Tag: skills

Life Lessons: Learning to Ride a Bike

There are no lessons quite like the ones that you learn when you first ride a bike.

There are many lessons we learn throughout our life. Some of these lessons we learn the hard way: why it is not advisable to touch a hot stove. Others, we learn through watching our friends, family members or complete strangers. Then there are some that we have to live through. Experience so we can truly grasp their meaning and the lesson that is associated with it. We have all had our hearts broken but in that process, we learned to love, trust, understand, listen, and learn. However, with all the lessons we learn throughout our life, none are as important as that day when we learned how to ride a bike.

As I ran countless laps up and down the street today, pacing next to my daughter as her lime and fusha bike wobbled over the pavement, the memories of my first bike roared back. Nearly thirty years ago, my sister was the one next to me, holding onto my pink banana-seat bike telling me what to do, encouraging me along the way and also letting me experience what it felt like to meet the old dirt road we lived on. There were so many things to do and for someone so little, it was overwhelmingly scary, but empowering. The trust I gave her to keep me safe and to teach me how to ride this machine was more than I ever would give her again but you have to take that risk sometimes. In a few short hours, I went from completely relying on her to having freedom like never before. This machine could take me anywhere I wanted to go and all I had to do was peddle. That day, I was unstoppable. It is a day I hope to hold onto for the rest of my years.

Looking through a mother’s eyes, the same experience is quite different. My son had mastered the skill within a short day but my daughter has been a bit more reluctant. Her fears of me letting go overpower her actual skills that she is able to go for stretches without needing my assistance. Her eyes light up as we go together, but anxiety hits when she thinks that she is alone in this journey. As a mom, I don’t want to ever let her go. I want to relish in the fact that she needs me, even though the cold hard truth is that she doesn’t. She has the skills to ride the bike on her own, she just wants me there for that safety net; the one to grab her off the bike before she meets the road. Teaching her how to ride a bike is also teaching me how to let go. My baby is no longer a baby. She is growing into a strong, independent girl and one day I will have to let her go live her life as she deems to live it. I know I will always be there with the bandaids when she loses control, or maybe even a bottle of wine later on when she feels like her whole life crashed, but today I have learned that sometimes it is best to let them go.

As a kid, there are many lessons you learn as you master the skill of riding a bike: trust, independence, hazard avoidance, risk assessment, perseverance, and self-aid. As an adult it changes: acceptance, patience, when to hold on and when to let go, and first-aid. The moment my kids rode away from me for the first time is probably more heartwarming than the moment I rode away from my sister so many years ago. Because in that moment, I knew that no matter how many times they may fall, they now know how to get back up and ride again. All you have to do is keep peddling and you will be ok.

Advertisement

Honey, you shrunk my kitchen!

The kitchen doesn’t have to be large in order to still work efficiently and create lasting memories for your family.

The kitchen has always been my favorite room in the house. It isn’t just the place where food is stored, it is a place of memories. A place where lessons are learned, magic is created, and imagination comes to life. I have been cooking for as long as I could remember. I have never been the best when it comes to baking pies and breads; maybe that is why my waistline still likes me. However, when it comes to the savory dishes, the eclectic salads, the tantalizing side dishes… well those I am pretty good at. I love making food memories. I love the process and the delight when a creation takes place. The reward of hard work. That is why the scariest part of moving into an RV was the size of my kitchen.

In order to come to terms with the shrunken version of my favorite room, I moved in phases. The first phase was getting rid of all the nice things that have limited function, but can be replaced. Basically, anything made by Pampered Chef. I love Pampered Chef and still have a couple things, but I know how to use knives with great efficiency and I have found that over the years, it is easier to grab a knife to dice up vegetables, rather than finding that one tool specifically made for that one specific vegetable, putting it together, using it for 5 minutes and then having to disassemble it and clean it. Second phase was knowing what I needed as far as pots and pans. Having a good pan is more value than having ten. I reduced my pots and pans to six total. (You don’t want to know what I did have). I also grabbed my Ninja, my crockpot, and my electric skillet just in case I needed extra help. Finally, I had to limit the amount of mixing bowls, as well as serving dishes, tableware, wine glasses (glass breaks on the road. I now have beautiful stainless steel ones!), and anything that was “excess”.

Little did I know that was the easy part. Imagine if you will, having two children (age 4 and 7) who LOVE to help you in the kitchen. Reduce the space to a small countertop, six square feet of walking space and having everything to include the stove, oven, sink, and fridge in that same area. It gets a bit tight. You have to get a little bit creative; use other tables in the RV. You learn that since you have to do dishes by hand, one of the sink’s sections is for clean dishes and one for dirty ones. You learn to prep even hours before you are going to start cooking. Prepping is what saves your sanity.

Then there is the food. In a “normal” home, you have a huge fridge. You have a huge pantry. you have the ability to house anything and everything your heart desires. You don’t have to worry about what you put in your grocery cart as you wander the vast aisles of Whole Foods. You have the room. Now…. in an RV. Things are different. But it isn’t bad like you may think. The fridge I have is SMALL. I think it my fridge may actually be envious of college dorm refrigerators sometimes. Cupboard space is limited. We have no room for junk food. We have no room for things we don’t need. We don’t have room to waste.

The average family in America wastes over 25 pounds of food a month. We don’t have the luxury to have that food just sitting in our fridge, growing new colonies of mold. We see everything in our fridge and it all gets used. Our fridge looks like the picture perfect image of the Ketogenic Diet. It is simple, yet elegant. Meat. Cheese. Milk, Veggies. Fruits. The masterpieces you can make when you have clean, fresh food. I am still able to make those inspiring dishes. In fact, I am actually forced to make them, because now, I don’t have the room for any frozen dinners, pre-packaged food, preservatives or fillers. Just real food. I also have to be creative while doing it. No more spreading out over an entire room, using 20 dishes to create one meal. I have become more intimate with my cooking; and I love it! I also love the amount of money I save as a result! We now spend about $100 a week on food for our family of four!

The best part: my children love it too. They still get to help. They will help me prep and they are more aware of what we get when we are grocery shopping. We don’t do snack foods. I don’t go and buy the 5lb container of fish crackers anymore for snacks. Instead, they ask me if they can have a cucumber with lemon squeezed on it. They know there aren’t any gummy snacks in the cupboards so they don’t ask. Instead, they ask for grapes. It makes me realize that even though my kitchen shrunk, the memories made in the kitchen didn’t. Now, I am giving my children the knowledge, the skills, and the nutrition to set them up for success later in life so one day, they can create their own food memories.