Good Dog!

Shelby is starting to become a good little dog! :) We had friends over Friday night, and she was amazing. They fell in love with her, and we were just in shock at how sweet and good she was! Yay! She spent the night with her other grandparents on Saturday night and all day Sunday while we went to Chase City for John's baptism, and had no accidents! Woohoo! She learned from her Golden Retriever uncle Chevy how to chill and lay around. Good stuff! I tried to take some pictures of her but realized the batteries in my camera need to charge... Anyway, she still requires constant supervision when we're at home, but she got all kinds of brownie points with me this weekend and I began to see the hope that she will mellow out of the crazy puppy stage and we'll be glad we have her! :)

3rd Time's a Charm

Don't you love when the Lord confirms what He is showing you by bringing it up by several different unrelated means on multiple occasions! I had a conversation a few weeks ago with my friend Hope about the idea of the missional church and the impact it was having in her life. She sent me some reading materials last week and I was really challenged and encouraged by this concept which seemed to put words to the thoughts I have meditated on for years. Well, the very same day, I went to chapel at work (a daily thing that I had missed several days prior). The man who spoke never mentioned the words "missional church" but he shared what he had been learning from this book. And it was like everything he was saying was exactly what I had read from Hope earlier that morning. And then, this weekend, we participated in the missions conference at our church and I heard much of the same themes as one of the missionaries from Belgium shared and challenged us all. I'm excited to engage in this more. I've started reading Jim & Casper Go to Church, and it is very eye-opening. So far, I'd definitely recommend it! What a great reminder that the people who were usually offended by Jesus were the religious leaders, not the sinners. Hmmm...

What's my problem??!

I've had a slow morning at work, so I was browsing articles online about healthy snacks and ideas to take off a few pounds. I wrote down some great ideas, and reminded myself that it's really time to start shedding this extra weight I've put on in the last year. I've been drinking water, and have cut out sodas (soda-sober over 1 month now! yay!) but I need to step it up a notch. So I was all ready to head down to the vending machine to get a bag of low-fat pretzels, when an email popped up in my inbox.

My manager brought in doughnuts and they are down in the lounge. So with no further thought, I headed straight there, heated one up for 10 sec. in the microwave and came back to my desk to indulge in that warm gooey doughnut at my desk. As I inhaled it, I looked up to realize I was sitting surrounded by my bottles of water and notes on healthy snack ideas. :) I'm pathetic! I don't even really like doughnuts all that much. When will I learn?

Happy Tummy!

I don't know if anyone wants these recipes... but last night we made for the 3rd time a healthy recipe I found & love. It's super-easy and everytime we have it, we're like "yumm!!!" so I thought I'd pass it along...

Chili-Rub Steak Tacos
makes 6 tacos: serving should be 2, we eat 3 each!

1 tbs. chili powder
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt
pinch cayenne (ground red) pepper
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 lb. steak (the better the steak, the better the tacos, but you can use cheaper beef if you want, we use whatever good steak is on sale, last night was NY strip)
Corn Tortillas
Shredded Cabbage
Chopped Cilantro
Limes
Guacamole (we love "Wholly Guacamole" from Harris Teeter)

Shred 1/4 head of cabbage like lettuce. Chop fresh cilantro (about 1/4 c.) Trim fat from raw steaks. Slice into thin strips. Chili-Rub: Mix first 5 ingredients in a small bowl. (Will be crumbly). Toss steak with chili-rub to coat evenly. Cook in skillet on medium heat. Cook just until outsides get brown. Don't overcook! Heat corn tortillas in skillet with a little cooking spray for 30 sec. each side.

Spread guacamole on each tortilla. Fill with steak, cilantro, and cabbage. Serve with lime slices. Squeeze lime juice on tacos just before eating.

This is a super fast and easy meal. The original recipe called for making your own avocado cream sauce, but we love the easy pre-made guac! Also, if you don't want quite so much seasoning on your steak, you could rub the steaks and cook them before slicing. We like lots of flavor.

My husband does cool stuff!

Mike doesn't work here yet, but this is a job he is applying for and he already knows how to do pretty much what you'll see here. He has worked at one of the few labs in the country that does tissue engineering to make muscle. This company (Tengion) is currently engineering bladders, and working on kidney research and more.

When I saw this video, I was pretty fascinated at how amazing this technology is, and even more, that my husband will likely be a part of such amazing medical breakthroughs, if not at Tengion, elsewhere:

Just for Suzanne

Well... you say I don't update this thing enough... so I'm signing on to write some more. If only my life were so interesting that it warranted a daily entry! Last night...I worked late. We ate Taco Soup and cornbread (which I'm looking forward to eating again today for lunch!) I closed out a Princess House party which turned out to be a really good one, so that was exciting. We watched American Idol (except that I missed all my favorites because I was on the phone closing out the party!) I think it's past time for Kristy Lee Cook and Ramiele to go. Of all the rest, I'm having a tough time picking a favorite. Probably David Cook. But it's tough.

Then we wrote a new cover letter for Mike and finished tweaking his resume and he sent it off to the first (of hopefully several) jobs he is interested in pursuing! Yikes! So now I guess we need to get back to getting our house ready to rent! It may be a while, but now that his resume is back out there, we want to be prepared whenever he does get a good offer. So that means CLEANING and PAINTING and DE-CLUTTERING! And maybe I should just start by finishing the endless loads of laundry that seemed to pile up worse than usual when I was sick last week. Have I ever mentioned how much I hate laundry?! I think it's #1 on my hated-chores list. The rest aren't so bad... if only I had time! Keeping a house clean is a never-ending battle!

Well, that's my Wednesday morning update. :) Hope you enjoyed it!

TEST

So I'm starting to wonder if no one likes my blog. I know I don't have any adorable babies to post pictures of... but do I have any friends who read this? Cause no one has left me a comment in over a month! Hmmm.... just wondering!