Happy Sunday, everyone!

Every Wednesday, blogging buddy Aaron over at The Confusing Middle posts a “Sunday Scribblings” prompt for other bloggers to ponder and respond to on the following Sunday. If you’re a blogger looking for more inspiration, I highly recommend jumping in and joining in on the fun!

This week’s prompt is: Peanut Butter!

In my 29 years of life, my dad has taught me several things. The two lessons that have stuck with me the most are: “never take away someone’s blessing” and how to make the most delicious breakfast bagel.

After you cut the bagel in half, smear cream cheese on one side, peanut butter on the other, then smush them together. Now you have a perfectly delicious sandwich with the delicious combination of peanut butter and cream cheese as well as a crapload of protein. Obviously, the peanut butter would ideally be crunchy. Like my chocolate preference journey from milk-to-dark, my palette has become more refined as I aged and my peanut butter preference has gone from creamy to crunchy.

When I was in college, that peanut butter and cream cheese breakfast sandwich was one of my primary meals. I didn’t really trust the food in the cafeteria (plus, my appetite was so small that I never got my money’s worth in the caf anyway), so I stuck to prepackaged foods and baked goods. I would regularly buy a bagel and some Philadelphia cream cheese and take them back with me to my dorm room so that I could make my tasty PB-and-cream-cheese meal.

Peanut butter really saved me in college, but I didn’t realize how much it would help until I was desperate…

I was in serious emotional turmoil when I first started college. I don’t handle change well, and I couldn’t help but feel like everything in my life was changing at a breakneck pace while I had no way to stop it. At that time, a reminder from home was sorely needed.

While in this depressed state, I was eating nothing at all or munching on snack foods, unable to eat full meals (and, you know, I didn’t trust the caf). Because of this, I started developing regular headaches. It took me a while to understand why I was getting these headaches, but then I remembered when something similar had happened back in middle school.

In the 8th gradel, I started getting headaches daily. They came out of nowhere — I had no idea what caused them! One day, dad asked me about my diet, and I recited everything that I had eaten in the past week.

“Renata, I didn’t hear you list anything with protein.”

And that’s how I learned that when I get deficient in protein, I get headaches. So make that 3 lessons that have really stuck with me.

Unfortunately, this one evaded me while I was on a college campus without a means of transportation. I only remembered it one night when it was late, and I was on my way back from Walmart in a college van. So I couldn’t turn around to stock up on peanut butter. Because my life.

When I finally did get my hands on some peanut butter, it became my main source of protein. Between the aforementioned sandwiches and eating it straight out of the jar when my only other meal was Goldfish (don’t judge me, it was college), my beloved peanut butter added some much needed protein to my diet. Sometimes, my aunt would even send me a care package complete with natural, fresh-made peanut butter.

My sophomore year, when I pledged my sorority, they asked us our favorite candy so that our big sisters could give us our favorites. Of course, I had to be difficult and say that my favorite candy is Reese’s NutRageous. While I haven’t and one in a while (and I would far prefer if they were dark chocolate as opposed to milk), they’re just so good.

While I’m not as obsessed with peanut butter as some people are, I do like peanut butter sweets. I ask for dark chocolate peanut butter eggs every year at Easter, and I love peanut butter Oreos (all of the chocolate-cookie deliciousness without the pointless vanilla cream). If there is a peanut butter ice cream available at our local ice cream shop, I will always get that blended with chocolate ice cream in a milkshake.

I’m not sure if you’re catching the theme. I like peanut butter and chocolate. Dark chocolate, obviously. I know, it’s earth-shattering.

I also couldn’t end this post without mentioning the time that I worked in my old office and I was digging down to the bottom of a jar of peanut butter. In fact, that’s one flaw with peanut butter — packaging. You can never get it all out of the jar!

Anyway, I’m digging down into the jar, and when I pull my hand out, I see that my favorite ring is covered in peanut butter. The design is a bit intricate, so it was impossible to get all of the peanut butter out. In a panic, I ran to the mall across the street and had the jewelry store clean it for me. This was probably my peak dedication to peanut butter.

To sum up the morals of this post: peanut butter jars are the worst, never dig down into them with jewelry on your fingers, and try bagel sandwiches with cream cheese and peanut butter. You are welcome.

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash