Breakfast for Slightly Less Lazy People

Since I posted one of my mom's recipes, I now feel obligated to post one of my dad's, considering my parents make up like 50% of my readership. This recipe requires slightly more effort than mom's, but requires much less brain power, so I assume that means it evens out to be quite doable for a college student.
My dad has always LOVED cereal. He cannot live without his bowl of Grape Nuts or Granola in the morning. Recently, however, my mom's been trying to phase cereal out of our diet. It's apparently expensive, full of sugar, and has too many preservatives. Honestly, I can't complain about this latest development because now my mom COOKS homemade breakfast. Mmmmm
But my dad's usually out of the house early, and he prefers to eat cereal for breakfast. Since my mom has stopped buying as much cereal, his solution is homemade granola!
The recipe is simple: just a 1-1-1 ratio of three ingredients.

Homemade Granola
1 cup of oats
1 tablespoon of oil (We use coconut oil because it adds flavor and is healthy and there's nothing else in the house, but you can use other oils)
1 tablespoon of some sort of sugar (We used Very Dark Maple syrup, which was DELICIOUS! Honey also works, or just any generic syrup you'd put on top of pancakes)

1.) Preheat oven to 350
2.) Combine ingredients
3.) Spread on to a baking sheet, preferably one with a lip so you don't make a mess all over the kitchen
4.) Cook for 12 minutes
5.) Take out of oven.

There you have it! Oats are cheap and filling, thus a great addition to any college breakfast. Go ahead and try it out!

Breakfast for Lazy People

Did somebody say breakfast?

Breakfast has always been an important part of my day. My family is the kind of family that CANNOT live without breakfast. My childhood mornings consisted of Frosted Mini-Wheats, Cheerios, and Life, and in my high school years, I graduated to Multi-Grain Cheerios and Grape Nuts. Regardless of where we are, what time it is when we wake up, or how much we ate for dinner the day previously, my family ALWAYS eats breakfast. So when college came around and most of my friends started skipping breakfast in favor of ten extra minutes of sleep, I rebelled. I would rather sacrifice some extra snoozes for a hearty bowl of Grape Nuts, thank you very much. 

Since breakfast is such an important part of my day, I've been working on learning some breakfast recipes that are quick, easy, and fairly healthy. One of my new favorites is my mom's Oatmeal in a Jar recipe (my mom probably got it off the Internet somewhere, but whatever.  I don't think the Internet Police will prosecute me). The nice thing about this recipe is that it's so versatile. It's one of those recipes you absolutely, positively cannot mess up (thank goodness. I have enough cooking issues as it is). It requires no cooking, no baking, no mincing, and even no toasting! It's almost as easy as the "just as water" Top Ramen you were probably previously eating for breakfast. 

You could also try adding chopped nuts, sliced apples, chocolate chips, brown sugar, strawberries, raspberries, or whatever else your heart desires. Get crazy. 

Blueberry Banana Oatmeal

1/2 cup oats 

1/2 cup milk 

1/2 cup blueberries

1/3 cup sliced bananas

1 tsp vanilla 

1 tsp chia seeds (if you're feeling hippie. You can drop it if you want) 

A mason jar, or maybe just an empty spaghetti sauce jar. Or even a Styrofoam cup, that works too

1.) Put all that stuff in a jar.

2.) Put jar in Fridge overnight 

3.) Eat 

OR 

Peanut Butter Banana Oatmeal 

1/2 cup oats

1/2 cup sliced bananas

14 cup peanut butter 

1 cup milk 

1/2 tsp vanilla 

1 tsp cinnamon 

1 tbsp honey

1 tsp chia seeds 

A mason jar, or maybe just an empty spaghetti sauce jar. Or even a Styrofoam cup, that works too

1.) Insert into jar

2.) Put jar in Fridge overnight

3.) Eat 

I was going to add a picture of my creation, but the pic made my oatmeal look like so disgusting I decided against it. 

Good luck putting your ingredients in your jars! <3

Ultimate Friends

So I watched my sixth grade end-of-the-year elementary ensemble video today with my little sister. WOW. Talk about throwback! I forgot how incredibly high my voice was back then. It's a little scary. I'm surprised I never broke any glass with my squeals.

Yeah...Wow. Baby me was pretty adorable.
I'll admit, I got pretty involved in watching the video. I might've sang along. I might've yelled at the TV screen. I might've cringed at the "oohs" we were singing. And I also might've cried...
My favorite part, however, was listening to my final speech. I was chosen to give a little speech on "what ensemble means to me" during the awards ceremony of the concert (yes, I even watched that part. So sue me). I was captivated by my little whiny voice proclaiming how much an elementary singing group had meant to me. I loved recognizing the definitive Kaila flavor my writing had even then. My favorite line could've been pulled off of a page of my blog: "I met so many new friends when I went to Ensemble. Of course, Mr. Dennis is the ultimate friend, always ready to crack a joke or make us all smile."
The phrase "ultimate friend" really got me thinking about how much my teachers have meant in my life. I can still remember every single teacher I've had since Kindergarten, and I can point to where certain habits, interests, jokes, and sayings have come from.
Seriously. My teacher's voices still haunt me.
When I'm running, literally running, late for 8 am class, and I'm running past weird looks and stares, I hear Mr. Dennis's voice in my head: "Better to be thirty minutes early than one minute late".
When I'm curled up in a ball on my bed, one sentence away from giving up, and I yell at the world "I can't do this anymore!" I get slapped back into action by Mrs. Holcomb's voice telling me, "Can't is not an option". So I get up and write one more sentence, then one more paragraph, then on and on until the essay's done.
When my friends ask me, "Where's it at?", I reflexively respond with "10 cents. Don't end a sentence with a preposition", and I answer their confused looks with "it's alright, Mrs. Sweick will buy us a pizza party with the money." Sure, no one gets it, but I do.
When I hear someone mispronounce the word "potable", I smile and remember Mrs. Smith's inside joke with us about how even news casters screw up the word, but we never would.
Over and over again, I hear their voices in my head.
That's why I think my little sixth grade self was spot-on when she called Mr. D an "ultimate friend". My teachers have truly proven to be friends through the thick and thin. They have seen students instead of statistics, seen potentials instead of points, seen futures instead of failures. They are the people that make my #collegeprobs possible, for are they are the people that helped me get into college in the first place. They got me into BYU, and their voices in my head will help keep me there.
So pro tip high schoolers: be thankful for your teachers. They do more than any of us will ever know.