Stuff White People Like

I found on a friend's blog this hilarious website, dedicated to listing all the things white people like. It's really funny, especially if you're not white and embarrassingly if you are. Check it out.

Things We've Been Up To

~ Chris and I have been running 6 days a week.
~ I planted our garden; corn, zucchini, yellow squash, and carrots. My herbs survived the winter, so we've got enough left for me to use in my cooking. Also, my neighbor gave me a bunch of tulip bulbs. I planted those, too, and can't wait to see them come up. I love tulips.
~ Kitchen remodel. I took off all the cabinet doors and hardware, sanded them down, and today I put a coat of primer on. I might do another coat, then paint. I'm going with white. It will really brighten up our tiny kitchen space and hopefully give the impression that they are newer. After the doors are done, I'll start the sanding on the installed cabinets and continue from there. At that point I'll move all our kitchen stuff into the dining room.
~ Chris has really been enjoying his job lately. It felt like it was an overnight change where one day he woke up and realized he was content with his job, happy he was there, and excited to continue being an engineer. This is huge because never since I have known him has he wanted to do engineering. It was always a step toward something else, a way to pay off debt before seminary. But right now, he feels happy where he is. Praise God for that.
~ I reupholstered the dining room chair seats. It was a table and chairs set we bought for $70 a few months after we got married from Chris's mom's friend. It's done us well and we want to keep it around as long as we can, but it just needed better looking fabric.
~ Marlow is eating a shank bone right now. Tonight I made us Thai roasted (almost 3 hours!) lamb shanks with jasmine rice and steamed bok choy. It was tasty, but a lot of food. Chris will enjoy leftovers for lunch tomorrow. I gave the bone to him almost an hour ago! He's still working hard at it and I'm sure it will be devoured within the next hour. Good for his teeth.

On the Search

This post is to find my friend, Sara!!! (I don't remember your married last name!) I get so excited to read comments from you that you leave, but for some reason, I'm not able to access your profile, look at your blog, and get an email address or something. I'd love to catch up and actually talk to you, but I don't know how without posting my phone number...which wouldn't be a good idea. So, hopefully you read this sometime soon and mess around with your blogger profile privacy stuff so I can contact you!

Jaxson Reese

He and I hang out every now and then. We have lots of fun together. He's 4 months old now and laughs a lot.

Bison, It's What's For Dinner

Tonight's: Seared Bison with a mixture of Whole Grain Mustard and Kalamata Olives with Julienned Peppers on a Portobello

Saturday's: Mahi-Mahi with Saffron Rice, Boston Lettuce, Grapefruit, Avocado, Lime-Basil Vinaigrette and Sesame Seeds

Sam & Karen Visit

From New York and Indiana they came
Compared to last year we did nothing the same
Eating Thai food, drinking Ginger Man
Hiking Greenbelt, of Rudy's they were fans
Karen's birthday dinner I cooked
After playing Blokus, they were hooked
Walked around UT, looked in shops
Only one day came raindrops
Now they're gone and we are sad
To see them again we will be glad

Friday nappers

Friday Night Salsa Dancing Lesson with the Hekmans

At Ginger Man downtown

Happy Birthday, Karen!

Lord of the Rings

With Love, Carey

Happy V-Day, everyone. Did you know that there were several Mr. Valentines (referred to as Saints) and they were all martyrs? Supposedly the 14th of February is the "feast of" to commemorate them, set in order by the Roman Catholic Church and established in 496. Not sure how it later merged into a holiday that celebrates love and romance.

We commemorated the martyrs today by eating Thai food at our favorite local joint, Madam Mams. I put together a gift bag for Chris to find when he ate his breakfast this morning. It included some of his favorite things...Winterfresh gum, Oh's cereal, Pilot G-2 ink pens, "The Fellowship of the Ring" DVD, and Whoppers candy. He got me flowers and prepared a hot bath for me when I got home from work. He is a great husband and it's fun being in love.

Be Green in the Kitchen

One of my favorite challenges is to make something wonderful from what appears to be nothing. My good friend Michelle is really great at that. She has the touch to make things beautiful and aesthetically pleasing without spending much money at all. I think it's a wonderful gift.

I enjoy doing it with the contents in my refrigerator. Truly, I love to clean and organize. My husband teases me because it's to be sure that sometime during each weekend he'll find me on a chair reaching to the top of my pantry or on my hands and knees spraying down and wiping out the freezer. I also live by FIFO. It's a term used in the food industry; First In, First Out. There is usually a sequence to which we use food in our home. If leftovers are present (And I hate eating leftovers. Fortunately Chris is my live-in garbage disposal and he doesn't mind finishing off a pan of lasagna or remaining mashed potatoes.) it is top priority to get rid of them before making a whole new meal with new ingredients. I like to waste as little as possible and try to live by the RRR method of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle even with our eating habits.

To begin with, since there are just two of us, I usually make 1/2 of a recipe or smaller amounts of food. This reduces the amount of product I use. I reuse food that is still in containers in other meals to finish them. Last night I made a wheat pasta dish with veggies; sunburst squash, sun dried tomatoes, peas, and shiitake mushrooms. I also had about 1/4 cup left of pinto beans from a previous night's dish(wilted kale and pinto beans), so I just threw those in for extra protein. Call me OCD, but I feel accomplished when after dinner, I look into our fridge and there are a few containers less than there were before. And finally, I try to recycle as much as I can whether it be empty containers of sour cream, salad dressings, etc.

But back to my main point of making something out of nothing...it's really fun for me to see that we've got random ingredients in our pantry and fridge, to use them and throw something together that is healthy and delicious. That's satisfaction for me. My aunts used to say that my mom could feed a whole house on a chicken for a week. That's what I'm talking about. Making little become much by stretching and improvising and adding. When I've used things up, I reward myself by going grocery shopping and doing it all over again the next week.

Good Reads

Books I Read Last Month
1. Blue Like Jazz - Donald Miller
2. My Sister's Keeper - Jodi Picoult
3. Marley and Me - John Grogan
4. Same Kind of Different As Me - Ron Hall & Denver Moore

Now Reading
1. Sex God - Rob Bell
2. Love & Respect - Dr. Emerson Eggerichs

Weekend

We took Marlow to the park on Saturday. Perhaps only dog lovers will understand this, but we really get so much joy seeing him enjoy life. When he's able to be off-leash and run, jump, swim, play, roll in the mud, and chase other dogs, it makes me happy. I feel like it's essential for his personality to be able to have those times. It engages his mind, presents challenges that he has to figure out on his own, and the woods is just a place of stimulation for him. I like to see my dog happy.

Yesterday was a productive day at the Bonsers'. Chris has been working to enclose our laundry room for the past several weeks now. I'm continually amazed at his remodeling skills and I love his work ethic. When he sets out to do something, he truly does it with excellence. And because of that great quality, whoever buys our house someday will reap the benefits. He finished the electrical and put up insulation in the laundry room. Whenever we rip open walls and such, we always find surprises such as exposed live wires and aged rat poop and a rusty tin can with $500 in it. Just kidding on that last part. I keep hoping to find a hidden treasure within our walls though. Yesterday I ran a few errands in the morning, getting a new Brita pitcher, buying round two of curtains for the dining room (hopefully these look better, if not, they're going back where they came from), and of course stopping by the hardware store for a few extra odds and ends. We ate lunch and I got started on the front bushes. I hear you're supposed to trim them down before Spring time and if you feel like you're really hacking them off, then it's probably the right amount. I always love to see their fast growth once the warm weather returns...which it has. It's been consistently in the high '70s to high '80s all week. I love Springtime in Texas, but it's always too short.

Under the Weather

When Chris and I returned from our trip, he was at the brink of his illness with flu-like symptoms, feeling achy and naucious and fatigued. It's been about 2 weeks since we've gotten back and he's still not completely back to normal. He's going to the doctor this morning. I got the bug on Saturday. It was strange. I went to bed Saturday night completely fine, feeling normal and healthy. I woke up at midnight and every hour from then until about 7am getting sick and then returning to bed. At one point, I just brought my pillow and a blanket to the bathroom floor with me. The cool tiles felt good on my feverish body anyway. And it lasted all day Sunday. I'd move only to lay down on the couch in the livingroom or go to the bathroom, not even holding my head up all day, but just propping it up with pillows to catch some glimpses of the Superbowl before falling asleep again. Not fun. I woke up Monday feeling a lot better, but not completely back to normal. I had to move slower, and I called in sick to work, so I just rested and still did a lot of laying around. I managed to take the trash out and get some string cheese from the fridge, but that was about it. So far today, feeling back to normal. It's weird how the flu just gets you out of the blue like that, sometimes with no warning at all. I know it's going around quite a bit this season, but I hope it doesn't choose you.