For the past month I have been practicing starting each day with gratitude. I get up and get my coffee and I sit alone, even if it’s just 5 minutes of alone time, it doesn’t matter. I think about my life and how blessed I am. I think about how incredibly lucky I am to live here in California. How blessed I am to have two daughters and how grateful I am to be able to see them grow and become independent, courageous, little people. After my divorce I was so bogged down with negative thoughts and negative interactions that it changed who I was as a person. It made me less vulnerable and more skeptical. But about two months ago I decided to let it all go. I cut ties with that negativity and the negative people that wanted that in their life. I turned my focus to myself and my kids. I decided that life was too short to interact with unhappy people and it was far too short to waste energy on things that didn’t bring me joy.

What I learned is when you start each day with gratitude, you continue to look for good things throughout the day. You continue to be pleasantly surprised and actually find the “happy” in things rather than the negative. You become less critical and less judgmental and when someone acts like a jerk you actually feel sorry for them rather than being angry and irritated with them.

This has nothing to do with this recipe …… but I promise you, this helpful advice and this pumpkin cheesecake will both make you happier in life so scroll down for the recipe!

Double Layer Pumpkin Cheesecake

Ingredients

2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened (do not substitute with low fat)

1/2 cup white granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 eggs

1 (9 inch) prepared graham cracker crust or make your own (I prefer homemade)

2 cup pumpkin puree

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Ingredients for Whipped Cream

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1 teaspoon Vanilla or vanilla bean paste

1 tablespoon powdered sugar

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C)

2. In a large bowl, combine cream cheese, sugar and vanilla. Beat until completely smooth.

3. Add eggs one at a time until mixed in.

4. Remove 1 1/4 cup of the batter and carefully spread into bottom of graham cracker crust; set aside.

5. Add pumpkin, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg to the remaining batter and stir until well blended. Carefully spread over the plain batter in the crust.

6. Bake in preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes, or until center is almost set.

7. Allow to cool, then refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight.

8. To make the whipped topping, add cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla to a COLD mixing bowl or stand mixer and whip on medium to high speed for 5 minutes until fluffy. DO NOT over mix or it will be too stiff and turn lumpy almost like butter.

   TIP: Place mixing bowl and beaters in the freezer to make the whipped cream “come to” more quickly.