The pace of life, at times, slows just enough to allow me to reflect and think beyond what I have to do in the next 10 minutes.  More and more weekends are providing me with that time and I really enjoy it.  This morning I arose early, the sun was shining the way it should on an early spring morning after a really harsh winter.  Amanda was away at Penn State, Chris was in Paris and Garrett was catching up on his sleep.  Coffee, music and reading were the order of the day for me.

After a bit I decided to begin breakfast.  Since there were quite a few things around that needed to be used by the end of the weekend I started to brown some onions and peppers and then chopped up potatoes to toss in as well.  They seemed lonely so I threw some bacon on as well and between the sounds of Steely Dan and bacon and onions crackling I was quite content.  It was quite soon that I realized that the comfort I found in this was directly tied to my Dad and memories of him cooking weekend breakfasts when I was a kid.  Although my Mom did most of the cooking there were a few things my Dad really reveled in and one of them was a good, hearty breakfast with fried potatoes, onions, peppers, bacon, eggs and English muffins.  He was a savant at orchestrating breakfast food on a large hot cook-top.  I can't help but smile at those memories when he would let my Mom sleep in late and take over the kitchen.  The only difference was that he would have Sinatra or Tony Bennett playing on the little radio we had in our kitchen but the pure joy in sharing those moments with him and my brother and sister was rekindled this morning as I made up breakfast.  Even though I was alone while I did it - the memory was so sweet I was right back there in our kitchen in Califon again.