Thank You, Honey!

It's been way too long since my last post! Well, allow me to make up for some lost time...

#1: 100 new recipes.
One of my latest new recipes was a vegetarian chili that included sweet potatoes. It was a...mazing. I didn't miss the meat at all; there was so much flavor. And if there are any Cincinnatians reading this, you'll be pleased to know that this recipe also used cinnamon and unsweetened cocoa. You guys like putting that stuff in your chili, right? Weird...delicious, but weird. No offense, Cincy. You're OK by me.

You've probably seen those little tortilla pinwheels with various fillings? Well, I tried my hand at making them for a going-away party for one of our friends. The ones I made had seasoned wild rice, cream cheese, corned beef, and spinach; and they were really tasty! I'll have to make them again sometime, and maybe experiment with some different filling combinations.

After a weekend of good-tasting, not-so-good-for-you food, Tom wanted to have vegetables for dinner last week. So I made a squash casserole with sour cream and lots of Swiss cheese...oops. It was good, of course, but kinda defeated the purpose of having vegetables.

This week, my attempts at lighter weeknight dinners proved to be slightly more successful. We had things like baked tilapia and a Greek pasta salad that was terrific! It was loaded with vegetables, and not a drop of mayo in sight. And the best part is that I sort of came up with it myself! Pasta salad is pretty hard to mess up, but whatev.

On Friday, we had our friends James and Lyndie (and their sweet little girls, Sadie and Harper) over for dinner, and I made a tortilla casserole with black beans, sweet potatoes, and spinach. Oh my goodness...emphasis on the "good."

#51: Choose walking over driving 5 times.
After dinner on Friday, we all decided to go to the Pie Kitchen for dessert. It wasn't that far from our place, and the weather was fabulous, so we walked there! That was trip #5 for me, so consider this goal complete!

#38: Compliment or thank Tom for something specific every day for a month.

Tom's primary love language is "words of affirmation," but when it comes to verbalization, I'm all thumbs. Fortunately, this is an area in which God is growing me tremendously; I think I've gotten somewhat better at expressing my appreciation for him since we got married; and now, thanks to a little of what I like to call "Pinspiration," I've been able to step it up a little. I have a big pile of scrapbook paper and a sheet of letter stickers that will probably never be used for scrapbooking, so I put 'em together in a frame, and now I can express my gratitude with the help of a dry-erase marker. (I'm sure you noticed the crooked lettering. It's cutesy, right? Yeah...cutesy. I'm gonna go with that.) I've been keeping it up for a little over a month now, and I see no reason not to keep going!

Another Crazy Week

#28: Watch every Best Picture winner from 1960-2013.
I watched The Silence of the Lambs on Sunday afternoon. I wanted something to watch while frosting cupcakes for a party we were going to that evening. I know, not your typical frosting-cupcakes-on-a-Sunday-afternoon kinda movie, but Tom was in another room reading for his class, and that was one movie he was pretty adamant about not seeing...plus I didn't want to watch it at night. But it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be...just really twisted and weird.

#57: Keep a new plant alive for a month.

Well, the month of June is over...and my plant is still alive and well! I decided to take her to work, because she can actually get more sunlight there. Here she is! (Excuse the lack of quality produced by my phone's camera.)

I named her Dorothy, by the way. :)

And I recently found out that Dorothy is a golden pothos. Good to know; I've been calling her "you know, one of those plants that lives forever."

#12: See a doctor about my incessant heartburn.
Those of you who've known me for awhile know that heartburn has been a constant part of my life for several years. I've tried lots of different things on my own, and I've been to doctors and had different kinds of tests done and been prescribed different medications, and nothing's ever seemed to work. Plus, I get heartburn from just about everything, including bread, cereal, bananas, and yogurt. Weird, right? Well, I went for my physical on Tuesday. I asked the doctor what could be done about it, and she referred me to a GI specialist. We'll see what happens. Prayers would certainly be appreciated, though!

#51: Choose walking over driving 5 times.
#58: Order fish at a restaurant 5 times.
This great new place just opened up practically across the street from where we live. It's called Bluegrass Burgers, and everything they serve is local: the beef, the chicken, the bison (yes, bison)...everything except maybe the ahi tuna steak burger. Well, we walked there this evening with our friends Scott and Amanda (and their sweet little baby girl, Cambria), and I got the tuna steak. I had it with lettuce, tomato, and some wasabi mayo from the kerazy toppings bar. It was great! My hopes of liking fish continue to rise...!

Time Off

I've been off work today and yesterday, which is bad in some obvious ways (like...no money?). But I'm making the most of it! I was able to make some more progress on my list!

#27: Put all wedding photos/bridal portraits in frames or albums.
#36: Take photos to spell our last name.
#51: Choose walking over driving at least five times.
The only thing left to do with our wedding photos was the collage for that big frame I got Tom last year. Here it is, in its new home on the wall!

Weird...it looks bigger in person...and more centered.

I wanted to use double-sided tape for the photo collage, and I figured Walgreens would have some. Well, the weather was nice, I had plenty of time, and gas prices just went over $4 a gallon...all the conditions were right for walking, so that's what I did. On my way back, I noticed a possible W for our last name, from this huge tree just outside the entrance to Village Manor.

I say "possible" because I'm still trying to decide if it looks good or just kinda scary. Plus that first big branch is a lot shorter than the others. Oh well...we'll see.

#8: Try Pilates.
I found a Pilates routine on-demand, which was great because it meant I could try it at home...and totally skip the part where I look silly in front of other people who are in much better shape than I am. And I'm so glad I did; that workout kicked my butt. I had to stop about halfway through because I felt like I was going to throw up. Well, my goal was to try it, and I did. It was a really good workout, but I don't know if it's for me...at least not right now. Maybe by the time I work up to being able to do that Tae-Bo workout (#62), I'll be in good enough shape to give Pilates another try.

#28: Watch every Best Picture winner from 1960-2013.
Kramer vs. Kramer was one Oscar winner that Tom didn't feel strongly about seeing, so I watched it while he was at work. I thought it was really good, but boy, did it jerk the ol' heartstrings...I guess that's what happens anytime you have a little kid as one of the main characters.

My Nickname in High School

#51: Choose walking over driving five times.

I totally forgot Tom and I did this a few weeks ago! There's this great place nearby called the Homemade Ice Cream & Pie Kitchen (the lack of creativity in the name is not reflective of what they serve...that's all I'm gonna say about that). The weather was so nice, we decided to go for a walk after dinner. It didn't take long for us to choose the Pie Kitchen for our destination, which sort of defeats the purpose of taking a walk, but oh well. It was deeeeelicious!

#28: Watch every Best Picture Oscar winner from 1960-2013.
So, we finally stopped procrastinating and signed up for Netflix! Our first DVD by mail? The Godfather: Part II. I highly recommend seeing it, but just be prepared: it gets pretty sad toward the end (don't worry; I won't give it away). This Netflix thing is great; I've already put some other Best Picture winners on our queue, as well as a few seasons of ER.

#10: Read 30 non-academic books.
Well, Mere Christianity turned out to be a bit too...cerebral for me to read on the treadmill. I am going to finish it, though! I just decided that it might be easier to read something a little lighter while at the gym, so I started The Phantom of the Opera. I am loving it so far! It's been awhile since I read any fiction; I didn't realize how much I missed it!

#25: Eat at a famous restaurant.
#58: Order fish at a restaurant 5 times.
We were going to do a "staycation" with our tax refund this year, but instead we decided to just go out for a really fancy dinner and use the rest of the money for something else (Tom wanted a flat-screen TV...what a tough life). We chose the English Grill at the Brown Hotel, one of the oldest and nicest restaurants in Louisville and the birthplace of the famous Kentucky Hot Brown (insert my "nickname in high school" joke here). AAA has given this place the illustrious Four Diamond Award several years in a row, and it's made an appearance on Throwdown with Bobby Flay; Bobby challenged them to a Hot Brown throwdown and lost miserably. Now...I know the recipe for the Hot Brown is available online, and you can even buy Hot Browns at some of the grocery stores around here, but when I looked at the menu, I couldn't think of ordering anything else. But for our appetizer, we ordered smoked salmon. I was a little unsure about it because I'm not a huge fan of fish (which is why #58 is on the list, to challenge me)...but it was delicious! More details about the English Grill to come in my restaurant blog, but for now, suffice it to say that it was a fabulous experience!

What a Week!

So...no work again this week. 'Nuff said?

#1: 100 new recipes.
I made guacamole from scratch for the first time the other night! I got the recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, and it is soooo simple to make! With the Super Bowl coming up, this recipe might be making another appearance, but I think I might actually need to ease off the gas pedal on this goal for awhile...! Don't want to have all the big fun right away! :-p

#10: 30 non-academic books.
I also just recently finished reading For Women Only. The author, Shaunti Feldhahn, spoke about this book at Seacoast sometime last year, and a friend from our old small group happened to have a copy which she loaned to me. It's basically the findings of a survey the author did on thousands of men from all walks of life, and this survey revealed a lot of misconceptions we women have when it comes to relating to them, particularly wives to their husbands. (The book was full of statistics and percentages, by the way; the sociologist in me was all over this.) I personally think this is one book every married woman needs to read...with a grain of salt, of course, as is the case with all books like this. I won't say anymore about it, though, just in case there are any men reading this...I mean, let's not forget what the title of the book is!

#28: Watch every Best Picture winner from 1960-2013.

Two this weekend! The Hurt Locker was on Showtime Friday night (which we happen to get, even though our cable package is otherwise pretty limited), and that was good, although I think I could have appreciated it more if every other word hadn't been profane; then again, it did seem like a pretty realistic portrayal of what life was like for our troops in Iraq. If anything, it made me really want to make it a priority to pray for those who are deployed overseas, which is always a good thing. Then we were in the mood for another movie on Saturday, so we rented Out of Africa, which was the most "tame" Best Picture winner we could find at Blockbuster (The Hurt Locker was pretty intense, as you might imagine). The acting was great, of course, but it was a little hard to follow at times, plus it was about a woman having an affair, so...yeah. A good weekend, but not my favorite one for movies so far, to be quite honest.

#51: Choose walking over driving at least five times.

There was a UPS notice on our front door Friday morning, saying that we had a package at the front office. But this was the scene outside that morning; we got 3.6 inches of snow on Thursday, and the apartment office is practically on the other end of the property from our building. I was so tempted to drive to the office, but I decided against it for two reasons: 1) gas prices in Louisville are hovering around $3.15 per gallon right now, so I want to save it in any way I possibly can, and 2) in the time it takes to get all the snow off the car and warm it up, I could easily walk to the office and back. It felt good having to rely on my legs instead of my car to get me where I needed to go...! :)