I love cooking and baking and any boring out of the box recipe can be improved with small additions. Make brownie mix and dump M&M’s on top. It’s color livens up the brownie immensely. Any dish can be livened up taste wise or visually with small additions. You can make any recipe pop with small changes like adding pumpkin spice to pancakes, sneaking onions into your burger meat, bacon and cheese into mashed potatoes, tomatoes into fettuccine alfredo. You can make routine into something more to bring a little more joy into your life.

Life really traps you though. We have schedules to keep, bills to pay, debt to reduce, family and loved ones to take care of and general life in the way. It’s so easy to fall into routines that we can’t break and every day becomes mundane.

Before I started streaming, before this blog and before I found cooking to color my life; I felt stifled and unfulfilled. There was so much I wanted but nothing I felt I was really doing and no way out. I needed to find a way to make my normal more livable since it didn’t feel like I could make drastic changes with all my responsibilities. This was how I started finding small ways to make the mundane more colorful.

Instead of my normal ponytails and other hairstyles, I bought ribbons at the crafts store and I add them around my hair ties. It’s small but it brings a little change. Instead of my normal routine of jeans, black slacks and grey pants, I started buying some colorful skirts for work, and blouses. Updated outfit choices brought something new to my day. Putting my phone on speaker and playing some music during the dishes and not caring if my neighbors hear me singing off-key. Anytime I feel trapped I look for ways to add color or find the game in my day. I look for a way to break this routine within my means.

If you can’t afford or find the time to get out and do new things, find new things to do in your current routine. Maybe it’s something new to look at in your home or desk, ribbons in your hair or even a new toy on your dashboard. These little things can break up our routines until we can get room to breath and pay off a bill, take a vacation that isn’t just a staycation or splurge on something bigger and better than normal. The little details can be all you need for a bigger change and this life is too precious and limited to spend it without at least a little color to remind you about how wonderful this world is.