On days when you need a strong community, grab your ladies, and buy all of the “special donuts” from and create a donut challenge to find the best one!
Sometimes a curve ball gets thrown your way that you didn’t see coming. Sometimes it goes beyond not even seeing the ball coming, but it’s that you didn’t ever even imagine a curve ball could even be thrown that way yet somehow it just happened. It’s like you open your eyes and the ball is flying towards your chest and it’s too late to move because the ball is .2 seconds from hitting you so then you realize you’re hit. Now I definitely took the curve ball analogy too far, but I think sometimes when things happen in life it is truly like that.
When a curve ball suddenly pounds you in the heart or when something happens that causes life to halt, I encourage you to be in community.
Maybe you’re the kind of person that needs to process on your own or needs space. If you know your limits and that’s you, then wait a little bit before calling on your people. It’s not even that you have to spill your heart out and start sharing everything inside you, but just the physical state of “being” with community makes a difference. For me, I know I need community sooner rather than later. In fact, as soon as I recognize something is too heavy for me to carry on my own, I reach out to my people. I think I used to consider it “weak” to need people, but that’s silly because we are human and meant to do life alongside other people.
So, on those days when you need a strong community, grab your ladies, and buy all of the “special donuts” from the Hyvee Bakery (because I’m a firm believer community and food go perfectly together). You don’t just buy all the “special donuts” though, you split them up and taste test them all to execute your own official ranking of Hyvee’s best special donuts.
So here’s the back story: a few weeks ago me, Kels, Tay, and Laura went to get Hy-Vee breakfast to celebrate my birthday (because what better breakfast than all you can drink coffee paired with the classic Asiago breakfast sandwich from Hy-Vee?) While we were eating, someone brought up the fact that Hy-Vee started making “speciality donuts” and how they look incredible. The other three of us hadn’t seen them so when we were finished eating, we went back to the Bakery to take a look.
GUYS. The donuts looked incredible. You know the movies where little kids smashed their faces into the windows of toy stores so they could marvel at everything they wanted for Christmas? That was like us except looking at donuts in the Hy-Vee Bakery. We marveled so much that I think we annoyed the lady working because we weren’t buying anything. BUT, we made plans to try all of the donuts in the future.
Fast-forward to one week later when the donut challenge actually happened. We bought almost all of the special donuts the Hy-Vee Bakery had to offer, split them into 4 equal pieces so each of use had a piece of each one, and the taste testing began.
Basically, we each tried every donut and ranked them in order of best to worst. Since there were 6 donuts total, the donut in first place received 6 points and the one in last received 1 point, and everything in between.
The Rankings
- Oreo – 20 points
- Snickers – 20 points
- Lemon – 17 points
- Maple Bacon – 11 points
- S’mores – 9 points
- Pecan & Brown Sugar – 7 points
If you’re still curious about how oreo got first and pecan & brown sugar got last, here’s our individual rankings:
- Taylor’s Order: Oreo, Lemon, Maple Bacon, Snickers, Pecan & Brown Sugar, S’mores
- Kelsey’s Order: Snickers, Oreo, Lemon, S’mores, Pecan & Brown Sugar, Maple Bacon
- Laura’s Order: Snickers, Maple Bacon, Lemon, Oreo, S’mores, Peach & Brown Sugar
- Jordo’s Order: Oreo, Snickers, Lemon, S’mores, Pecan & Brown Sugar, Maple Bacon
Here’s the thing. The curveball hit me hard. It threw me through a loop emotionally, spiritually, and mentally–I’m still disoriented. My thoughts were spinning 24 hours a day and my heart was heavy. The donut challenge didn’t lead to a complete 180 of thoughts and feelings, make everything great again, or solve much of anything. However, the donut challenge was a chance for community. It was an opportunity to gather with people who know me well. It was a time spent with people who could make me laugh, encourage me, and give my heart (and tummy) nourishment. Even if it’s hard to reach out to people, creating community is important in the times of confusion, emptiness, and despair.
Find some friends.
Eat some donuts.
Leave a Reply