When I was a little kid, maybe 7 or 8, my dad made oatmeal for all of us. It wasn’t his normal gig – mom was in the hospital with pneumonia and he was trying to feed four of us breakfast. I remember that oatmeal as being cold and grey and lumpy and awful. I haven’t eaten oatmeal since, other than those envelopes of instant that are something totally unrelated to simmering oatmeal in a pot on the stove.

This year, trying to eat healthier and noting the amount of sugar and other refined things in cold cereal, I explored overnight oats. I didn’t think I’d like them, considering my aversion to cold lumpy oatmeal, but I was surprised. I found out I enjoyed them very much, especially with agave sweetener, and other than mornings after nights when I forgot to make it before heading to bed, I ate it every day for several months.

And then we spent the summer traveling and breakfast at hotels is pretty predictable. Fake eggs, greasy bacon or sausage, cold cereal, toast. Not a lot of choices that I wanted to eat. But there was always a big pot of steamy oatmeal. And I liked the cold overnight oatmeal, right? So maybe…

Yep, it turns out I like oatmeal!

So now I’m exploring at home. The old fashioned variety which takes about 5 minutes of contemplative stirring is my favorite at the moment. There’s something so satisfying about the warm milk steaming, stirring in the oatmeal and cinnamon, maybe a tablespoon of raisins to soften. Sliding the whole thing into a bowl, adding a touch of brown sugar, some apple, maybe dried cranberries.

It’s such a peaceful way to start the day and I highly recommend trying it yourself. But those steel cut oats? Well, they’ve been taking me 45 minutes of stirring and I don’t have that much contemplation in me in the morning.

What makes you smile? Tell us about it and link it to Trent’s blog, he’ll recap the smiles on Monday. And you know it’s Mondays when we usually need a smile or two.