Wow

I knew it had been awhile since my last post but good grief its been almost a month! I will say that the last few weeks have been a whirlwind. It feels like we haven't been super busy but when I look at what we've been up to it's actually a good amount.

After my last post, I traveled to the American Counseling Association conference in Cincinnati for four days. Basically that trip was just good for my soul. Leaving NC was hard for so many reasons but I've found the lack of collegial relationships with other counselors to be particularly difficult. Four days with some of my doctoral cohort and other UNCG students/grads wasn't nearly enough but it was so great spending time with them. I even convinced a UNC grad to go to the NC State NCAA game. Although it didn't end well, it was a fun a little side trip.

The husband left for San Antonio the Saturday before I got back from Cincinnati. The following weekend we worked to catch up on house stuff and had a Saturday full of social stuff that included a 2-year old birthday party, a crawfish boil and a wedding shower! And I did all of that with a full body rash - apparently I'm allergic to antibiotics!

This past week we headed to Baltimore Wednesday after a short two days of work. While Chip spent some time with his parents and friends, I did the tourist thing with my mom. The main reason for meeting my mom in Baltimore was to see Les Miserables. We had a great time and the show was truly amazing.

We have one more busy weekend ahead - the husband rides in the MS-150 this coming weekend - and then we're on a hiatus from travel, etc for awhile. We'll need the time to catch up on the house, garden, and plan for our master bathroom remodel!

Time flies

I'm a little late with this post - Friday was a bit of a doozy!

Ten years ago Friday (March 15) the husband and I started dating. We didn't exactly celebrate but it's a fun and kinda large milestone. In the spirit of ten years, I'm going to give you a glimpse into our life together since March 15, 2003.

In the last ten years

• Separately, we lived in 13 apartments/homes, etc and together 1 apartment and 1 home
• Thanks to stints in Greek housing, in that time we lived with more than 65 people
• We attended at least 15 weddings

• The husband comforted me through grieving the loss of three of my grandparents
• We welcomed (from afar mostly and sadly) at least 10 babies of friends and family

• We visited more than 15 cities and 3 countries together
• We experienced one kraft american cheese slice fight
• We got engaged and married :)

• We adopted 1 extremely 'spirited' lovable dog, we fostered a dog who had to be put down, and then fostered and adopted a super loyal lovable dog

• In the early years we hid notes for one another - on cars, in bags, etc - it was fun
• We said "I love you tons" a ton
• We painted too many square feet to count
• We went from not liking vegetables much to growing our own vegetable garden

• We went from velveeta and ramen to home cooked meals (although the husband still occasionally eats ramen)
• We watched the sunrise a ton of times while driving to work together
• We endured the challenge of moving away from our family and friends
• We watched a lot of football, in person and on tv

• We watched the rodeo twice
• We attended a bunch of concerts: Fuel, Hootie, OAR, DMB, Eric Clapton, Nickelback, Kid Rock, Zac Brown Band, etc
• We attended three plays and one Cirque du Soleil show
• We listened to countless hours of Pandora
• We celebrated four graduations between the two of us

Chip's graduation from NC State

• We owned four cars, two of which we still own
• We remodeled a half bath
• We walked the dog(s) a ton

• We drove from Texas to and from North Carolina three times
• We argued and laughed and cried (mostly me) and joked and cursed (not at one another) and talked and smiled
• We went to less than 10 movies in the theater
• We went to two soccer games
• We hung out with awesome friends

 

 

 

• We cooked a ton of meals together that led to only a handful of arguments! :)
• We spent good, fun time with our loving and wonderful families

•  And of course, we made a ton of messes!

I am super lucky to have been introduced (thanks Jenn) to such a wonderful partner and to have spent the last 10 years with him. I can't wait to see what other messes we get into!

What we've been eating

This is just a little rundown of what we've been eating!

Meals

Recently I decided to approach meal planning a little differently. Generally I spend about an hour going through our saved meal files (yes, tedious), pick a few, narrow them down and write the grocery list. But in the last few weeks I've changed up the approach a bit. Two things have led to the change in meal planning. 1) We are trying to minimize our food waste and 2) I got an iPad through work and synced several of our magazine subscriptions with it. It's been fun to select an issue or two and pull out a few recipes to try for the week.

Last week we tried out a new pizza recipe - Goat Cheese & Asparagus pizza. A tasty and fun alternative to some of the more traditional pizzas.

This past weekend we made the cover recipe from Bon Appetit - chicken khao soi. We pretty much followed the recipe exactly and it turned out really well. Next time I think I would change a few things to try to reduce the fat content (chicken breast instead of thigh, low fat coconut milk). This made for a great work week recipe because it was easy to reheat and we each could customize it based on our likes.

We also made the stuffed cabbage recipe from Smitten Kitchen and roasted some fingerling potatoes as a side. It took me about an hour to prep the entire meal and then another hour to cook but the recipe is easy, simple, and cheap. Oh, and really yummy.

Desserts

I tried two more recipes from the Good to the Grain cookbook I got two Christmas' ago from my SIL and BIL. The first recipe, Sand cookies, used Kamut flour. Yeah, I had no idea either until I raided the Bob's Red Mill section at our local grocery store and found it. The cookies only have four ingredients: Kamut flour, powdered sugar, salt and high quality unsalted butter. They are seriously amazing and super easy to make.

The second cookie recipe I whipped together for a last minute dinner with neighbors. It was a simple chocolate chip recipe made entirely with whole wheat flour. Also quite tasty and no one knew they were made with whole wheat flour! I added a little smoked sea salt to the tops of the second batch - yummy!

I apparently was not great at taking pictures of all of this. Oh well!

Currently

My lapses in blogging usually mean I have a lot on my mind. When I have a lot on my mind writing about house stuff seems so unimportant. Somewhat tangentially, I really like our house and working on it but I really actually despise decorating and I kinda suck at it and it's super expensive. If anyone wants to visit and decorate for me, please feel free! :)

Anywho I thought I would update on life right now with a list of randomness. Enjoy.

• I miss my people. 
• Women are awesome and often struggle with things and never tell one another - why do we do that?
• I am super energized by the work I'm doing at the grief center here and it makes me realize how much I miss counseling, supervising counselors and teaching counselors. 
• One of the things I miss the most is having awesome intellectual conversations with other counselors and educators. 
• I was super lucky to go to awesome masters and doc programs where I met and learned with even more awesome people.
• I miss that.
• I'm going to the national counseling conference this month and I'm excited!
• Next month I get to hang out with my mom in Baltimore and I'm excited about that too!
• I'm on a granola kick and make a ton every few weekends. My go to recipe is here but I of course switch out stuff depending on what I have in the pantry. I usually use almonds instead of pistachios (which are awesome but expensive), no coconut b/c the husband dislikes it, and dried cherries or cranberries instead of apricots.

• We're going to remodel our bathroom this year (probably) and hopefully we don't kill each other in the process.
• As part of that remodel we are considering replacing the carpet in our bedroom with laminate that matches the laminate in our house.
• I hate that laminate. And it has spots on that look suspiciously like roaches. Who designs floors with roach-looking spots?
• We have so much of the laminate in our house, it would be too cost prohibitive to replace it so we're stuck with it. Sad.

 That's it for now!