This silky broccoli cheeze soup is kid-friendly and is perfect for those who are lactose intolerant.

When this post is up, Leung and I will be trekking down the mountain from our annual winter camping trip, probably craving a hearty soup like this one. It’s currently 10:07pm and I’ve just (sort of) finished packing for tomorrow! My backpack is stacking up to be bigger than me; thick fleece really takes up a lot of space. As for the things I haven’t packed, I just need to remember to pack them in after using them tomorrow. Let’s just hope the bristles of my toothbrush won’t freeze up cause my toothbrush will still be wet when i put it in my bag. Last year, my whole water bottle froze while hiking up, and this year I bet will be no different. But that’s just all part of the experience!

This year, we managed to book the Elfin shelter to stay in, which is a relief because tomorrow will be one heck of a snowy day. We have been warned that there’s a snowfall warning in effect as of tomorrow morning, so we definitely picked the perfect day for a very frosty trip. Hopefully, it will clear up the next morning (the morning you are reading this) so we will be able to watch the most breathtaking sunrise in accompany with our panoramic mountain views! I can’t wait to just breathe in all that really good mountain medicine.

If just hearing about camping in the snow makes you feel a little chilly, you can make yourself this cheezy broccoli soup and enjoy your Saturday morning/afternoon cozied up in your couch. That makes a pretty good day too! I probably need one of those days after finishing up all my midterms in the next week, just curled up on the couch doing nothing in particular without feeling an overwhelming amount of guilt for being an unproductive human for a few hours.

Busy days keep me going and keep me motivated and on my toes, but sometimes I just need a reminder to slow down and re-establish my goals. Have you ever just been so wrapped up with your routine and your list of to-do’s that you lose track of why you’re actually doing what you’re doing? But when you have that go-getter trait within you, it’s just hard not to take action and just do everything that comes your way. You know what they say… motivation gets you going, perseverance creates habit, and habit gets you where you want to be. Actually I think I just made the middle part up, but I’ve heard something like that before.

This comes the topic of habits… Our lives are pretty much shaped by the sum of our habits. How happy are you? How excited are you toward life? What do you spend most of your time doing? Who do you spend your time with? All results of your habits. What you repeatedly do ultimately creates the person you are and the person you portray to others. This is why I’ve always heard “it takes at least 21 days to get rid of a habit and create a new one”, which could be true (more or less), but I think it stems from the idea that losing/creating a new habit takes as much time as it had taken you to form that old habit in the first place.

When people ask me “How do you have the energy to workout every day?”. The answer is that I do have days where I’d rather lie in bed than to get up and bear the cold even though I do truly love to get moving and get those endorphins going in the morning. And those are the days when I do let myself stay in bed with a compromise that I will make time to do something good for my body later in the day. “If this happens, I’ll do this instead”. And if it doesn’t happen, that’s okay too. But it only becomes something to be of concern when your excuses become a habit.

I’ve read somewhere… “be stubborn with your goals, and flexible with your methods” and I think this is so important to channel when you have a goal in mind. There are a million ways you can get there, so be creative with it and make it work for you! Prepare for chaos because life always throws us all directions and it is usually in these loops when we start to create excuses for ourselves. Don’t say the circumstances aren’t ideal. Say that you’ll make it your responsibility to make it work and be prepared for whatever life throws you. Making a plan and sticking to it is easy; it is when life gets busy and chaos start building up that we begin to make up those excuses, so the tip here is to plan your chaos. There’s no bad attempt as long as you show up. Even if you half-ass something… well, still better than nothing at all! Find options to stay on-task even when your day gets off-course.

Enough going off on a tangent for today. Time to get to the actual point of the post… just look at that soup and cheezy bread!!!  Self-explanatory (; Can you hear it calling your name? You’re only 30 minutes away from some cheezy broccoli soup that is healthy for you. What are you waiting for?