Pumpkin Pie Smoothie

“Meltdown” seems to be the word of the week over in these parts.

As a consequence, I’ve chosen to melt down one of my favorite desserts and turn it into a completely acceptable breakfast liquid substitute. This smoothie found inspiration in Erica‘s recipe of the same, but you’ll find that the ingredients are about as similar as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Oscar Wilde.

If you can’t tell, I’m doing a lot of thinking about Oscar Wilde at the moment. I’m doing archival research at the premier Wilde institute possibly the world round and am, in fact, currently demonstrating my unconditional commitment to the process by writing this post in the archival tombs. Again.

Wallflour Power: A great idea for combating the meltdown syndrome is by starting with small reminders about great things that have recently happened to you. Every night before I go to bed, I write a post-it with something that made me smile during the day. When I have a bad day, I take a few minutes to look at my wall-ful of colorful post-its, and it never fails to bring a spark of inspiration back into my life!

More importantly, though, I’m teaching, and the bulk of this current week’s meltdown comes in the form of not having done any of my own work this week…although this may have had more to do with the fact that I went to an epic family banquet all day on Saturday, and spent my entire Sunday at Disneyland rather than with dear Wilde.

I am, undoubtedly, one of the hardest workers within a two-centimeter radius of myself.

I justify my dalliance with the consolation that I really, really needed this break. After spending nearly 40 hours poring over two classes’ papers last week, and after skipping every single one of my extracurricular activities trying to phrase my comments on near-fail papers as constructively (and kindly) as possible, I came charging into this week nose-to-ground first.

This is my rationale for creating a meltdown drink that is not only delicious and only a tiny portion of the guilt, but to which you can lift your glasses and say…

Cheers! We ain’t dead yet.

And amen to that.

What’s your best remedy after a bad day?

Pumpkin Pie Smoothie

Ingredients:

• 6 ice cubes
• 1 cup plain Greek yogurt
• 1/4 cup pureed pumpkin
• 1/2 cup cookie butter
• 1/4 cup oats (any variety)
• 2 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• A dash of ground nutmeg
• A splash of vanilla extract
• A few crushed graham crackers (for garnish)

Directions:

1. Combine all ingredients (except graham crackers) in blender. Crush ice until mixture becomes liquidy, then blend until completely smooth. Serve with crushed graham crackers and cinnamon as garnish, and watch as your bad day melts away!