Romance author Shiloh Walker said, “I’ve got this thing for spicy stuff.  Now, if you give me hot chocolate with chili pepper, a book and a bubble bath, I’m a happy girl.”  I concur!  One of the first things I first registered for after we got engaged was a rotating spice rack that could be refilled.  I like to cook, I like it hot, and I knew I’d use it a ton.  Over time I have become horrified to learn common things like ground pepper are being made with grass clippings full of pesticides and potentially carcinogenic causing chemicals.  So I’ve been trying to go all organic for the past two years beginning with our food, cleaning supplies and now spices.  Herbs and spices only keep for a year so I figured January was a good time to clean and rinse the containers before replacing them with my new organic ones.  I’ve been thinking about how cleaning the spice rack is a microcosm of cleaning my proverbial house.  Things change, people change, and we must adjust with those changes.  If you’ll notice in the picture there is one container that is empty.  It is where the cinnamon should go.  Just about everyone loves cinnamon but me; I cannot stand it because I am allergic.  The smell alone gives me vicious migraines and last year I ate something unknowingly that had cinnamon in it, causing my face to break out so badly I had to get $300 worth of special skin cream from the dermatologist.  I got to wondering, just because something is in your spice rack why should one be obliged to hold on to it — particularly if it hurts you.  I tend to have this idea that I must keep something just because it is somehow already in my life; especially if it has been around for awhile.  But how is it right if it is detrimental?  And so I pitched all the cinnamon down the sink, got a headache, rinsed it in scalding hot water, and am replacing it with an all-spice that I enjoy and will use often.  I am trying to do the same with friends that aren’t really friends, things I do not need to retain to be happy, and bad habits I should not continue.  So it may seem like a trivial thing … cleaning out a spice rack.  But for me it represents the way I am trying to start living my life in 2016.  I want to surround myself with things and people I enjoy.  I want to be a blessing to others and I know that in order to do that I must first start taking care of myself.  What is the saying?  One cannot give from an empty cup.  I want to fill my cup with strength, compassion, wisdom, discipline and joy.  I cannot believe I have had something I cannot stand for so long when I could have been enjoying something else.  Life is too precious to hold on to things that hurt us.  Happiness is definitely the most important spice in the rack.