Happiness and Breakfast Sandwiches.

The days are long, but the years are short.

I just finished reading Gretchen Rubin's "Happiness Project."  I figured that I'd enjoy it since I enjoy her blog so much, that I should give the book a go.

How often have you thought about happiness?  Unhappiness?  What makes you happy?

Almost every morning since Laela was born, I have woken up our household with the good morning song.  It's silly, the lyrics often change, but it's our little ritual that gets our day started right (even if we're all grumbalinas, are sick, and in need of a BIG coffee.)  It usually gets a giggle or a twirl out of our daughter, and Kyle usually gets a little smile on his face before he grudgingly gets out of bed.  We sing songs and snuggle- how could the start to the day get any better than that?

I love my family.  It makes me happier than anything on the planet.  We just had our two year wedding anniversary, and since we were away for the weekend looking for an apartment in Greenville, we spent the day as a family- and it was perfect.

My point with all this happiness talk, is that life is busy.  There's a lot of hustle and bustle and insanity packed into every day- and it's not going anywhere- so appreciate that each day has these really special, remarkable moments that you'll miss if you don't take the ten seconds to appreciate them.

Ironically, this week's subject of focus on Gretchen's blog is "set aside a specific time for something that's important to you."  I almost never do that (which is why my blog has gone a bit to the wayside lately.)  I, like a lot of other parents, are busy focusing on running a household, taking care of a little one, etc.

That said, here's a super fast, super delicious, easy (and easy going) breakfast:

Breakfast Sandwich:
makes 1 sandwich
takes about 5 min.

You'll need:

• 1 egg (2 if you're super hungry)
• 1 big slice of tomato
• 1 slice cheese (I used American, Kyle prefers cheddar)
• Whole wheat English muffin
• Salt and Pepper
• Cooking spray

Directions:

• Heat your skillet to medium heat.
• Spray with cooking spray.
• Put English muffin in the toaster (I like mine super crispy, but make it however you like it)
• Crack egg(s) into skillet.
• Depending on how runny you want your egg, cook it for about 2 minutes on one side and 1 minute on the other (this should make a reasonably runny egg without any clear egg white).  Cook longer if you want a firmer yolk.
• Sprinkle a bit of salt and pepper on the egg if desired.
• You can do the cheese 2 ways.  You can just slap the piece of cheese on there while the egg finishes cooking on the raw side, or you can wait and put it on the egg after the egg has been put on the english muffin.
• After your egg and cheese are on the muffin, slice a piece of tomato, put it on the egg, close up the sandwich, and chow down!

*optional additions:

• I LOVE hot sauce, so instead of salt and pepper, I dump a lot of hot sauce on my sandwich.
• Kyle really likes chipolte hot sauce on his- with NO tomato, and extra bacon, ham, or whatever meat we have on hand.
• I've made this with salsa, chorizo and avocado.  Delicious!
• Laela likes hers with lots of ketchup.
• For make ahead meat, you can make your bacon/sausage/ham/whatever blows your hair back days before and just reheat it in the skillet with the egg(s) or in the microwave.