What I ate during #snowmageddon & other adventures

With the temperature getting to 60 degrees today, it's hard to believe that almost a week ago my backyard was covered in snow. Thankfully, last Tuesday, I got back from the grocery store just before the snow started in Atlanta, so I hunkered down inside and weathered the storm fine.

John was in Memphis last Tuesday for what was supposed to be an up and back business trip. When his return flight got cancelled, he and his coworkers tried to drive back. After getting to Birmingham and realizing there was no way they would get home in "snowmageddon," they turned around and drove to the nearest hotel that had available rooms, which landed them in Athens, Alabama. Thursday afternoon he made it home safely, and we were just thankful he was "stranded" in a hotel and not on the road for 20 hours like many people. Despite John having no change of clothes and using whatever toiletries the hotel had on hand, we weathered the storm just fine. (And no frozen or burst pipes this time either: success!)

On Wednesday, I ventured outside with some friends and went sledding in the park with their Flying Saucer. It was lots of fun, evidenced by my smile in the picture below. Though not being able to steer, I ran into a tree about three times... all part of the adventure!

About to hit the tree...

Since I was stuck at home alone, I made two hearty meals that lasted me the week. One was a variation of my avocado quinoa, which is a staple in our house and a favorite of John's. Once John returned, I served this with cod topped with a salsa. The other was a sweet potato and butternut squash sweet and spicy stew.

Before I get to the recipes, the other notable occurrence in our life was watching Chuck, our great friend from middle/high school, get recognized in a Super Bowl commercial! Budweiser threw Chuck a surprise parade and celebration for his homecoming from serving in Afghanistan as a Blackhawk helicopter pilot. John even made a cameo in the commercial around second 28... so I suppose even though he wasn't home the week our pipes froze/burst, it was all worth it since he was in Orlando at that time, attending Chuck's homecoming parade! I can't think of a better person for Budweiser to have surprised and honored than Chuck. He is truly inspirational, a wonderful friend, and an incredible leader. We're all so glad to have him back home! Check out this Fox News interview of Chuck to see his genuine humility.

John's one second of fame :)

Now onto the recipes...

Sweet Potato and Butternut Squash Sweet and Spicy Stew

I baked gluten free bread, which was an excellent addition for the stew.

Serves 6

Ingredients:

3 small sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed

1 small butternut squash, peeled and cubed

1 - 2 Tbsp. olive oil

Salt, pepper, and dried Italian herbs to taste

1 onion, sliced

1 Tbsp. olive oil

2 cloves minced garlic

1 jalapeno, diced with seeds

1 cup red lentils

2 cups chicken broth

2 Tbsp. sunflower seed butter (or peanut butter)

1 -2 cups kale

1/2 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained

Fresh cilantro for topping

Preparation:

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Toss sweet potatoes and butternut squash with olive oil and salt, pepper, and dried Italian herbs, to taste. You want enough to top each piece but not be covered. Lay out sweet potato mixture onto a baking sheet and roast for 25 minutes, stirring after 15 minutes.
2. While sweet potato mixture roasts, heat a Dutch oven over low-medium heat. Add in olive oil and onion. Caramelize the onion for 25 minutes or until browned.
3. Remove sweet potato mixture from oven and let rest. Add in garlic and jalapeno to onions. Stir for 1 minute. 
4. Add in lentils and chicken broth. Bring to a boil then reduce heat and cover. Let lentils simmer until softened, about 12 minutes. 
5. Add in sunflower seed butter and stir to combine into soup. Add in kale and chickpeas, stirring until kale wilts. Add in sweet potato mixture. 
6. Let simmer for 10 minutes then remove from heat. Top each serving with fresh cilantro. 

Avocado Quinoa

I've been making this recipe for a while now, but the version below is my new and improved recipe.

Serves 6

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups quinoa 

3 cups water

3 small avocados, mashed

1 tomato, chopped

3 green onions, chopped

1/2 red onion, chopped

1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained

2 bunches cilantro

2 jalapenos, diced and with seeds

Juice of 1 lime

Dash of paprika

Sea salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:

1. Rinse quinoa under cold water. Cook quinoa in 3 cups of water according to package instructions.
2. Once quinoa is done, remove from heat and into a bowl. Add in avocados, mashing with a fork to combine into the quinoa. Mix until quinoa is coated and avocado is fully mashed.
3. Add in remaining ingredients, expect spices. Stir together. Add in spices, tasting as you go until it's the right saltiness/spiciness.   

Cod with Yellow Pepper Salsa

Serves 4

Ingredients:

4 cod fillets

1/4 cup corn meal

Salt and pepper

1 Tbsp. dijon mustard

1 Tbsp. maple syrup

1 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar

2 Tbsp. olive oil

1 yellow pepper, diced

1 cucumber, peeled and diced

1/2 onion, diced

Juice of half lime

2 tsp. olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Cilantro for topping

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix salt and pepper (to taste) with cornmeal in a shallow bowl. Coat cod pieces with cornmeal mixture. Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray and put cod onto the baking sheet. Bake for 15 minutes or until done and cod flakes easily with a fork.
2. While fish cooks, whisk together dijon, maple syrup, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil. 
3. In a separate bowl, combine yellow pepper, cucumber, and onion. Drizzle with olive oil, lime juice, and salt/pepper to taste. Toss to coat.
4. When fish is done, place a fillet on each plate and drizzle each fish with dijon dressing. Top with salsa and fresh cilantro.

The holidays in 13 pictures

Before I write about my dreams for 2014, I want to reflect on the blessings of this holiday season. I spent 12 days in Florida (hence being MIA from this blog) and think it's always important to pause and be thankful before diving ahead into the new year.

Our Christmas season started off better than last year's because we went straight to Lowe's for our Christmas tree instead of risking getting another "Devil Tree." (If you don't know what I'm referring to, then you can read about last year's debacle here.) We also had a fun White Elephant party with the funniest gift award going to our friend Will, who blew up photos of John's and my faces from 9th grade Homecoming and put them on ornaments. A close second was a life-size knight made of tin... it was a fun night!  

Before our White Elephant party, posing in front of our tree that is still standing: success!

Laura, me, Caitlin, and Amy  

The funniest gift

When John and I headed home, our time in Orlando was filled with family and friends, including many annual traditions such as candy making with Grandma Shack, a Shackelford family/friend reunion complete with an intense volleyball match, singing Christmas carols with Dad playing the piano, and riding in the truck bed to see the lights on Christmas Eve. 

Candy making with Amy and Claire

Post candy making with Grandma Shack

Bundled up before the truck ride

In addition to these traditions, we also had an incredibly fun night celebrating my 25th birthday (early) with a lot of high school friends. It was wonderful that so many friends were in town and that our families could be a part of the celebration too! The next day, I took Mom to the Orlando Ballet Nutcracker for her Christmas gift, and we enjoyed a nice dinner beforehand.

With John and Emma before my birthday dinner

A wonderful reunion of old friends

So blessed to have amazing parents and in-laws!

At dinner with Mom before the Nutcracker

Then on Christmas, John gave me an incredibly thoughtful gift. He commissioned my friend Becca to paint my poem Gathering Hope on a canvas. She's been working on it since October and I had no idea! Plus it's beautiful and I can't wait to hang it in our home. 

The day after Christmas John headed back to Atlanta for his work with the Chick-fil-A Bowl. Since he's always so busy that week, I stayed in Orlando and caught up with more friends. Aysha and Alex drove from Tampa for a short visit and it was great to catch up on the boat like past college times! My mom and I also had a wonderful brunch with Kim, Isha, and their mom's and again it was just like old times and so fun to catch up on everyone's adventures post-college.

Sophomore year of college to now: Aysha, me, and Alex

Senior year of high school to now: me, Kim, and Isha

After brunch with Isha and Kim, Mom and I picked up Dad and headed to celebrate my grandfather's 80th birthday. Despite having a bad cold, it was great to spend time with several family members. From lunch, Mom, Dad, and I drove to Vero Beach where we spent the night and next day before boarding Dad's new boat Rhythm 'n Blues. The weather wasn't sunshiney Florida, but I enjoyed sleeping, recovering from my cold, and finishing my third book since being back in Florida.

On the 31st we took the boat to West Palm Beach for an (almost) annual tradition of watching the fireworks. Watching the fireworks from the water gives us a front row view which didn't disappoint! And while trying to stay awake to midnight, we of course watched the Chick-fil-A Bowl. On the 1st I flew back home to Atlanta where John picked me up and took me out for a nice New Year's Day brunch... a wonderful way to kick off 2014!

Fireworks from the waters of Palm Beach

Where's Waldo? And adventures in getting lost

Halloween

For Halloween this year, John dressed up as Waldo (as in the character from the Where's Waldo? books). He originally needed the costume for a "fun bunch" committee that he's a part of at work, so we repurposed it for a Halloween celebration that we attended. When we arrived, our friends Anna and Brant were also dressed as Waldo!

The costume was a hit among the adults but a lot of the younger children had never heard of Waldo!

The celebration that we attended was at four of our friends houses who all live in a row in our neighborhood. Every year they go all out for Halloween, and this year they made a haunted house in an empty lot between two of the houses. One neighbor counted that over 700 people came! It was a big hit complete with scary music, a fog machine, zombies jumping out, and someone with a chain saw. This short video clip doesn't really do it justice but you can get the idea:

I was outside of the haunted house passing out candy to the kids who were too small or scared to go through... since I think I would have been scared myself!

Corn Maze

In other fall festivities news, John and I attended another Fall Festival/corn maze this year. Although nothing can compare to the pig race that we saw at last year's festival, we had a great time.

This year's corn maze was huge and we were in a time crunch to finish before it got dark. At one point we thought we'd found out way out only to realize that we'd somehow made our way back to the entrance. Towards the end, we found a sign with a map so we cheated a little bit and made it out in time. It's always fun getting lost in a corn maze and has become an annual tradition for us!

Another tradition is shooting something out of a cannon. Last year's was corn, and this year we shot apples. John was much better than I was!

Fall Leaves

Lastly, we enjoyed a weekend in North Carolina at the height of the leaves changing colors. Throughout our three days, the leaves got more and more vibrant. We went on a chilly hike, which rewarded us with amazing views of the fall foliage!

There's a first time for everything

The past month or so has included a couple of exciting "firsts" for me.

1. Yurtin'

This past weekend ten girls met up in South Carolina to celebrate a bachelorette/shower in a yurt. A yurt was originally a Mongolian tent that was portable. (A link to the Wikipedia article is here for those who are interested!). The celebration was for my friend Alex, who was on my hall freshman year and who's been a dear friend ever since. It was my first time staying in a yurt, which looked like this:

1. Me, Leah, and Heather spelling "yurt" without the "u"
2. The inside of the yurt... kind of like summer camp

The expert campers in the group (me not included in that list!) called it "glamping" (glamorous camping) since we had nice bathrooms, showers, and a kitchen nearby. The weekend was a great mix of catching up with friends, spending time outdoors, and relaxing!

On our Saturday hike to a nearby waterfall
...and yes we made Alex wear the bachelorette sash and hat the entire hike!

1. Taking a nap outside post hike (also a first for me to actually fall asleep on the grass)
2. The whole group of girls on the hike
3. Exploring the waterfall

2. Georgia Football

It's almost embarrassing to say that we've lived in Georgia for over two years and neither John or I had been to a UGA football game before. (If you're not from Georgia, FYI UGA football - and college football in general - is a BIG deal!)

Our friend William and his brother Wilson, both who graduated from UGA, took care of that a few weekends ago by taking us to the UGA vs. South Carolina football game in Athens. It was a lot of fun to tour the school on game day and see Athens. The game atmosphere was very exciting - especially since Will got all of us into the student section! Plus, UGA won!

1. Ringing the bell after a victory is a tradition at UGA
2. The guys post-victory!
3. The arch is iconic on UGA's campus

3. Blue Wig

This "first" is from a month or so ago, but I had to include it... The first time I've worn a blue wig. It was also my first time to actually wear a wig out in public! The occasion was for my friend Sarah's bachelorette weekend in Nashville. We all decided to add some pizazz to the evening by wearing neon colored wigs downtown. Since all nine of us were sporting the wigs, it was a lot more entertaining than embarrassing!

Me posing with the bride-to-be Sarah

Pre and Post pictures

Daily Labyrinths

Growing up, the summer days seemed to linger longer. My best friend Alex and I would spend weeks out of the summer at my grandmother's beach house for "Camp Nana," and we would often pause from collecting shells, biking to ice cream, and swimming in the sea to walk the labyrinth at the local church.

Somehow in the midst of soaking in the sun, we appreciated the stillness and inner solitude that walking the labyrinth welcomed.

Despite how the word "labyrinth" is often used, it actually is not designed as a maze, which has choices and complex paths. Instead a labyrinth has only a single, non-branching path that leads to the center. It is designed to be meditative not challenging.

Revisiting the labyrinth I used to walk during John's and my trip to St. Pete

Alex and I would often walk the labyrinth before or after watching the sunset over the Gulf. I'd contemplate the day and pray as I walked its course.

Blast from the past:
Alex and I visiting Aruba with my family the summer before starting high school

It amazes me that as children we appreciated the time for reflection even when there were dozens of other beach activities that could have taken our attention. How much more should I be craving this time as an adult?

A couple weekends ago, when John and I visited his parents in North Carolina, I had a similar experience to walking a labyrinth during our long hikes. Hiking always slows down time and helps me think, and there's nothing like looking out miles beyond you when you reach the mountaintop.

Hiking in Tullulah Gorge, GA and Cashiers, NC

This got me thinking to how I could recreate this experience in daily life. How can I intentionally spend time reenergizing my soul?

My challenge today is to pause and consider "labyrinths" in your life that allow space for solitude and meditation.

Dinner with the Shack's in NC

How to keep a calendar when you're married

The tradition is to save the top of your wedding cake in the freezer and then celebrate your one-year with a (hopefully un-freezer burnt) slice. Well... almost two years later, John and I finally cut into the cake at the beach over the 4th of July. The top of our cake has been taking up a lot of space in my parents' freezer, so I think they were more than ready for us to finally finish it off!

It looked less than promising...

...especially after knowing what it looked like on our wedding day.

We were nervous to give it a try, but it was surprisingly still tasty!

Not quite as elegant as at our wedding!

Thankfully, as John said: Our marriage has held up a lot better than the cake did!

Recently, one of the things that we've been doing to keep our marriage strong is changing the way that we keep our calendar.

Although schedules are less than romantic, keeping our calendar in a new way has allowed us to keep our marriage adventurous. We are both "J" on Myers-Briggs (i.e. like to plan and schedule a lot), which meant that when we were first married we were setting plans over a month in advance.

Planning so far ahead, however, prevented us from accepting a lot of invitations and hanging out with friends on a whim.

But what really got our attention is when John was sick the first few months of this year. His illness prevented us from keeping a lot of our plans, so when he was well, we found our weeks slammed with one rescheduled commitment after another. This left not a whole lot of downtime or time for date nights.

And as someone who needs a little time alone in order to recharge, I was exhausted.

So we regrouped and came up with a way we could keep our calendar that still allowed us to plan ahead while protecting our down time. Here's our method:

• At the beginning of each month, we sync up our calendars to make sure we're both aware of big events or other happenings that we are scheduled to attend that month (either together or separately).
• Then we go week by week and schedule our nights according to three categories: (1) Night of rest (i.e. time alone together or a date night), (2) Outreach night (time with our neighbors, church community group, new people we want to reach out to, etc.), and (3) Friend night (time with our friends)
• We don't have to set who we'll invite over or what we want to plan, we just ensure that each week has at least each of those categories per week. 
• Then when someone invites us somewhere or we want to have someone over for dinner, we can use our scheduled night for that category.
• We're also not rigid about it, so as long as we have one of those each category per week, we can switch nights around accordingly.

This practice has been helpful for us, so I thought I'd share it in case others could benefit from how to schedule yet still be flexible. Let me know if you have questions and happy planning!

Summer Shindigs

I haven't updated BeEmbraced for a while because the long summer days always seems to fill up quickly! Here are some of the highlights from the past couple of weeks:

Baby Shower Fun
I joined in with some of my friends to throw my friend Annie and her husband Eric a baby shower! The weather was gorgeous and perfect for the outside BaBy-Q!

The hostesses with the Mama-to-be: Meredith, me, Annie, Kelley, and Jill 

Since I'm not the crafty one, I stuck to helping make some of the food and set-up/clean-up.

The entrance to the backyard BaBy-Q

John and I also read Annie and Eric some questions about parenting, and they had to guess which one of them it applied to - without looking at each other's answer! For instance, "Who's most likely to cry on her first day of preschool?" or "Who's most likely to give her second helpings of dessert?"

John and I laughing at the answers!

Surprise Half Birthday
Yes, you read that right! John surprised me for my half birthday since it's always hard for us to celebrate on the real date of December 28th. A bunch of our friends came over for game night, but little did I know that my friends Becca and Anna had brought over gluten/dairy free desserts for everyone in order to celebrate me! As an added bonus, I beat John in a "sudden death" match to lead the girls' team to victory during our game night :)

Some of the girls at game night!

Beach Visit #1
On our way to spend the week of July 4th with my parents at the beach, we made a well worth it detour to visit my Nana in St. Pete. I spent a lot of summers at her house in Pass-a-Grille, and I was so excited to share some old memories with John! Nana and I cooked a meal together, and then we all headed down to enjoy the sunset.

Nana and I enjoying the sunset

The next day, John and I biked all around the island, stopping at all of the places I used to go to growing up. We spent some time at the beach before heading to lunch with Nana at the Don CeSar and stopping by Uncle Andy's for ice cream afterward!

John's monster ice cream cone

Beach Visit #2 
From there we headed across Florida's coast to Vero Beach, where we spent the week with my family enjoying the surf and sand. Lots of reading, relaxing, great food, and game nights! For the 4th, John put on a big firework display (it's become a yearly tradition) that we all enjoyed!

Stay tuned for more updates from this summer...