that she always asked herself, "If this is as good as it will get, how good can I make this?" And that question and the sentiment that arises out of it has stuck with me all of these years.  I have incorporated that way of thinking into everything I do.  This doesn't mean you're not striving to accomplish some big goals, but rather, that you look at your "right now" through a lense of appreciation and with your attention directed towards optimizing your current situation.  After years of living this way, I have come to believe that this recognition of the many ways our lives are currently good paves the way for us to see opportunity when it comes our way.  

Using our own life as an example. as I stated previously, it took Superman and me a long time to move from our apartment to a house.  We had already had two of our three children and we had been together almost ten years.  But that didn't mean I wasn't trying to make our apartment home as lovely and warm and welcoming and efficient for a family of four as possible.  I wasn't waiting until I "had a house" before I "made a home" for our family.  I also wasn't waiting until I could be a SAHM before I did these things.  Nope.  I was working long days with a brutal commute and I still felt fortunate.  I felt fortunate that we had an apartment that opened onto a grassy area for our boys to play, that we had apartment managers who looked out for us, that we had two bathrooms (seriously--so great!!) and two parking spaces.  There were so many lovely things about our apartment life and I look back upon that time with great fondness.  We weren't waiting for a house to start our real lives.  We were making the best of where we were then, even as we were working towards the next big thing.

Put another way:  If you're always looking to tomorrow to start your "good" life, you're never going to see the power you have to make the life you have now a good one.  You have to look around and be able to say, "I like 'this' about my life."   When you've acknowledged all of the aspects of your life that you DO like, then you can turn your attention to the things that you DON'T like from a perspective of opportunity.  You have to take a moment to stop and appreciate what you have accomplished thus far and really recognize those legitimate accomplishments.   Only then, will you be able to turn your attention to those aspects of your life that are next in line for action.   There will always be work to be done, improvements that can be made, and that is okay.  What's important is to balance that reality with appreciation for the moment you're in right now.

Look at this picture...isn't the sunset gorgeous?  If I'd stayed focused on the chore of shoveling the driveway yet again, I wouldn't have looked up and seen this gorgeous post-snow sky.  Of course, my photo doesn't do it justice, but trust me, it was stunning.  We're so lucky that the proposed construction in the field behind us continues to be delayed, keeping our view so beautiful.  (It's been proposed for the 17 years we've lived here...I'd say we've been more than lucky!!)  But look a little more closely.  Do you see it?  One of my dogs was so happy to be outside after the snow stopped, he had the zoomies and made an exuberant loop-the-loop pattern in the snow and circled the firepit chairs numerous times.  How can you do anything but smile when you see that manifestation of joy so clearly there?  Anyway, snow is forecast for the entire week and there is no doubt I'll soon be grumbling about shoveling that driveway AGAIN, but this beautiful moment reminded me of how much I love where I live.

Bottom Line:  That saying "life is what you "make" of it" doesn't just refer to what you're doing, it refers to what you're thinking about what you're doing and "life" is right now, not tomorrow.