Peppery Lemon Chicken Quinoa Soup

We have the best of intentions for our family and bodies this year so I’m going to do my best to share with you a few of my tried and true go-to healthy meals made from real ingredients. I’ll leave the complicated recipes for other bloggers because frankly, it’s too much typing and explaining. The online world can be really overwhelming flooding you with entirely too many options. There are countless food and cooking blogs, seemingly infinite amount of options on Pinterest, and too many cook books on my shelf. Some days I stare at the wall two hours before dinner time and want to cry. I want to give my family a healthy meal but I also don't want to end my day crying in the fetal position because I'm tired and stressed. So if I may, let me introduce you to one of my family's stress-free go-to recipes that we have recently adopted and adapted. Saying the name takes longer than making it (almost).

Peppery Lemon Chicken Quinoa Soup 

1 yellow onion diced
3 cloves garlic minced
4 celery stalks chopped
4 large carrots peeled and chopped
1-2 Chicken breasts (or left over chicken) Shredded
1/2 cup dried quinioa
6 cups Chicken broth
1 Tbsp dried or fresh parsley
1 medium lemon (zest and juice) around 4 teaspoons juice
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Cook your chicken with salt and pepper and set aside
2. In a large pot saute onion in olive oil on medium to medium-high heat until translucent, about 4-5 minutes
3. Add garlic, celery, carrots and sauté for another 3 minutes
4. Add chicken broth and quinoa. Bring it to a boil then put a lid on the pot and lower heat to low to simmer for 20 minutes stirring occasionally. (If you have precooked or leftover chicken, add it at this point)
5. Add your shredded chicken, zest and juice of a whole lemon and parsley. Add salt and pepper to taste. I go heavy on the pepper to add a little zip to the flavor. And Viola!

This soup is light but also warm and satifying. Healthy. Easy ingredients. Simple and versatile. You can easily add your family’s favorite herbs and spices. Add mushrooms or your favorite vegetable. You can switch the quinoa to brown rice or small pasta. You can use shrimp instead of chicken. You can make it vegan by omitting the meat and using veggie broth. Top it with green onions or chives. It really is something that can be made on a whim when your brain just can't. If you’re new to cooking for yourself, learn how to make this and you’ll survive all winter. This is a great meal to impress your mother-in-law that you just found out decided to pop-over for dinner. Friend, I've got you! We almost always have a variation of these ingredients on hand so it's a no-brainer. Start to finish you can make this in 45 minutes or less if you have leftover chicken. I hope it serves you and your family well. Enjoy!

I come from a mixed bag of food traditions. I don’t come from a line of professional cooks but I do come from people who really love their families and love them through food and meals together. My mother was the main cook in my home growing up. She grew up as a preacher’s kid and was one of 6 children. Their budget was tight and menu quite midwestern. This means there was a lot of casseroles and simple meals to make the food stretch. My mom also had to learn how to cook for many mouths and my father who was a meat and potatoes man from Ohio. By the time I lived on my own, I shared an apartment with one of my best friends. Thankfully we shared a love and curiosity of food and cooking. We loved watching cooking shows and experimenting with new recipes. We made a lot of food and a lot of cooking mistakes as we learned. She became a bad as nutritionist and I became this (insert awkward wave and grin). My husband is Albanian and grew up durning a time in his country where food was rationed and very limited. Everything my mother-in-law made was from scratch and centered around vegetable with very little meat. I’ve watched her carefully because I love to learn but also because, like tradition stands, I love others through food. So this is me and where I come from. I love food. I love good food. I love the connections made sitting around a table. So, let's make some food together and make the world better but loving our people with real food. As Michael Pollen says, "Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Amen! Let's figure this out together and nourish our souls as well as our bodies.

Mother Teresa and Charlottesville: How to Change the World

 I woke up this morning with an emotional hangover from a heavy weekend learning of the news from Charlottesville, VA. Longing for healing and a better world for our families. Overwhelmed by so much that is wrong with humanity. I laid awake in my bed thinking about how I want to make a difference. I want to change things. I want to rip the anger and hatred out of our culture. Then I remembered reading a quote by the inspirational Mother Teresa, "The way you help heal the world is that you start with your own family." My second thought was, "that's great but, it's not enough." Then the wise voice that I sometimes hear in my head said, "today it is." Groggy from the weekend I pulled myself out of bed and began to make muffins in the quiet kitchen. Half the lights off and only the hum of my oven and the inner thoughts of my meditation playing the soundtrack to the scene. I can't change the world for everyone but I can change the world for my few so that we can change the world for many. I can plant the seeds of love and set the examples of inclusion and acceptance. I teach them how different is beautiful, not threatening. I can show them how there is much to learn from each other. I can allow space for differences at my kitchen table for all those that we are honored to share it with. I can tutor kids in my neighborhood. I can be a comforting voice amidst all the yelling. I can give water to workers outside my house. I can respect everyone from the homeless man to the C.E.O., everyone from the Trump supporters to Trump haters. I can give friends a safe space to be themselves. I can listen. I can love. "If you want to bring happiness to the whole world, go home and love your family." she said. So, today I am talking to my big boy about how not all kids get treated the same by some people and how that's not ok by us. "Gorenca's look after each other and stand up for those mistreated and unheard. We use our privilege for good. Never harm." I tell him, "I love you and you are so so so special but you are also no more special than anyone else. We are all in this together, even when it's hard."

She also says, "The problem with our world is that we draw the circle of our family too small." I am fortunate to read that quote and it feel like home. My family lived this. It seems like our home was shared more often than it wasn't. My family consistently reached beyond themselves and welcomed anyone and everyone into it's safe space. Even into adulthood with our individual beliefs, we all are welcoming to whomever may show up at a family meal or event. All of this got me to thinking about the people in the pictures all over the news this past weekend. All the people who looked so ugly from anger and hate. All the people who felt the need to protest people not causes. I mashed the bananas knowing I was making something healthy for my family because I love them and I want them to know that. Then when I poured the bananas into the mixture I wondered about the home life of many of those young men and what jaded them. What happened to them to cause this rage? What happened to their parents to cause these lessons to be taught to them? Even those people are humans who are products of their experiences just like you and me.  However limited or vast those experiences may be. We cannot chance someone's past but we can show them a new future. Even though I know it's unlikely that any of them will ever stubble upon my blog  and even more unlikely that they will read this far into my post, I want to say something to them. It's not too late. You may have done terrible things. Terrible things may have been done to you. You may have been taught hatred and lies but there is another way. Your life matters. You count. You are special. But remember, you are no more special than the person you hate. It's hard to break away from what you know and the people who have accepted you into their circle but it's possible to live another way. There are many people who have room at their table for you. We have room for you. You are not your past. There is hope for you. There is hope for this country. Together we are strongest.

Friends, remember that LOVE WINS. Even on days like what we have just witnessed, love is a stronger power than hate. Roll up your sleeves, take a deep breath and remember that we can do hard things. Let's carry on with love.

Travel: a dance with the Divine

Every night I pray for my boys and ask that they may have beauty for their eyes. Yet, I had found myself losing the meaning of those words. They became merely well intending words. The last several days have reminded me what beauty rest actually is and the absolute power of beauty. Upon walking up to the edge of a cliff off of Route 101 in Oregon I found myself in a silent dance with the Divine. It offered it's hand to me and asked my soul onto the dance floor. I watched the silence and the spirit in me being twirled and dipped  and carried away with the waves as I watched them crash against the shoreline. It was if my body was in a trance. It's the same feeling I have when I watch my boys with a stupid grin and immeasurable pride as they take the risks involved in their big little life. Like the first time he let go of my hand and said, "Mommy, I'd like to go ask those kids to play with me." It's so simple but it's everything. My heart broke because he had grown beyond me but it leaped and grew to ten times the size because he's now his own. After the moments that felt like days, my spirit bowed in gratitude at the chance to dance with the divine and join my body once again. It was as though I had never taken a deep breath until now. It now felt like someone had tied balloons to my feet and I was a lifetime of sorrow less. It had been so long since I had experienced the kind of beauty that says to your spirit, "It's ok. You can rest here." The very kind I have prayed for my children all these years. I was renewed and baptized in the beauty given to us if only we allow ourself the chance.

To my husband I say thank you. May I love you deeper and better. May I give you love from the top of the barrel where it is rich and flavorful. Thank you for seeing me and giving me the chance to become new again. I pray the same chances for you.

To my trip companion, Amy, I am immensely grateful for the worlds of silence, deep conversations and experiences that we allowed to flow between us. Yours is a friendship that has never left me to the lions. You've been a hand to pull me out of the den. I am certain that if unable to pull me out, you would climb in with me, lock arms and stare down the lions together. You're my soul sister. Soul sister. Go on, get that gold, sister.

To my children; my boys, my heart, I cannot wait to smell your heads and kiss your tiny little candy lips. You are my life's song. Thank you for understanding that I'm a better composer when I am full of fresh notes and melodies that only experience and beauty can afford me. May we never lose the music and dance together every chance we get. Don't forget that sometimes the beauty you need is waiting for you in your breath, behind your eyelids, inside yourself. Write your own songs. May all the nexts be more beautiful than the lasts.

For the rest of you, I say do whatever it takes to find your song. There are times in life when we must give voice to the silence inside us. To allow the space between our thoughts a chance at the dance floor. Give it the microphone and listen to it with clumsy purpose. The silence inside you will sing you a song like a siren sings to the ships at sea. You catch a note of the melody and you're drawn in to the chorus with a longing to feel it move you, flow through you, become you. There is an artist inside all of us. We long for a chance to make something beautiful from the life we have. So do it. Life is but a breath.

This one took me 6 years, may the next not be so far away.

"We travel not to escape life, but that life not escape us."

A faith evolution

I was catching up on some podcasts this morning and Elizabeth Gilbert and Glennon Doyle Melton were talking on the Big Magic podcast about showing up before you're ready. Liz shared a couple of quotes that just floored me. First was John Steinbeck saying "And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good." Which left me with the feeling like I could suddenly breathe deeply. Like swimming to the surface after a deep dive in he pool. THEN she moved on and shared a quote from her friend and Rob Bell's wife, Kristen Bell where she said, " I am so tired of being good. Now all I want is to be free." And I stopped what I was doing, paused the podcast and allowed those words to flow through me, fall on top of me, wrap me up and then I felt like I could fly. "Yes! Yes, my ladies! That's it! Just yes."

I have been going through a rebirth for a while. An uncovering. A digging deeper stage of faith. I decided to stop going to church in January. I recently moved to Texas and spent the first two months of my move looking for a church. However, it was right after the election and I saw each church I visited ignoring what was happening to our country and "the least of these' and I couldn't stomach it anymore. My mother is probably panicking somewhere afraid that I haven't lost my faith. I've always been just a tinge rebellious but I like to think of it as a little bit brave. I am finding my faith. It is living and breathing in me like nothing before ever has. It is showing me this depth and generosity and freedom that is hard to find words for. I am seeing everything in this glorious and spiritual light. It's like I had been walking though life, living by the irredecent light of the room and then suddenly someone opened up the windows and doors and the sun light came flooding in. This light is so much brighter and warmer and the breeze is on my face and the air is fresh and it fills my lungs and runs through my blood.  I went from growing up in a religion that was confining and defining. It told me how to be, what to say, where to spend my money all in order to "serve the Lord." Yet I found myself feeling that I need those things to be accepted by others and acceptable to God. It wasn't all Negative Nancy though. I walk away from that knowing that I am better for it. I have mastered those classes and I have graduated. I've spent my 10,000 hours getting a degree, been in countless bible studies, going on mission trips and to church camp, and been a youth group leader. I was taught so many beautiful things and ways of being that have made me who I am. I've met the best people and shared a lot of genuine heart through that time. Without that faith and those lessons and those people I would have been lost many times over. Yet here I am now, 32 years old and finding that I have outgrown those lessons. Every time I showed up for church or a Bible study it was kind of like, "well, yeah, I've heard that a thousand times. Isn't there more?" I kept feeling, "been there and done that." For a while I was bitter at the church I had grown up in. Especially with how the church at large treated the latest election. Too afraid to offend or pick a side. But now I look at all that like elementary school. It's hard to learn algebra if you haven't mastered basic arithmetic. So, like I believe we were made to do, I have continued to learn and grow and now I'm starting middle school. With sweaty palms and pimples, I'm showing up to whatever it is that's next. I can tell you one thing though, God is so much bigger and more generous than I had ever been able to fathom at an elementary level.

Here I am. I've said enough with being perfect. Now let me know Your freedom and the depths of Your beauty.

For My Sisters Who March and Those That Won't, I Love You.

What does it mean for your identity to be in Christ? Does it mean that you look to Him for peace, love, validation, guidance, comfort and acceptance? Or, does it mean you look to the person sitting next to you at church for peace, love, validation, guidance, acceptance and comfort? As a young girl with an inherited belief in God I understood it to be the first, an internal relationship with Jesus that led my external actions. However, that's not the way I lived it. I looked at my peers, my parents, and my camp counselors for acceptance. Because my identity was so deeply "in Christ" I had not developed a sense of self outside of the church. I felt that without the acceptance of the church I was nothing. If I wasn't the first one at church events to help set-up and the last to leave, I was failing. If I didn't get camper of the week and memorize the most scripture, I was nothing. If I wasn't shunning my friends for cursing, drinking and smoking pot, I was nothing. I wore the "persecution" badge with honor.  Afterall, I am NOT ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ even it means losing popularity points with outsiders. I felt I couldn't be weak because if I was, what was I? Probably a sinner. The church didn't really like sinners. At least, that's what the mathematics of human behavior lead me to believe. It wasn't until later in my life when a friend whom I looked up to said the simple words "You don't have to believe in God for me to love you" did I even realize what I was doing. It was that moment that my whole world and understanding of the world up to that point completely shattered. "Wait, so I could not believe in God and you would still welcome me into your home? You would still be my friend? You would still accept me? I would still have value?" That was the very first time I saw genuine, no-strings-attached face of God and felt His freedom and let me tell you,  it shook me to my core. It took me weeks to totally understand what those 12 words actually meant to me. When you have spent your entire life wearing rose colored glasses and then someone takes them off for you, EVERYTHING is different. Things become more clear, more pure, and so much more beautiful. Things I "knew" to be true, understandings I had of the world were now different. What I had to do from that point was rebuild myself one block at a time. Each of those blocks was a value, a belief or an understanding. I would hold each block in my hand, examine it and decide if it was a block worth standing on or if it was only an illusion to begin with. Everything I believed about God was prayed over, studied, and examined in my heart and spirit. I took away much of the easy and added the meaningful. This is not to say the church isn't a beautiful place full of genuine and loving people. This is me saying, this happened to me.

This brings me to the Women's March and Facebook. Oh for pete's sake, Facebook! The bain of our current culture! The women's moment of 2017 is so much more than many even can understand. I consider myself to be a fairly intelligent person (aside from the grammatical areana). However, even I cannot understand fully what this march really means for our culture and the world going forward. I can tell you this though, it's important. Women, of all colors and economic backgrounds, are still treated as less in many many ways.

I am an educated white woman raised in a peaceful and grounded home. I was always treated as though I was a person of fairly equal value. I married a man who believes that I am smart and have value inside and outside of our home. I have an understanding and ability to teach my sons that they are equal to not better than women. I am privileged. I know that. In many ways that was handed to me but also in some ways I had to fight for it. Where I grew up I can recount dozens of stories where I was led to believe that my opinion didn't count. I was a woman, I should just shut up and leave the heavy lifting of intellectual matters to the men. I got jobs in the Christian world where I was paid less and told "we look at this job as your Christian service" yet I knew that the men doing the same "sacrifice of Christian service" got paid more than me and were often heard more than me too. I sat at the same table at meetings and heard my ideas and opionions ignored until a man said it. I heard my solutions to issues at hand mocked even when in the end they were the right ones. Even a couple of months ago I had a realitor show up for a meeting and completely and unapologetically dismiss me because my husband wasn't there to "understand the important matters." I was told I was a slut when a married man repeatedly made moves on me. Not him. No, he was "hurting and a bit lost." I was told by someone I considered to be a good friend that I would never have a happy marriage because I'm too bold and my confidence was intimidating to Christian men. What he meant was be smaller. Say less. BE less.

Truth be told, I don't even know the half of it. However, the beautiful thing about empathy is that I don't have to have gone through it to have it move me. I have seen my sisters, my friends, raised in poverty of various sorts told they were only as good as the services they provide men or their community. They were not given the opportunities or a belief in their abilities. If you don't understand what I'm talking about, perhaps you should consider yourself very very very blessed. Take a deep breath. Thank God for knowing what its like to be valued and then go meet someone outside of your circle and get to know them. I guarantee you'll be enlightened to the suffering of others.

I saw on Facebook how many of my Christian sisters were annoyed because of the "tantrums" of Liberal women. "Just being plain disrespectful." I saw someone say they would gladly revoke their woman card if it meant not killing unborn babies. I saw many posts about how despicable it was for christians to be a part of this stance. Friends, sisters, fellow followers of Christ, THIS IS BIGGER than one issue. If you can agree that women are treated as less but refuse to stand with movement because it's against your religious views to support abortion then I'm afraid you're missing the point. Yes, abortion is a matter of the movement of women wanting the ultimate say over their own bodies but it's not the only one. I do not support abortion but that does not mean that I will not stand for my sisters in other ways that ALSO matter. Stand with us. Hold our hands as we raise women who know their power and strength. Help us eliminate culture's need for abortion. I mean, if that's the cross you are willing to die on, then make it count. I can guarantee that you were not in 100% agreement with everything your candidate stood for, no matter who you voted for. We are a people made up of so much complexity and beauty. Nothing is black and white.  Life is not a single issue ballot. You saying that you don't support the march is a bit like looking broken hearted women in the eye and saying, God probably loves you. Friend, maybe you're just not there yet. Maybe you're still afraid of what your pastor might think of you if you stand with us. Maybe you're worried that your family will look down on you because of it. I'm telling you as your sister, that it's okay.  I'll march for you until you can march for you too. I don't judge you. I'm not mad at you. I love you.

Frankly, I know this will be unpopular. I have the minority voice in my own family. That's okay with me though. I see this as a matter of understanding. I don't believe that there are women out there disputing another woman's value. I do however feel that we're not making the effort to look one another in the eye and say, tell me your pain, and let me carry your struggle too. Because I know that a stronger you is a stronger us.

Please know that I'm not trying to cause argument or disdain. I am trying to shine a light and encourage understanding. It is only in the empathy that comes from understanding will we ever move forward. I love God. I love Jesus. I love the church. I love my family. I love my sisters. I love my brothers. I love the stranger, the other. I know that what's best for my community is what's best for my family. Because when we're doing good and looking at the other to understand, how could that ever be wrong?

The Horrible Nature of Public Tragedy.

When I first moved to Cincinnati I was working at Starbucks. Every morning around 7:10 am there was a regular who would come through the drive-thru. I nicknamed her Chatty Cathy because she was very opinionated and liked to gossip about the daily news. She was often funny and I enjoy our brief chats. However, this one particular morning she spouted off about "the terrible mother" who left her 1 year old baby girl in her car. That baby girl died. Chatty Cathy continued about how that mother should go to jail for what she did and that some people just shouldn't be parents, etc. Yada yada yada. I felt a fire rage up inside of me and my eyes started to tear up. In a split second I knew that if I said what I was about to say that I would probably be fired. It didn't matter to me. I had to stand up for her. While I don't remember the exact words I spouted off it was something along the lines of, "Cathy, please stop. Please stop saying such awful things about someone and something you don't know. That terrible mother that you speak of is a dear friend of my mother's. I was up half the night comforting and grieving with my mother. This is above all a horrible, terrible, unbearable tragedy. That woman was a better mother to that baby girl than many children could ever dream of. Do you not think she has paid the ultimate price for this? She will wake up tomorrow knowing that her baby girl will not be there and spend the rest of her life blaming herself. Isn't that awful enough?" She paused and stared at me with wide eyes before she looked away. Just when I was expecting her to ask for my boss, she hung her head and apologized.

You see, even before I was a mother, even before I came home to find my mom sobbing in the kitchen that day, hearing this story was like a dagger piercing my heart. I visualized how it must have felt seeing your child like that. I hugged my mom and we cried together. What a horrific thing to have happened.

I felt the very same way when I learned of the events Saturday May 28th at the Cincinnati Zoo when a boy slipped away and his 4-year-old-fearless-curiosity led him to fall 15 ft. into the Gorilla enclosure. A happy day out at the zoo turned into a nightmare in a matter of seconds. While I don't know this family, I don't need to to imagine the heart wrenching events of those moments. Social media has made it so easy for people to let their imaginations fill in the blanks and assume the mother was off painting her nails or writing up her grocery list in the back corner while she let her 4 year old run free. I'm sorry, have you ever been to the zoo on a Saturday?  It's crazy!

When I saw this news on Facebook less than an hour after it happened the story said the Gorilla was only tranquilized and people were already commenting about how terrible it is to let your child out of your sight and how neglectful and how charges should be pressed. Then when the news said that the endangered Gorilla had been killed I saw comments like, "the zoo should sue the family."

What if it were you? You hold your camera up to take a picture for 3 seconds then you look down and your son, nephew or grandson is gone. Panic mode sets in. Your heart races. Your eyes go over every inch of view. Usually they are three feet away looking at a bug on the ground or something of the sort. But today, it's not three feet. It's not a bug. This could have happened to me a hundred different ways and a hundred different times. I have a very curious, fearless and adventurous 4 year old boy myself. What if, instead of coming home after a long day at the zoo I ended up shaken at the hospital thanking my lucky stars that the 15 ft fall alone didn't kill my baby or that he didn't drown or much much worse. What if, when I took my baby home from the hospital there were reporters standing outside my door asking questions that are already haunting me? What it every time I turned on the tv or got on my computer people were saying awful things about me? People who don't know me saying I never should have been a mother in the first place? A simple day at the zoo went from 0-100 in 3 seconds flat. This should never have happened. Absolutely. But it did. A huge accident with a tragic outcome.

I saw on Facebook just now that a petition to hold the family accountable for the death of Harambe the Gorilla had gotten 10,000 signatures before 5 pm. I love animals. I always have. It's a trait my father shared with us as children. His pets saved his life and were his only friends for many years as a sick child. I love animals. The first time I went to the zoo I couldn't bare it. I cried seeing the animals in cages wanting them to be free. The same feeling overwhelmed me as an adult visiting the zoo. I am deeply sorrowful over this Gorilla's life being taken. I know his zoo family loved him deeply. Not only that but our planet lost one of it's few of his kind. It's tragic. Heartbreakingly tragic. This mother did not wake up yesterday planning for this to happen. Yet it did. This was an accident. I beg of you, don't sign the petition. Put yourself in the family's shoes. I'm sure they are embaraced, heartbroken, scared, shaken up. This will be a nightmare they have for the rest of their lives. Have compassion. Be kind. Let the zoo leadership and the family work it out.

I don't know if this family was from Cincinnati or if they were out-of-towners visiting our gorgeous and beloved zoo. However, if they are from our fair city it's all the worse for the things we are saying. They are one of us. They could be our neighbors, friend from work, a mom we've gone on play dates with, a family from our school. They are ours. Instead of aiming our hurtful words against them let us wrap our healing arms around them and our city's zoo family and say, "This was awful. We grieve with you. How can we make this city safer for our families and our animals? How can we help?" Is that not the kind of city/world you want to live in? Social media is dangerous and I hope none of us have our heartbreak laid out for all to judge and comment on. Remember, your words matter whether they come from your lips or your fingertips. Don't be a bully, be a friend. Isn't that what we would ask for?


Remember, "You know nothin', Jon Snow."

To Pee or Not to Pee.

My father is not a super hero per say. However, the lessons he taught me growing up may very well have saved my life on many occasions. In my 31 years of international travel, road tripping, and adventuring alone I have felt that my well-being was threatened a hand-full of times. However, because my father taught me to always be aware of my surroundings I was able to get out of those situations in one piece. I might have escaped feeling frazzled and frightened but I escaped them. I go into new situations with curiosity and awareness. I never go into them with fear. My dad didn't teach me fear he taught me to use my head. Fear, while necessary, at times prevents us from experiencing beautiful possibilities. I could tell you very specific stories and perhaps I will one day but for right now hear this; In my 31 years of life I have never felt threatened in a public restroom. Every single time I was afraid for good reason it was in public, often in broad daylight. You have every right to be protective over your family, especially your little ones. However, may I suggest you be your child's super hero by teaching them to live their lives with eyes wide open full of curiosity and wisdom. Not fear. Fear breeds and multiplies. Fear often causes hurt.

May I also say that it's not the transgender individuals we fear. It's the bad guys. We fear perverts, rapist and kidnappers. I hate to say it, friends, they come in all shapes and genders. There is no possible way to protect your loved ones 100% of the time. I am very careful of strangers around my children. That's not being afraid that's just not being dumb. I listen to my spirit (or gut) and I don't do stupid things.

I have never been in a public restroom in this country that was guarded with security. There has never been an I.D. check to get in. ANYONE could walk into a restroom now... today... all of the yesterdays. Again I say, I have never been threatened in a public restroom. There have been times I have thought they were sketchy and listened to my spirit say, "eh, maybe wait until someone else is walking in too." And I did. And I was fine. Thirty-one years of peeing and I'm just fine. I can also remember when a man walked out of a stall while I was washing my hands and we both laughed because he realized his mistake. Don't be afraid. Be kind and be smart. If it's sketchy go with a friend and don't let your children go in alone if at all possible.

The greatest lesson I have come to understand in my adult life is that when I am verbally attacked, made fun of or mocked I know it's much less about me than it is about them. So, my dear transgender friends, I'm sorry that you are being targeted for this current argument. It's not about you. It's about fear. You are not monsters. You are not "bad guys" for wanting to use the restroom with people you feel most comfortable being around. I'd rather you be in the stall next to me and my children than to be outcast and made to feel alone. You are welcome in my bathroom. You are also welcome at my table. Come let's eat together and share stories of love and joy and things that matter. You matter. You are loved.