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.

A tree in a snowstorm

On the tree outside my window, squirrels jump onto snowy limbs and a cardinal perches just long enough to collect white dots on its red feathers. The tree's trunk divides the white landscape in two and its branches stretch into the snow-speckled sky. For a Florida girl (an even for a now-Atlanta girl) this is a scene to soak in.

In the nearby park, parents show little ones snow for the first time. Children (and adults!) sled down the same hills that I ran over the day before. Yet here in our backyard, the quietness of this beautiful landscape almost feels lonely.

It's often the same feeling when you're pursuing a dream. When there's lots swirling around you, the chaos can be disorienting. Standing strong like the tree in a snowstorm sometimes feel solitary.

I want to encourage you today that you're not alone.

Whatever dreams are tugging at your heart are there for a reason. The road will be bumpy but just take it all in. See the beauty in the chaos. Reach out your limbs and share your dreams with those close to you.

And let the Light illuminate whatever covering you're hiding behind. Keep soul-ly stretching toward your One focus. He planted that dream in your heart, and others will rejoice in seeing the Ultimate Dreamer in you.

Today I'm linking up with Holley Gerth's Coffee for your Heart

Frozen Pipes & Fit Friday Circuit Training

Like most of the country (except Florida I'm looking at you!), Atlanta had freezing temperatures this week. With John out of town, I relied a lot on the generosity of neighbors and friends (and my dad on what he started calling the "Home Helpline") to deal with frozen pipes. When one burst underneath our house, friends came to the rescue to help me turn our water off (thankfully Dad had told me what tool I needed to buy ahead of time). Another friend let me shower at her house and everyone was offering their assistance, homes etc. I'm so blessed by our community here!

With John calling our builder, the plumbers who did our house originally were able to come repair the pipe that day. Since I had a class that evening, my next door neighbor stayed up until 11pm after I got home to help me turn my water back on and test everything out. I'm happy to report that as of now everything is working properly and there seems to be no damage! Plus, I'm very thankful that John is home now too!

Although I had no time to exercise while dealing with the house issues, this cold weather in general has encouraged me to switch my workout routine to the indoors. Plus, I received some awesome workout equipment for Christmas! Take a look at my workout room below, updated with an exercise bench, kettlebell, new shoes, a bosu ball, and new workout DVDs.

To test out my new bench, bosu ball, and kettlebell I did the following workout:

Here are links or explanations to the exercises:

Side to side bench steps: Stand with left leg on bench. Reach right leg to the right to touch the ground. Swing right leg behind standing leg to touch the ground on the left side of the bench. That equals 1 rep. Repeat on the same leg for 12 times then switch legs.

Lunges with bicep curl: Lunge forward on your right foot while curling your bicep. Step left foot forward to lunge with the left leg while curling your bicep. Repeat 15 times per leg.

Push up and curl in on stability ball - Watch the first video on this link. I added a roll-in after the push-up by drawing my knees toward my chest then rolling the ball back into pushup position.

Step up on bench with shoulder press - I left the curl out and went straight to the shoulder press

Kettlebell bench row - The second exercise on this link.

Glute roll-in on stability ball - Fourth video on this link.

Swimmer on bosu ball


I hope everyone is staying warm and has a wonderful weekend!

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!

2 years and 1 week, aka anniversary recap

I last left off mentioning our 2 year anniversary celebration plans, so here's the recap from a fabulous weekend:

On Friday, we headed to The Optimist for a 9:45pm dinner reservation, which was so worth the wait. The menu is centered around seafood (my favorite!) and is absolutely delicious. Fun fact: The Optimist was featured on the cover of September's Bon Appetit magazine as one of America's best new restaurants, and I can say that I agree!

On Saturday, we headed to our favorite donut shop, Revolution Doughnuts. They have the most scrumptious gluten free donuts on the weekends, and I love their coffee. John always gets a least 3 different donuts (non gluten free), such as the nutella-filled one, caramel and bacon, or raspberry.

We clearly love donuts, since I just made some gluten free ones for us recently. (FYI they are so good you'd never guess they were g.f.) AND I got John this cookbook as part of his gift. (The gift includes that I'll be doing the baking too! First up to try is the Raspberry White Chocolate Doughnuts recipe.)

The donuts I made a couple of weekends ago:
Double chocolate espresso (with Christmas sprinkles since that's all I had!)

We then drove to Calloway Gardens for a day of biking in the beautiful weather. Neither of us had been to Calloway, and it was a perfect afternoon of exploring the gardens, biking, and stopping for a picnic. They also had topiaries of college mascots in honor of football season, but sadly no Vandy Commodore!

View from our lunch spot

Tackling the Georgia bulldog 

That evening we had a bonfire with friends in our neighborhood and roasted s'mores.

On Sunday, John had planned for us to explore the Atlanta Botanical Gardens but we ended up wanting to rest since we were tired from all of the biking the day before. So we're going to postpone that gift for another weekend. Instead we went for a walk around Grant Park and threw the football and frisbee.

Tuesday was our 2 year anniversary! Many of you probably saw this picture on Facebook, but it's too good not to include here too. I couldn't have imagined that'd I'd be marrying John if you asked me at 9th grade homecoming. And yet now he's my best friend and love of my life; so very thankful for these past two years of marriage...

John and I exchanged letters (our tradition for holidays), and I made him a crossword puzzle to solve as part of my gift to him. The clues were inside jokes or memories from our years of friendship, dating, and marriage. It was really fun watching him solve it and remembering so many good times!

And yet this past year of marriage has been memorable perhaps more for what we've learned during trials. I think it's often our nature to forget the depth of our pain and despair during afflictions. It's easier to feel in control when we gloss over the hardships. Either I trick myself into thinking that I am to applaud for emerging from trials or I don't want to remember that adversity can overwhelm me.

So though our anniversary certainly was an exciting time of celebration, I also don't want to fall into the common social media trap of only presenting the glamourous parts of life.

What this past year has shown me, however, is the growth that happens during difficult times. Through John's health issues (which he's fully healed but still undiagnosed), my anemia, making difficult decisions to postpone trips, and trying to be patient while growing my business, God is shaping us for His purposes.

And I am so grateful for a best friend-husband that journeys through the ups and downs with me. Together we have learned the importance of rest and what it means to abide. It is through experiencing these seasons together that we rejoice in triumphs and are beginning to learn what it means to dig in and welcome growth during unexpected difficulties.

John proposed after we'd been canoeing in the Florida summer, midday heat. One thing he said to me was that he wanted us to enter into our engagement real - sweat and all - because we'd be doing all of life together, not just the dolled up and glamorous parts. How thankful I am for a husband who desires to "be in the arena" of life with me because it makes our victories in Christ so much sweeter.

76 Years of Marriage, a 2 Year Anniversary & other stories

A couple of weekends ago, John and I headed out to St. Louis for my friend Alex's wedding. The ceremony and reception were both so intentionally planned, including washing each other's feet and having an open prayer time during the ceremony, and fostering authentic conversations over delicious food at the reception.

Alex and Will's commitment to God, each other, and their community was evident throughout the weekend.

Yet one moment in particular stood out to me.

When it was time for the homily, Will's 98 year old grandfather stood up and said, "Well, you can all breathe easy now because I made it!" He then proceeded with an incredible homily, and with his wife present in the crowd, he spoke of his experience from 76 years of marriage. In a concise yet comprehensive and compelling sermon, he expressed how God rejoices over marriage because it reminds us of our covenant with Him and the ultimate wedding feast to come.

I can't do his words justice, but just the image of him proclaiming - and living out - the powerful impact that marriage can have made a huge impression on John and me.

The newly married couple! (Barefoot from washing each other's feet.)
Will's grandfather is clapping on the left.

With the bride! Fun fact: Alex wore her mom's wedding dress.

"My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness." -Colossians 2:2-3, 6

The grandfather's words were a wonderful reminder to us as John and I celebrate our two year anniversary next Tuesday.

John has been sending me clues throughout the last couple of days of what he has planned for us tonight and this weekend:

Harriet is in reference to Harriet The Spy, a book and movie that I loved growing up; so much so that I even had a spy-themed birthday party one year. My best friend and I also used to walk around the neighborhood with our composition notebooks and magnifying glasses, recording clues and working on solving neighborhood crimes, like: Why are there footprints in this abandoned lot? or Who opened the neighbor's front gate? Very serious business.

John and I love donuts (gluten free ones for me, of course!), and tonight we're heading to The Optimist for a very special dinner celebration. I'm excited to see what other plans are in store for us this weekend!

Leaves changing, Lives changing

On Saturday, I reclined in the wicker chair on our porch, enjoying the sunny, beautiful, Atlanta Fall weather and reading a good book. Yet do you ever feel like it's hard to fully enjoy these moments? Your mind keeps running to things that you should be doing or what you need to get done today. I often feel like I'm "wasting time" when I am not fully productive. 

Then the One Thousand Gifts Devotional that I read that morning hits me: 

"Through all that haste I thought I was making up time. It turns out I was throwing it away... Life is so urgent it necessitates living slow... Time to laugh long, time to give God glory and to rest deep and to sing joy." 

Every day this past week I have been watching how the leaves outside of our kitchen window change. Every day a little more green becomes red. It's stunning to awaken each morning to a noticeable difference from the day before. 

The view out of our kitchen window

This color change is continual, yet I don't notice the change throughout the day. It's only when I've stepped away and return to the window after overnight hours do I see the difference. 

How true this is for our lives. During a season we're in, it's hard to see the ongoing growth. It's only after you step back and examine the whole do you begin to notice the different shades appearing in your life. 

It's only in intervals of repose that we notice. 

The definition is telling: "Repose. Temporary rest from activity, excitement, or exertion; a state of peace; in art, a harmonious arrangement of colors and forms, providing a restful visual effect."

In intervals of temporary rest from excitement, we enter a peaceful state and are able to appreciate the arrangements of colors and forms in our own lives. 

What shades of your life are taking on new colors and forms that you can't recognize in your busyness? Are these transformations that you want but haven't taken the time to appreciate? Or are they changes toward an undesirable direction that have happened unintentionally? 

Take deliberate rest today to examine, notice, correct, and give gratitude for the beautiful colors in your life. 

Living An Adventure

When John and I were engaged, we committed to not take ourselves too seriously in marriage. Life and work can be weighty enough so we wanted our relationship to be a haven for rest and rejuvination.

Yet during busy or stressful times you can't just tell yourself, "Lighten up and laugh a little." That would be like adding "Have fun" to your To Do List. Without a specific action that you're going to take to have fun, it's not as likely to happen.

Here's how we've been intentionally putting fun adventures into our daily routine, despite the busy-ness right now:

• Indoor picnic: For dinner one night, we spread out our picnic blanket, lit the candles in our fireplace, and ate our meal on the floor. Bonus: indoor picnics can include wine!
• Indoor bowling: This was all John's idea. (No surprise there with John's love of competition!) We set up three empty tennis ball cans at the end of our LONG hallway. We then competed for who could knock the most "pins" down by "bowling" a tennis ball. After five sets we were tied, so we played one more and John barely won!

• Six Flags: We went to Six Flags one Saturday morning, racing around the park to ride only the best rides. It was my first time there and I had a blast!
• Dance off: Pretty self explanatory: Turn on music and compete (see a theme here?!) for who has the best dancing skills. I believe I won this one :)

On the theme of living a life of adventure, I just finished reading Donald Miller's book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to know how to live a good story in life. 

Through vivid, funny, and poignant stories, he explains how what makes a story great are the same elements that make a life great. And great stories are full of adventures.

"The ambitions we have will become the stories we live. If you want to know what a person's story is about, just ask them what they want...when we live a story, we are telling the people around us what we think is important." -Donald Miller

From how you are living your life, what would people say is important to you? 

"We live in a world where bad stories are told, stories that teach us that life doesn't mean anything and that humanity has no great purpose. It's a good calling, then, to speak a better story." -Donald Miller

Are you living a story that others want to hear about and be a part of, one that "invites other people into the story... giving them a better story too"?

Perhaps this book resonated with me so much because of my passion for helping others be embraced by the journey. It's my hope that as I try to live a meaningful story that the little slices of adventure that I show on this blog would encourage you in your journey. Not every adventure is movie-worthy or even fun. Donald Miller talks a lot in his book about good stories requiring sacrifices. And I certainly do not have all of this figured out for my own life either. Hence, why it's about a journey and not a destination.

So go live an adventure today!

If you want to read more about keeping your marriage adventurous, check out these posts:

• How to keep your marriage adventurous
• How to fit adventure into your marriage

  

How to live to be 100

In the August issue of Real Simple, there is a feature section on the secrets to aging gracefully. It was fascinating to read snippets of how seven centenarians made it to 100. One of the general principles was to continually learn. 

The article stated, "You need to keep learning throughout your life. Ideally, says Devi, you should engage a part of your mind that you don't rely on. 'There's this interesting concept of learned nonuse, which basically means that if a part of the brain isn't used, it becomes less adapt.'" 

The article suggests to "diversify your cognitive portfolio" by trying skills you don't typically use. So if you're a writer, build a model airplane. If you're an athlete, learn an instrument. If you like numbers, take a painting class. 

The basic premise here is something that I've written about both on BeEmbraced and the Student Launch Pad blog. It comes down to intentionally trying something that you might fail at in order to force yourself into an uncomfortable situation, all in the pursuit of growth.

According to author and researcher Joshua Foer, we need to push beyond the "OK Plateau," where we learn a skill and become "good enough" to get by. Rather than going on autopilot, Foer says that experts in their field remain alert and keep learning to "operate outside their comfort zone and study themselves failing."

Real Simple, August 2013

So ultimately,

"If we want to cultivate expertise, or 'genius,' or whatever you want to call it, we need to be able to step outside of ourselves, observe how we are operating, reflect on what could be better, theorize how we could change it, and then test out a solution. The problem is: This is very, very hard for most people."

Which brings me to my main point of writing this blog post: How can you intentionally begin to learn something new and out of your comfort zone?

I've definitely experienced growth from these type of situations: Learning to cook when living by myself for a semester in Chicago; immersing myself in Italian by doing a home-stay study abroad program; and teaching myself WordPress website development by putting my Student Launch Pad curriculum online.

If I hadn't been in these situations, I would never have learned these specific skills or stretched my mind in new ways, whether creative or technical.

Yet I realized that most of what I learned took place from necessity or specific goals I wanted to accomplish. So, I'm currently thinking, what do I want to intentionally dive into next? I've always loved writing poetry but haven't set aside time for it lately, so this is one area that I'm intentionally working into my schedule.

But what about you: 

• Do you have any good ideas of new things I can try or learn? 
• What do you plan on intentionally learning about?

If you enjoy this topic, here are other articles that may be of interest:

• What Grit Has to Do with Your Dream Job (Student Launch Pad)
• The Future of Self-Improvement Part II (99U)
• Run Don't Walk Part II (BeEmbraced)
• The Liberating, Terrifying Realities of Deliberate Practice (Modern Mrs. Darcy)

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!

What the Shack's are up to lately

Last week I was in Orlando, working on an exciting new project for Student Launch Pad to develop an online platform for my curriculum. It was a change for me to be the one traveling instead of John!

After working long hours and having meetings, I got to enjoy time with my parents, including delicious meals that my Dad made, like this one:

I love learning cooking techniques from him! 

Dad (wearing my apron!) and I cooking together last time he visited

My flight was delayed coming home Thursday night because of bad storms in the Atlanta area. Like the last time when John and I flew home from Chicago, I boarded the plane, we were ready to go, and then had to get off the plane and wait several hours. I'm glad we waited though, because this is the picture of Atlanta's sky that my friend Heather sent me:

While I waited, I wanted to enjoy my dinner (as much as you can enjoy airport food). One small problem: as soon as I sat down to eat, everyone around me started watching a mouse that was running around our seats! That definitely took my appetite away. As I was gathering my belongings to change seats, the man next to me started laughing that I would move because of a mouse. Yes I would!

After finally returning home, I was able to meet up with Heather (remember this girl's wedding?!) for breakfast before she left from her business trip. I always love reconnecting with friends in person!

On Saturday, John and I had our weekly coffee date (a part of us keeping our marriage adventurous) at a new place for us: Revolution Doughnuts! The donuts here were amazing, including a nutella cream filled one and a caramel donut topped with bacon. I opted for their gluten free almond, chocolate, and coconut one, which was delicious!

That afternoon, we "braved" the heat at the Braves game. We took the seventeen-year-old son of the family that John lived with during his internship in Atlanta, and it was a great afternoon and evening spending time with him. By baseball standards, the game was even exciting for me to watch as the Braves took the win in the last inning!

On Sunday we met up with friends to play tennis, and on Monday night we had friends over for dinner. A full and wonderful weekend!

Motivation Monday

Monday's have been an early start for me during the past year because I do talent and culture development consulting on Monday mornings for an organization in the suburbs. This means that I have to wake up at 6am (at the latest), eat breakfast and get ready in 40 minutes, and head out the door.

Once the meeting that I lead ends at 9am (it starts at 7:15!), my Monday already feels like it's off to a productive start. This momentum typically carries throughout the day.

So to inspire your Monday and give you motivation for the week, here are some ways to be productive and efficient today:

1. Make your action plan. What do you want to accomplish this week? What does that mean for what you must get done today? Write it out and schedule it in your calendar.


2. Take a few minutes to remind yourself why you are working today (or why you are in school, at home, volunteering etc.). Last week I took some of my favorite quotes (found on Pinterest of course) and wrote out an inspirational Bible verse. I made it into a collage using the InstaCollage app and saved it as the background to my computer. This whole process probably took about 30 minutes, but the daily inspiration and reminders that it provides makes me more productive in the long run.

This is the collage I made that is now my computer background.

3. Plan out your meals for the week. Planning out your meals for the week takes a little investment on the front end, but it saves a lot of stress during the week. Knowing in advance what I need to buy from the grocery store also saves money (no wasted food) and time (not having to make multiple trips to the store). Plus, you can consciously make the decision to eat healthy. For quick, healthy meals that I've made lately, check out this post from last week.


4. Fit in some exercise. Working up a little bit of a sweat and getting your body moving actually makes you more energetic. Even if you get home from work and are feeling sluggish, getting active will reawaken you, meaning you don't need that cup of coffee mid-afternoon that will keep you up all night. And you don't have to spend a lot of time working out either. You can burn a lot of calories in 10 minutes. My favorite is FitSugar's 10-Minute Videos.

Or, try this at-home CrossFit circuit that I did recently. If you're unfamiliar with CrossFit you can read about it here and get some sample workouts that beginners can do. The circuit that I created was inspired by this one from Carrots 'N' Cake, but since it was a bit challenging for me I modified it below:

This link shows you how to complete each exercise, and the weights that I listed are what I used. If you're curious, I completed 4 rounds in 11:46. Try to beat me ;)

Happy Monday!

There is a firmer foundation than answers to my "why's"

My friends know that I am not a so-called "animal lover." But when my Mom called to let me know that Callie, my 16 year old calico who I got as an Easter gift in second grade, had to be put to sleep I was upset and sad.

2013 has been a difficult year. From my husband's sickness to my own illness, from a grandfather battling cancer to my other grandfather passing away, from family friends struggling through trying times to our country mourning many disasters and losses this year, my cat having to be put down was another trial to add to the list.

Yet while this post could easily become a litany of grief and hardships, this one thought has been circling my mind. On my run yesterday (first of all, I'm just thankful that I can run again), I kept thinking:

We have a God who lets us cry. He not only allows us to cry, but we also worship a God who desires for us to cry out to Him. "The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit" (Psalm 34:18).

I am realizing that I don't have to have my act together. I can come to God with questions. I can show up for my church small group and not have answers to "What is my role as a wife to a sick husband? What is my role as a daughter during trying and tiring experiences for my family?"

Beautiful Chicago, a reminder of many blessings

I can ask, "Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?" (Psalm 42:5) Because even if I don't understand, I have a firmer foundation than answers to my "whys."

"Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God." (Psalm 42:11). 

I have hope because I have a promise: "The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold" (Psalm 18:2). Now that is a litany I want to repeat. Strong words of "rock, fortress, shield, stronghold." This is my hope and promised salvation: a Deliverer. This is my joy.

And that is why I continue counting my blessings in my gratitude journal. Numerous blessings like family visiting, a friend's wedding in Chicago, beauty in nature, a friend's birthday, the list continues...

Celebrating Becca's birthday

Before the wedding in Chicago 

My sister-in-law Emma and I visiting the CNN Center

As I count my blessings, my joy increases and I can cry out in sadness and in praise.

I had to include this adorable picture of sweet Callie

From weeds to blossoms

Below is an excerpt from my She Reads Truth study that I am doing on the book of Nehemiah right now:

"Sisters, there is so much work to do. We see need, pain and injustice all around us and our knees quickly buckle under the weight. We long to make our lists and check them twice and fix it all right this second. But we dare not make a move without God. As Ian Hamilton said it, 'Beloved, our great and pressing need today is to give ourselves to waiting upon God, because waiting time is never wasted time.'" 

Wow, "waiting time is never wasted time." I so often do not view being patient as being productive. I am often not content to simply sit in the presence of God because I can't cross anything off my list. Read devotional? Check. Journal a prayer? Check. Be still... this is much harder to "check off."

Especially when I see the needs all around me in our city: neighbors who are hurting, Atlanta being one of the top 14 cities in the U.S. for sex trafficking, the unemployed, the children playing basketball down the street without a father... these needs are overwhelming and I want to know what I can start doing. I want a list to follow.

From weeds to blossoms. Waiting produces fruit. 

Yet we won't have the strength and willingness to act in these difficult situations without reliance on God and the willingness to wait first. 

Waiting requires trust and relinquishing my agenda of getting things done for God's priority of seeking Him first.

For me a recent step toward this trust was reflecting on a truth that my Dad told me not long ago: What an incredible God that we worship who desires to use us for His plan. We get to be used for His good purposes. We simply need to be available and ready to be used by Him.

It's hard to be aware of when God is graciously allowing us to enter into His plan if we're pursuing our own agendas. The stillness comes first and we wait so we are prepared to act with our full energy and devotion.

That time I hailed a cab mid-race & other Nashville adventures

On Friday, five of us girls journeyed from Atlanta to Nashville to run the Country Music Half Marathon and have a girls' weekend.

My friend, Becca, and I left a bit earlier and made it into Nashville in time for the race expo where we were overwhelmed with free samples and picked up our race shirt and number. We also received bracelets to wear in honor of the Boston Marathon.

That evening, we met my high school friend, Kim, for dinner at a vegetarian/vegan restaurant in East Nashville called The Wild Cow (which I kept mistakenly calling The Mad Cow all weekend, oops.) It was delicious despite the name mix-up!

Anna, Meredith, Lauren, me, and Becca in our corral before the race...
A little blurry because of the rain

Later that night the other three girls arrived and we hung out in the hotel room for a bit, mainly debating what to wear the next day, since rain showers were in the forecast. We didn't get much sleep since we had to wake up at 5am to get ready for the half marathon start at 7am.

When we headed downstairs the skies were pretty clear and it wasn't too cold. Unfortunately, this prevented us from dressing appropriately or wearing much (if any) rain gear. As we stood in our corral waiting for the race to start, the rain started coming down steadily. And didn't stop the entire day. With the rain, the temperatures also dropped and so we began the race shivering and already wet.

By mile 3 it was pretty much pouring and I gave up hope that it'd stop raining during the race. For about the first four miles, all five of us stayed together and it was fun to point out my old stomping grounds along the route.

When I finished this half marathon before, while I was in grad school at Vandy, I remembered the course being a whole lot hiller. The inclines were not nearly as bad this time though the course was the same, so I guess Atlanta's hills trained me well!

And since I'd already done this race, I wasn't concerned with my time or how well I did. After finding out a month ago that I was very anemic, my doctor said it wasn't healthy for me the run the entire 13.1 miles. So at about mile 4, Lauren and I slowed down our pace and let the other girls run on ahead. We ran 6 miles, and then I had to listen to my body and call it quits.

Our initial plan was to walk the second half of the race, but with the freezing rain and water gushing into our shoes it was miserable walking. At least running kept me somewhat warm, but walking made all of my joints stiff and fingers and toes numb. By mile 7 I was praying we'd see a cab, and at mile 8.5 I spotted one! Lauren jogged on ahead to claim it, and we collapsed inside... feeling no shame for heading back to the hotel. Our fingers could barely move to take off our race numbers and my teeth were chattering so badly. A hot shower never felt better!

The other girls finished strong despite the rain but then had to make the freezing 1.5 mile walk back to the hotel after the finish. They sure earned those medals!

Cheers!

Becca and me at Fido

After showers and hanging up our soaking clothes to dry, we headed to Fido's, a favorite spot of mine, for brunch. Omelets, sweet potato pancakes, hash browns, mimosas... we had it all! Then, back to the hotel for a glass of wine, relaxing, and naps.

That evening we had plans to go out in downtown Nashville but decided to just do drinks and dinner and keep it low key. It was a great time of girl bonding, and my college friend, Alex, joined us which was a blast!

First up was a quirky place in East Nashville called No. 308. The picture below doesn't do it justice but there were stuffed foxes with skeletons on top and mannequins in the display case behind our booth. Creepy! We hung out there while waiting for a table to open up at The Pharmacy, a very popular Burger Parlor and Beer Garden. We finally got a table on their quaint outside patio. And the food did not disappoint. Afterwards, we called it a night and all slept wonderfully.

Alex, me, and Anna at No. 308

Hard to see but this is the creepy display box behind our booth

On Sunday morning, we slept in before meeting up with Alex at a breakfast spot also in East Nashville (definitely the least touristy spot from the race crowds) called Sky Blue. For the first time, a little bit of sunshine was out so we took our chances and sat outside. And it was worth the gamble because the rain held and we finally got to hear some live music in Nashville! The food and coffee were all great too.

Bringing cowboy boots back to Atlanta

My boots from college... still wearing them proudly!

Before heading back to Atlanta, we made one last stop at Boot Country, where I got my cowboy boots freshman year of college. I wore that same pair all weekend, and the other girls decided that they wanted to take advantage of the buy 1 get 2 free deal too! Becca, Meredith, and Anna all ended up with the same pair of boots so the shopping was a success. And despite the rain, the girls' weekend was a huge success and wonderful time too!