it's all in the orange juice

A few years back I had the urge to get a juicer.  You can imagine with 3 kids how one family might go through juice.  Juice can be expensive but more importantly can be unhealthy if you are unaware what is in your juice and or you are consuming too much.  Anyway, I had talked to my Mom about juicing and being the kitchen gadget guru that she is, within a week I had one.  She had ordered and shipped me one.  (Thanks, Mom!)  Unfortunately, my ambition never was great enough to actually use it, lol! (Sorry, Mom!) The juicer found it's way to the back of our cupboard and rested there.

With our recent move, the juicer resurfaced and when I came across it while unpacking those same thoughts and feelings returned.  I thought to myself "I really should make home made juice.  That would save so much money.  That would be so much cheaper.  Imagine what I could do with this juicer."  This time I kept my juicer close by and in sight that way I wouldn't forget about it.  It was on my mental to-do list.  My list is so long!

Well, it was this whole, home-made, all natural kick that brought out my urge to make fresh juice with my juicer.  It is a citrus juicer so on my grocery list I added lemons and oranges.  We finally made it to the store and I landed a bag of lemons and a bag of oranges.  Pumped!  The kids are involved at this point and can't wait to get their hands on this fruit!  We didn't get home from the store until 9:00 p.m. on Saturday so by the time we put everything away, pigged out on our new junk foods and chilled, it was late.  I was hoping the kids had forgotten about the juicing because I had grown tired from the days events.  No such luck there, Emma asked me several times so I said OK.  So there we were, with the next day approaching, in our kitchen experimenting with oranges.  Rinsed each one, cut them in half and set up the juicer.  It started off just Emma and I working on it.  Then Ella wandered through the kitchen with a "watchya doin'" approach and soon she was juicing right along with us.  Joshua hollered out to us, "Hey, can I see da orange juice?"  Then Josh joins in the fun too and teases "Mom and her big ideas."

Anyway, my point here is that it was now a family affair!  We were all captivated by the orange drops that filled our pitcher.  When it was done, we had successfully made about a quart of fresh squeezed orange juice.  We were so careful not to spill any, after all we just made this!  I poured a small cup and we passed it around and sipped it.  It was a unanimous favorite.  Wow, homemade juice!

We decided that since it was past midnight, that we would stick it in the fridge and save it for Sunday morning brunch.  Yum!  Morning rolled around and Josh made a delightful breakfast completed by our homemade orange juice.  The kids were smiling as they slurped down their juice.  A quart isn't much so split 5 ways we each got just enough to wet our whistle and fill our mouths with pure delight.  nobody complained about not getting a whole lot.  Nobody complained that there was too much pulp.  They drank it all up with enthusiasm, pride and gratitude.

We saw the process first hand.  We hand picked our oranges, used our own muscles to press the orange halves into the juicer.  We tasted it together.  We were totally aware of our juice and where it came from.  It was like the kids owned it.  Our family worked together to make something that our family needed and wanted.

So with the advancements in technology, we have lost this realism, this ownership, and more importantly this unity in home projects.  If asked a child where orange juice comes from, it is likely that they would tell you the super market.  It is also likely that children believe when the juice is gone, we buy more.  So instead of being so excited about drinking our homemade juice in the morning, people are bored with the orange juice that sits on the breakfast table every morning.  They take a couple of sips and let the rest go to waste.  We aren't thankful or even aware that someday, there could be no orange juice!

Big picture, it's not the orange juice.  It's how we live life.  It's the vibrancy we put into.  Don't take things for granted but rather rejoice in it!  We have so much!  I believe if we all had to make our own clothes, kill our own chickens and milk our own cows still that the world would be a much more peaceful and beautiful place to be.  I think that the 30 and 40 year olds have a grasp that things aren't free and people work hard and we aren't entitled to a good life but that we earn it.  I think anyone younger than that, is so far removed from reality and that we are doomed.  Try to instill this in the youth in your life.  Teach them about history and how far we have come. If your kids think that their food comes from a grocery store and that there will always be food available to us then take a minute, a week, a year, however long it takes, to teach them how it really all goes down. And ponder this "Do you think the world is better off today than it was 100 years ago?"