Just Finished

Okay so this was the book I swore I'd never read. I have a tendency to bypass things that are all the rage. But I was looking for a book that I could read quickly and would hold my attention. Now I'm waiting for the second book so that I can sit in the pool all day tomorrow and read.

Quite the Weekend

I have two days left of my vacation from work and already I'm sad to go back. I really like my job, but honestly if I never had to work another day in my life I wouldn't complain. Here's a brief recap of our weekend. On Saturday morning we go to sleep in together (a rarity) and then we went and had breakfast at the West Egg Cafe. I had amazing eggs benedict, which always grosses Chris out because he doesn't like runny eggs. The West Egg Cafe is in this up and coming area of Atlanta with cute little shops, restaurants, and condos. We then perused Room and Board my new favorite furniture store. Chris let me cross the street to go look at the animals at the Humane Society, which is a weird obsession of mine. While we were there we learned they are having a volunteer orientation this week and we're going to attend so we can be volunteers. After our breakfast adventure we decided to take the Marta (public transportation) to Decatur, GA and walk around the Arts Festival. The only problem: this is what the weather was like: We're Oregonians, right? A little rain never hurt anyone. Lucky for us, the rain was done by the time we were off the train. After shopping for art we can't afford we headed back on the train and stopped at Borders for some coffee and book/magazine reading...another favorite activity of mine since it's free!!! We topped the day off watching Slumdog Millionaire and eating our kettle corn from the Art Festival. Sunday began in it's usual fashion where we had breakfast at the Corner Bakery, which is in the same parking lot as our church, followed by church and a fun lunch with friends. Then Jenny and Ian came over for dinner, and brought their adorable puppy Sophie. We made homemade pasta with vodka cream sauce and Mascapone cupcakes with strawberry glaze for dinner. Dinner was soooooo good. You have to follow the links to thre recipes...trust me it's worth it. Then we played a few games of Clue...quickly becoming a tradition with our group of friends. Today I plan to get my kitchen cabinet full of spices and baking ingredients organized...

Amazing

I came across The Art of Jim Denevan today. Isn't this amazing? Go check out his website for even more cool art.

A Fun Craft Project

Ann and Jared Coe are good friends of ours from George Fox. Chris and Jared lived together while they were in school and Ann and I would cook frequently together...fajitas were our favorite. She sent me a message the other day asking for new recipes so I couldn't resist the urge to do something crafty.

Dog vs Human Surgery

Gunnar had surgery yesterday to remove one of his premolars. He had a checkup last week for his yearly vaccinations and they discovered he had a slab fracture on his tooth. He had to have the tooth removed because the fracture was all the way into the inside of his tooth. So the poor guy had to have his gum peeled back and the tooth broken into pieces to remove it. Our vet said he did fantastic. We love our vet sooooo much. She is great. For those of you in Atlanta looking for a vet we highly recommend Dr. Keri Wyle at Peachtree Hills Animal Hospital. I thought this was funny though: The medication I came home from sugery with: The medication Gunnar came home from surgery with:How does an animal need more stuff than a human?

It's Over

Well WAMU has finally become a memory of our past. Chris' last day at the bank was today. Chris started at WAMU right after college and quickly learned that it was not his calling in life. He had been there about 3 years when we made the decision for him to go back to school. Although he didn't enjoy it most days he stuck it out and WAMU has proven to be faithful to us, providing health insurance and paying his way through school, paying off student loan debt, and buying his car here. It has been a long time coming and I feel very blessed to have a husband that stuck it out so that I had a sense of financial security. Now that tuition is paid for, my medical ordeal is over, and we're almost out of debt (yes we will be calling Dave Ramsey when our last $4000 is paid) it was time. Although he's had plenty of freelance work and assisting work, now is when we will come to rely solely on self employment from his side. This is definitely scary, but I have a very talented husband who will do great!!!

It's Done!!

I got my confirmation email today that my recipe box and tabs are done. Isn't it cute. Now I just wait for it to arrive.

Really!?!

On Tuesday I went to the UPS store to mail some cards and a birthday package. I handed my pile to the man behind the counter, he rang everything up, handed me my receipt, and I was out the door. I was so proud of myself that my mother's day cards and birthday package would arrive promptly on time. Then I got this in the mail today: Really!?! The UPS store did not put postage on the card!!!!! Maggie, if you're reading this, we sincerely apologize that your card will not arrive on time.

Just Finished

Sacred Influence by Gary Thomas. Chris and I read his book Sacred Marriage before we were married and thought it was very good. I also thought this book was very good. There were some topics that didn't apply to me, but it truly has challenged me to remember that I need to put God first in my life. It has also reminded me how to be a supportive wife and to look for ways to serve Chris-something that isn't always easy on days I'm left at home because he's at school working. I can't speak to the biblical accurateness of the book - that's not one of my strengths. Something that does drive me crazy is when authors use one line of scripture to prove a point, which he does do in this book. So if any of you Bible scholars have read this and would like to chime in...I welcome your comments.

Sharing My Favorite

Most of you know that I enjoy cooking and baking. I love trying new recipes and am very thankful that I have a husband who doesn't mind being a guinea pig and who also shares his honest opinion. We have a rating system of don't make again/make again. If the recipe is just okay we'll never make it again. It has to be amazing and most times stand up to leftovers to be written down and kept in the recipe file. Most of you also know that I loooooooove cookbooks. It's a slight obsession of mine. My boss welcomed me to America's Test Kitchen. I now receive two different magazines in the mail: Cooks Country and Cooks Illustrated. I don't know how they all fit together but I think the same people produce all the different things. Anyways the magazines are fantastic. They pick a recipe to make and then make it hundreds of time, changing out tiny things to get it perfect. Their magazine isn't very fancy, in fact there's a lot of drawings, but reading the articles to figure out how they made something is very cool. Alot like Alton Brown. Check it out sometime.

Bittersweet Reunion

Coleman is in town, half of the Coleman and Jillian duo, for work. They left ATL about a year ago and moved to Denver. It was great to see him, but also sad that Jillian didn't get to come to visit also. If any of you are looking for laugh out loud reading, you have to click on their blog on the right side of this page. Jillian is hilarious!!!!! The stuff that happens to them is unbelievable!!! Anyways, we went and had dinner at Tap with Coleman, and Kyle and Regan. It was very yummy. We had this cool private area that overlooked the city. I thought their menus were sooo cool. We tried boiled peanuts for the first time...they were yummy.

OTP

So we live ITP (inside the perimeter) for those of you that don't speak ATL (atlanta). The perimeter is a free way that circles the entire city and most ITPers don't find the need to leave the perimeter because anything you could need is ITP and traffic sucks and who wants to deal with that? So last weekend we took a trip OTP (outside the perimeter). We went to Macon GA to go to the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame. Chris is doing a project on "gold" and we were gathering information for the project. This project has the potential to turn out AMAZING and be very impotant for Chris' career, but that's about all I think I can say right now. Since Chris was shooting and taking notes, to keep myself entertained I read every single information piece displayed. I learned alot. Went down with a guy from Chris' class and his partner. We had a ton of fun and even took a side trip to see a grave of the Almon Brothers....weird. GO DAWGS!!! They had lots of information about the Olympics, Special Olympics, and Paralympics. Here's the map to the Almon Brothers grave.