Challenge Accepted

Happy New Year All!

     I'm not usually a resolutions type of girl, but this year I had quite a few on my list. Last year, I was too busy graduating, getting married and enjoying the Bahamas, so I didn't have time to make any. Stephen has a list and we also have a list for us to do together as a married couple because, come on, what newlywed couple doesn't make a joint resolution list? Some are not so much a resolution but more like a goal to accomplish this year.

To list a few of mine:

Cook healthy meals at least 5 days out of the week
Try something new each week
Be a more crafty gift giver
Do laundry like an adult and not throw them all in one load and turn the water on cool
Lose at least 10 pounds for a wedding in a few months
Learn to do one new thing this year (my top choice was cake decorating)

Stephen's list included:

Start Lombardi time (where you always arrive somewhere at least 15 minutes early)
Read at least one book per month
Try something new/do something creative at least once a week
Lose about 30 pounds before a wedding in a few months

Our combined list is part two of our challenge (which I will explain later)

Try the "debt snowball" that Dave Ramsey recommends
Learn to budget better
De-clutter our apartment
Buy a big girl/boy couch and sell our futon


     So, this challenge really begins New Years Day when my family is gathered around the table enjoying a late breakfast and discussing resolutions. When both Stephen and I mention resolving to lose "X" amount of weight, my dad, mother-in-law, and my father-in-law also decide to lose "X" amount of weight before the wedding in a few months.
     Alright, insert hilarious joke from a family member claiming they can lose more body percentage than us and thus beginning our challenge. We each put $10 in a pot and the person with the most body percent weight lost wins the money. This way the winner can buy a new pair of pants or shirt or whatever as an incentive to lose weight.

     Part two of our challenge:

     Shortly after that breakfast, as in a week after, Stephen and I decide to take the big step to be college loan free. By doing this, we agreed to live without certain things and doing more things to save us money so we can put towards killing our debt. I decided I could live without beef for a while to save us meat money and Stephen "claimed" he could give up peanut butter for a while. Now, I put the word claim in quotation marks because if anyone knows Stephen, he LOVES peanut butter. I mean, if it wasn't so high in calories and fat, he would live off of it day and night. He loves peanut butter so much, we should invest in stock.
     Yesterday, he and I were going to go to the store to buy butter and milk to make cookies because we didn't want to COMPLETELY crush this weight loss challenge and embarrass my family. Anyways, before we left, he got that look in his face that he usually gets if we are in the store and he really, REALLY wants something. He sometimes tries to hide that look from me by telling me how nice I look. So he says to me:

Stephen: "Um...Do you think... well, I was thinking..."
Me: "What were you thinking?"
Stephen: "Well, you know how I said I could give up peanut butter?"
Me: "You can't, can you?"
Stephen: "NOOOOOO"
Me: "You just have to have peanut butter??"
Stephen: "........yes"

     So that is how we ended up with more peanut butter in the apartment. Which you would think would make him happy, but instead he gets a bit sassy with me. We told all of our friends we were going to live as cheap as possible, and he gets sassy after his peanut butter. I was wearing two completely different colored socks and I had a sudden thought.

Me: "Hey Stephen. Do you want to know something weird about these socks?"
Stephen: "Uh, sure."
Me: "One of these socks has more padding on the bottom and it's throwing my balance off a bit."
Stephen stunned by the fact I didn't say the colors are different says like the sassy pants he is: "Really, that's the only thing you find weird about them??"

     Yeah, Super sassy pants husband on board. That's the kind of sign I need on my car instead of those "baby on board" signs. So if you hear the sad song of my husband above your heads, send peanut butter. Also, if you have fun date ideas that don't cost anything, feel free to donate those ideas because we will be needing all the ideas we can get.

iPhone Conversations

I may not be like most married women who owns an iPhone. I mean sure, I use it to check social media 100 times a day and text more than I should, but I also think there is a time and place to do those things. I can't stand watching couples sitting at a table in a restaurant together with their noses stuck in their phones.

Where is the quality conversations nowadays? I don't know how people don't enjoy quality time talking about the dumbest things. Like the other day, we talked about the possibility that all kid shows are probably just adults on drugs. For example, for those of you who have seen The Magic School Bus as a kid knows that a fun-loving teacher, Ms Frizzle, has this magic school bus that can take them on impossible field trips to teach them about different things, such as the digestive track, or bacteria, or about music and sound. I remember saying to Stephen one day at dinner, "What if Ms. Frizzle is on drugs and the whole show is her hallucination of the field trip such as the time when she takes her class to the 'ocean' to learn about micro organisms, she is really in the school fountain shouting at confused kids to take a look at the micro organisms which turn out to be pennies kids throw in there?" These are the conversations I have with Stephen almost on a daily basis.

Anyways, speaking of smart phones, I was looking through my pictures and I noticed how many screen shots of text messages I have. I mean, I guess I thought I was hilarious enough or something to save them to my phone. I mean, I AM hilarious, but I'm also really humble about it. But seriously, have you ever had a conversation via text that just struck you as funny and you felt like you had to share it with someone? I have so many texts that it almost seems not fair to share them with y'all.

My parents are some of the funniest people I know. This is the type of random conversations I have with them.

 

*Disclaimer! In no way are either of my parents Bi...except my mom is bi pictorial.

Still trying to figure that one out.

This next picture is by no means a text message conversation, but merely a way to show how hilarious my parents truly are

 

I obviously get my humility from my father.

 

This one is my personal favorite; it's a conversation between my dad and me. My sister's name is Marissa and we nickname her Rissa. Auto correct turns "Rissa" into "Russia," so...

 



Russia is next

 

 



Lastly, here are the final few text messages between my husband and me. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

 This one, if you remember, was the hamburger wrapping from the first blog entry. I forgot to add this there so here it is.

The roaring lion, the head of the household, the spider killer! Ladies and gentlemen, my husband.

 

Later that evening, the roaring lion of a husband almost slept on the couch.

 

All joking aside, I have a blast with my family, no matter where they are. I enjoy the entertainment they provide.

 

What are your thoughts? Have you ever had a texting conversation (not at the dinner table) that just made you laugh?

We are THAT couple

Stephen and I have become THAT couple. You know the really gross ones that nuzzle noses in the airport or match outfits for no reason at all? Yes, that is what we have become in only 10 months; the couple most people see and quickly pretend to get a phone call and walk the other way. I kind of think it's great though because you don't see that very often. Okay, you see it all the time, but do we really see it in a couple married for 20, 30+ years anymore? Am I the only one who thinks it's incredibly adorable to see an elderly couple hold hands or see the gentleman open the door for his sweet little wife even if he barely has the strength to open the door? I love it!

How do I know that we have crossed the line of serious infatuation? Stephen and I just got back from visiting a seminary in Boston that Stephen has been looking into for grad school. We were the only married people in the open house group so it was awkward from the beginning. We got there late because of our flight delay and when we walked in to eat lunch, everyone was already done and about to take the campus tour so we had to grab our lunch and go. As we were taking the tour, we were laughing at each other because we were stuffing our faces with food and trying to look normal while we walked. I swear I felt like everyone was giving us "the look."

 

 The "please Lord don't let them be THAT couple because I will lose my lunch if they are," type of look.

 

 

 

Fortunately, no one lost their lunch and we only nuzzled noses once a few times.

 

I had quite a few people ask me what I would be studying if I went there and I had to explain to them that I wouldn't be studying anything and that my husband is the one interested in grad school. I don't think the single people knew what to say when I said I would just be a seminary wife, here to support my husband in whatever he chooses to do. Their response was more or less:

 

And secretly on the inside they were doing this:

 

 

Awkward.

 

If that wasn't enough, I noticed we have become THAT couple because the other night we went to a candle party together. a CANDLE PARTY! I mean, don't get me wrong, I absolutely adore candles, especially in the fall and Christmas time when your place smells like a pumpkins and cinnamon and/or Christmas trees... but who goes to a candle party together? We do. And we accidentally matched. I actually liked it. I can't speak for Stephen just yet because he is still trying to find his dignity. But at least our apartment smells like pumpkins while he does so.

 

But in all seriousness, Stephen is a champ! He really has been a sport for doing the silly girly things with me like going to candle parties and trying the expensive shampoo so I can see if I like it on his hair or not. I'm proud to be THAT couple and I hope we do until we can't remember if we are a couple or not from old age.

 

 

What do y'all think? Are you THAT couple? Or if you are single, are you disgusted by those couples? What are your thoughts?

Dos and Don'ts of a 5K

Okay y'all, I know I haven't written a blog in a while, but I have been really busy! I celebrated my birthday and then the next week, I went with my family to Jersey to visit Carlo's Bake Shop (or The Cake Boss for those who don't know the name of his bakery). If you are wondering if it was awesome, it was. If you are wondering if we had to wait in a 4 hour line like you see on the show? NOPE! We walked right in and ordered our delicious pastries that were as delicious as I imagine they will be from the Lord's table.

 

DO: Eat as many pastries as as you can possibly consume.

 

 

Okay, so this blog entry is about a 5K, not the bakery, but seriously, eat as many pastries as possible if you go to Carlo's.

 

 

5K COLOR RUN Y'ALL!

 

Stephen and I just got back from running in The Color Run 5K in Atlanta, GA with a few friends of ours, and let me tell y'all, it was a blast! However, there are a few tips and tricks everyone should know before they step foot (pun intended) into the first race.

 

Before I impart my extensive wealth of knowledge on you, I think I am legally required to say that I do not have an extensive wealth of knowledge about 5Ks or any race for that matter and I only know what I know from my one time experience thus far.

 

Without further ado:

 

1. Do NOT go to sleep later than you normally do the night before the race thinking you can get up and get ready in only 30 minutes.

 

2. Do NOT wait until 3 minutes before your wife's perfectly scheduled departure time to decide to shave your face and take a shower.

 

3. DO drink plenty of liquids to stay hydrated, HOWEVER,

 

4. Do NOT drink lots of coffee and rely on your bladder of steel to tide you over until the race is over.

 

5. DO take before and after pictures

 

 

 

 

However,

 

6. DO get there in plenty of time to actually start the race at the same time as your friends.

 

 

Yes, we were late for the race. But Stephen was clean... and we tried to catch up with our friends.

 

7. Do NOT forget to wear protective eye ware. You will get colorful cornstarch in your eyes.

 

8. Do NOT breathe in the colorful cornstarch. Even if your lungs are about to shrivel up and die from the lack of oxygen. don't do it.

 

 

Do as I say not as I do.

 

 

9. DO remember to take advantage of all of the free chocolate flavored coconut water as demonstrated by the lovely Ella (also showing off her skillful cross fit squats.)

 

 

 

 

10. DO offer to clean off your husbands face so he looks somewhat presentable at lunch

 

 

 

 

11. Do remember to take lots of pictures and have a blast with good friends!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A lot of color comes off at the air blowing stations at the end so my shirt doesn't look as impressive, but I am extremely proud of us finishing our very first 5K.

 

 

What do y'all think? Do you have any good color run stories?  What about any racing stories?

 





 



Is This a Better Angle?

So Stephen and I have really gotten into this blog thing; especially Stephen. It seems as if every time something happens one of us Stephen says, "put that on the blog!" So now in lieu of one regular post, here is a collection of what "I should put that on the blog"


The other day, my in-laws pulled out a board game called "Pass the Pig." To make a long story short, you roll two dice sized pigs and depending on how they land, you get points. You can choose to stop rolling and keep your points or you can roll again to try to increase your points. If they land a certain way, you lose all of your points and pass them to the next person. The winner is the first person to get to 100 points. "Courtney, this should go on your blog!"

 

The pigs on the instructions are pretty terrifying.

 

 

But these pigs are pretty adorable. I felt bad tossing them.

 

 



 

My father-in-law lost all of his points! Preachers DO get angry, but only when he loses points tossing bacon around.

 

 

 

Next let's recap on the last blog entry where I said Stephen carries all the groceries in and I only carry the eggs?

 

 

 

Proof!

But, in all honesty I had to make him stop walking to take the picture so it wouldn't be blurry.

 

 

 

Then he turns to me and says:

 

"Wait, is this a better angle?? Does this show more bags?"

"You should put that on your blog!"

 

 



 

Lastly, I thought I would document a recipe I made the other day. I love me some Philly cheese steaks! and I stumbled upon this recipe on Pinterest called "Philly cheese sloppy joes." Perfect. I don't take any credit for making this recipe except for following instructions, but just in case I inspire you to make this recipe, you can find it at this link.

 

Philly Cheese Sloppy Joes

 

Now, if you are like me and you are poor, I make my own buns. I spent less money making my own buns than buying a $2.50 bag of eight at the store. If you would like the recipe I used to make the buns, you can click on the link below.

 

Homemade buns

 

 

Cool, so first I got all the ingredients together. I'm not a chef and I don't have all the correct ingredients. I have yellow and orange peppers instead of green; sue me!

 

 

 

Yes, I did add a little Franks RedHot wing sauce.

 

 

 

Brown the meat (drain) and throw everything else in the pot

 

 

Make and bake the buns

 

 

 

Assemble and inhale!

 

 

The buns were so delicious with this recipe. It's definitely worth making yourself. Anyway, I made two and ate one before I got to the table. I didn't make the cheese sauce the recipe called for because I like just a good ole slice of provolone cheese on my Philly cheese steak. Stephen wanted the cheese sauce so he made it for his sloppy joes. He admitted it was not as good as just putting a slice on top. So HA! "Let's put THAT on my blog!"

 

 

Okay, so maybe this entry wasn't as funny as others, but that's what happens when you tell me to put THAT on my blog!

 

Until another day! Let me know how you like this blog entry compared to the others. Do you like recipes? Yes or no.

Food Bank

Stephen and I just celebrated 8 months of marriage. I know all married folk can verify the strange time speed once you say “I DO;” you know the one where you blink and it’s already 6 months, then 8 months, then one year? Yea, that one. But in all honesty, I have really tried my hardest to enjoy the first 8 months because I knew this would happen.

We have experienced so much in the last 8 months of marriage, more than the average couple I’m sure. We’ve already talked about the expired hamburger meat, and the burning the flesh off of my fingers, but let’s talk about the good things for a second.

1)      I have learned that my father will still give my husband “the eye” if he does not open my car door or doors in general. This has rendered me completely incompetent on how to open my own doors. Thank goodness I haven’t locked myself in the car yet.

2)      No Matter what, he will always carry 10 grocery bags while I carry the bread. If I’m lucky, he will let me carry the eggs too.

3)      He knows spiders scare me and even though he shares the same fear, he still kills them for me.

4)      He is so sacrificial when it comes to letting me do what I want. He does it with a humble heart and never only sometimes complains.

Alright, enough. Let’s talk about the stuff most newly wedded couples never tell you.

1)      You are poor and you will form a refined taste for rice and beans

I’m going to stop right here and tell a little story with good morals at the end so pay attention love birds. My mother volunteers at a local food bank that allows people to drive up and have the food placed right in your car for you. MERICA! So nice! Well, my mom calls my husband and tells him that there will be plenty of food if he wanted to come grab a few boxes. This is sweet music from the lips of Jesus because my mother has taken home some of the food that is left over and there are lots of good food. Yay cupcakes! Stephen drives an hour to get to this place waits in his car and then receives the food. My mom tells him there are extra boxes and he can have more if he wanted it. He ended up with four boxes of food which is great because I know there has to be cupcakes in one of those boxes!

I call Stephen on my way home from work to find out what the boxes contained. He was acting like he just watched a marathon of Honey Boo Boo or something; sort of zombie like. I asked him what was wrong and he tells me,

 “Courtney, we have so much food…”

“Babe, it’s no problem, we’ll cut up fruits and veggies and put them in bags and freeze them.”

“No, no…you don’t understand. We have sooooo much food.”

“Stephen, it’s fine! We’ll figure it out, I’ll be home in five minutes I’ll take inventory and we’ll work it out”

“Okay. Just come home and see for yourself”

I walk up the stairs to our apartment and I open the door trying to get to the cupcakes and then I see it.

Mountains of food in our living room just sitting there next to my husband as if they were both expecting this reaction. To make the rest of this story short, SOMEHOW, these volunteers at the food bank managed to pack all of this into four boxes.

·         7 dozen eggs (on top of our two dozen already in the fridge)

·         4 grocery bags of fresh, farm grown squash

·         5-6 stalks of bananas

·         8 grocery bags of fresh, farm grown green beans

·         2 grocery bags of apples

·         13 different styles of breads

·         20 TUBS OF WHIP CREAM

·         2 birthday cakes and one pie

The only good thing that came out of this is we managed to snag 5 containers of cupcakes! I packed up a few boxes and we took stuff around our complex and just gave it away. And we gave some to Stephen’s parents. But the moral of the story is,

*Only get one box of food from the food bank…unless there are no cupcakes then try another box.*

Kitchen Woes

Having my own kitchen is great! I think I’m a pretty decent cook and I try to include healthy choices in my meals. Like the other day for example, I made mac and cheese AND chicken and cheese puffs for my husband and my brother-in-law for when they got back from working out! It’s calcium and protein people, come on!

The only thing about having your own kitchen in your own apartment is you have to clean the mess yourselves. No more relying on mom and dad to “find” the mess and clean it up for you. One thing my mom used to do is put tin foil on the drip pans to your stove to make easy clean ups. Changing them out a couple times in your life a month allows for a cleaner fresher kitchen!

So that’s what we did; we started the daunting task of putting tin foil on the drip pans on our stove.

How do we do this? I think I saw my dad yanking the burners out first, but that sounds like a one way ticket to becoming a star on Emergency ER. So we become primates; touching the burners, pushing, yanking as if we are seeing a stove for the first time. And VOILA! The burner comes out!

Now the drip pan comes right out and I carefully cover mine making sure it was covered completely and making nice neat holes in the foil to insure proper heating. I look over and see farmer Joe Stephen just threw the tin foil on top and put the burner back on. Cool.

Now I notice that putting the burner back on the stove is just as difficult as getting them out. You have to align the burner to where it sits in the drip pan just right. Apparently there is a “Nook” on the drip pan that you have to set the burner in…the nook that is currently covered by tin foil.

Once you get the burner back into its socket in the stove, it then becomes lopsided and uneven and you have to try to fix it. Stephen did a great job making his pretty even, but mine looked disastrous.

I reach over to see why his is so leveled and mine is more unbalanced than the mind of a mentally ill patient and then I hear it.

Ssssssssss

No, this is not the sound of a snake; this is the sound of my skin being seared off. Stephen had secretly turned the burner on to check to see if the burner was connected properly and then secretly turned it off again without telling me the burner was hotter than Mordor. (That was a Lord of the Rings reference for the nice people who don’t know what Mordor is.)

What DOES one say when they experience the same feeling as a steak going on a grill?

A lot of ugly words that I managed to keep in my head. It was all I could do to only say:

“Ow!”

And of course, “Ow” is just an uglier way of saying:

“Golly gee, I have burned the dickens out of my fingers and I seem to be in a terrible amount of pain!"

It wasn’t just the fact that I burned my fingers by touching a hot stove top, it’s that I PUSHED down on the stove top to see if his stove top was leveled.

The cold running water was glorious! It was sweeter than the sweat of Jesus running on my fingers! My only problem was if I even thought about taking my fingers out from under the running water, my fingers remind me that I just burned the flesh of my fingertips. We just moved into this apartment about a week ago and we don’t have a first aid kit around. We don’t have Band-Aids or Neosporin or the smartest of all, an aloe plant so running sink water was the best option.

Three hours later, I’m still standing at the sink weeping because I’m exhausted and I want nothing more than to crawl into bed and slip into a coma. I would also like to be able to take my fingers out from under the water without the feeling of fire running across my fingertips.

Stephen was great, he stayed up with me the whole time and even went to the store to buy aloe gel. That didn’t help because even the store bought gel has alcohol in it but the poor guy tried so hard to help.

Lesson number one:

Always let your spouse know if you turn the burner on and then turn it back off

Lesson number two:

Buy a first aid kit (including an aloe plant)

Lesson number three:

Don’t touch the burner or your fingers will look like this.

*The pictures are over the course of two weeks. The first picture is an hour after it happened. The next picture is four days after, and the next two are sometime during the next week