Kids Cooking and Cookbook Blog

This past week I’ve zeroed in on “self” and making a difference. Today I want to share with you 15 ways I believe we can help others, which will make a huge difference in the world.

I’ve been doing a series on making a difference, to spotlight Make a Difference Day on October 23.

Today I want to highlight another aspect of making a difference. This time I want to relate this to our search for happiness and how it makes a difference in our life and the lives of those we love.

People search for happiness in many places. Often times others, such as mass media, the internet, and those with whom we associate, influence us into thinking that possessions, places, or things will make us happy.

Questions here point to:

In his circle of peers, one Mukie in the book, Mukies and Their Character Building Adventures, is a different color. He and his father were the only purple Mukies in the community of brown individuals.  Can you imagine the thoughts and feelings of the single young purple Mukie among a large peer group of brown Mukies?  Or of the large brown group and the single purple one?

This story examines racial bias before it becomes a prejudice. The purple colored Mukie’s identity is first one of curiosity, then distrust, and finally indifference.

Here are questions from one of the stories in the character skills book, Listening to the Mukies and Their Character Building Adventures:

Do you think one individual can make a difference and influence a community?

How can rumors create conflict?

What are alternatives to violence and war?

Why do you think the Mukies were able to live without conflicts?

One of the characters in the book expressed the beliefs and hopes of St. Francis of Assisi in his prayer:

This will be a day of helping others and doing good deeds. Projects for helping people will be organized and recognition given for their work.

A special day for this is important but we know that doing good for others and making a difference is an ongoing effort.

The Mukies have been making a difference for many years. These children‘s fictional creatures in a character building book show kids how to live in peace and harmony with each other. They make a difference by the way they treat others.

We have a guest post today, especially for those of you with children “leaving the nest”. Read some of the recommendations given by Edina Jones, our guest blogger for today.

Are you wondering how your grown child will get along living on his or her own? He or she may be at college now or away working at a job. You remember how they depended on you; how they asked you for favors; how they could never do a thing without your help. You hope you have given them a good foundation and taught them basic skills, including how to cook. However, once your son or daughter leaves home, you start fretting about him/her.

I drove 75 miles to deliver apple cookbooks yesterday. Nebraska City, Nebraska is having an Applejack Festival this weekend, September 18-19, and Tree Adventure at Arbor Day Farm needed more books. I wanted to make sure they had them in time.

Arbor Day Farm is owned and operated by The National Arbor Day Foundation which is a non-profit educational organization dedicated to promoting tree planting and conservation throughout the United States. There are lots of signs at Arbor Day Farm to “Plant Trees”.

All summer long I have different “favorite” fruits – right now it’s cantaloupe. Although cantaloupes are available all year around, their peak growing and harvesting season is June through August. The western states are major producers but I bought a luscious one at the Farmers Market here in northern Missouri last week-end.

This is one fruit that is good for those watching their diet, or not, because it is low in calories and is a good source of Vitamin A and C, potassium and some minerals. Its sweet and juicy flavor spells summer all over. It is another food I sometimes tend to eat “over the sink”.

I once read that Julia Child said there were some foods you could eat over the sink. A peach was one of those foods. That’s why I ate a juicy peach for breakfast this morning “over the sink”.

Can you think of other foods that fall into this category?

Lee Jackson
Home and Family Living Coach
Check out my website here

I’m proud to be an American. For all our faults and shortcomings, I feel blessed to live in a country free from tyranny and persecution. I value the freedoms we hold dear. May God continue to bless America, the home of the brave and the land of the free.

Lee Jackson, CFCS
Home and family living coach