Giving Thanks!

This Thanksgiving I have a lot to be thankful for.  Some days though, I feel like throwing in the towel on this cooking thing getting back to teaching my dance classes full time.  Not that I will never dance again, but I am curious how deep the rabbit hole goes with my love for cooking.  The funny thing is that when I feel like giving up something happens to make me hold on just a little longer.  Well, here is a pic of some vegan Jambalaya that someone made from my recipe that was in the local paper 5 years ago.  Just when I think "who cares?", I see this from a friend on Facebook who actually made his vegetable stock from scratch and gave me a shout out on his page.  So today I am thankful for the gift of sharing great food with others. 

In concluding, I wanted to leave you all with this little story.  I've been having a few dreams lately about not giving up.  Well today I took a nap and had a dream that I was in a cooking competition.  All the other contestants were busy making love connections and partying while me and a few others were chilling in our room preparing for the next day's cook off.  As I lay in the bed I began to write a mantra for myself that if I did something wrong to take the lesson and make it better.  While writing one of the contestants came over and wanted to see what I was doing.  Without thinking about the competition, I told my fellow contestant, "Never Lose Focus!".  I know that was for me to remember and I just wanted to share that with everyone this holiday season.  No matter the good or the bad in life never loose focus of what your true gifts and blessings are.  Enjoy!

Happy Thanksgiving from Southern Vegetarian Chronicles.