Asia & Chocolate

How rude!

On Monday night I was grocery shopping and minding my own business while buying canned vegetables when a man came up to me and said, "Ha! Are you a Tennessee fan?" He began to taunt me about my Tennessee Titans and their major loss on Sunday to the Patriots. I was also mocked for my Volunteers facing the #1 college team in the nation on Saturday - the Alabama Crimson Tide.

What? Did that just happen? Grown people mock someone because they are wearing another teams colors in the GROCERY STORE?

I could understand if it was game day and I was in Tuscaloosa, but Publix??

Who has ever mocked someone in the grocery store for wearing their team colors? In all the years I've lived in Tennessee I've never once made fun of someone who was wearing an Alabama shirt, or any other team shirt for that matter. I wouldn't think of it! OK, if it was game day, then maybe - but probably not. (Confession: one time I didn't let a lady over in traffic because she had a Georgia Bulldogs tag on her car. But I didn't mock her to her face!)

I've come to the conclusion that I must hold my head high in Alabama and wear my colors proudly. I feel somewhat of a Tennessee martyr. I think I'll start blasting Rocky Top with my windows rolled down the next time I need to run to the store. Maybe it'll annoy the crap out of all those dumb Alabama fans. :)

My blood runs orange. Period. I'll always proudly wear my orange and white. (And I'll even stand up for the Titans, too.)

Domestic Goddess, I am ...

Ha! Well, at least that's what I strive to be. 

I'm sitting here watching my beloved VOLS stomp the crap out of the GA Bulldogs an I'm loving every minute of it. That has absolutely NOTHING to do with being a domestic goddess, but I had to throw it in there.

Since being married, Josh and I have been on a budget. We are blessed with two wonderful incomes and have both been spared (in that respect) from the economic downfall. We are truly blessed and want to be good stewards of those blessings.

That's why we follow the Dave Ramsey plan. If you are in debt, frustrated with your finances, or just don't have a financial plan, I highly recommend the Dave Ramsey plan. It will change your life. I promise.

In order to keep within our budget, I clip coupons like crazy. I follow Southern Savers and Money Saving Mom in order to find the best deals out there for my coupons. I love the feeling of walking out of the store knowing I've saved $50+ dollars on my regular grocery bill.

We also eat at home A LOT. I pack Josh's lunches and I menu plan to our nights at home. I typically cook 3-4 meals a week and then we have leftovers and some frozen meals the rest of the week. We also allow ourselves to go out to eat about once a week for date night. Some weeks we don't do this and other weeks we might go out twice. So it evens out over time. Individually we go out with friends too, but that comes out of our individual "blow money" each month.

My part of all of this is to keep us within the food budget and cook a lot of food from scratch. Not to toot my own horn, but I'm a darn good cook. Just ask my husband. :) He lucked out in that department - and can thank my mom for teaching me how to cook over the years.

We eat a lot of chicken recipes because when I find chicken on sale for $1.99 a pound, then I stock up. My freezer is full of chicken right now. And I've found a great recipe for baked chicken. Whenever I need to use cooked chicken in a recipe, I cook it this way. It leaves it moist, tender and quite flavorful!

I got this from Weight Watchers:

Ingredients:

1 spray(s) cooking spray
1 pound(s) uncooked boneless, skinless chicken breast, four 4 oz halves
1/2 tsp table salt
1/4 tsp black pepper, freshly ground
1 tsp olive oil
2 tsp fresh lemon juice, or more to taste
2 tsp rosemary, fresh, chopped
2 tsp parsley, fresh, chopped
1/4 cup(s) canned chicken broth

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 400ºF. Coat a small, shallow roasting pan with cooking spray.
2. Season both sides of chicken with salt and pepper. Transfer chicken to prepared pan and drizzle with oil; sprinkle with lemon juice, rosemary and parsley. Pour broth around chicken to coat bottom of pan.
3. Bake until chicken is cooked through, about 30 to 35 minutes.
Yields 1 chicken breast half per serving.

(Note: I don't use the parsley or rosemary if I'm just making this chicken to go in another dish.)

Counter Cultural Reading (Part 2)

The second book that was recommended to us was Start Your Family: Inspiration for Having Babies by Steve and Candice Watters. What a bold title, right? It’s funny that in this society it almost feels taboo to carry around a book subtitled Inspiration for Having Babies. But that’s what this book is all about – addressing a somewhat taboo issue in today’s culture.

Sidenote: Candice Watters actually played a role in Josh and I meeting. True story! Part of the reason why I ever joined e-harmony in the first place was because I had read a blog called Women Praying Boldly. The idea was that marriage is what God wants for us, unless He’s given you the gift of singleness. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was supposed to get married. The only problem was that I wasn’t meeting any guys. Her blog/Web site said to put yourself in places where you’ll meet guys who are the kind of guy you would want to marry. I couldn’t think of anywhere literally that I could go to meet guys (definitely not clubbing on the weekends HA!) so I decided to take my dating to the virtual reality. And it’s there that I met my husband! I didn’t realize that this lady was the same one behind the blog until halfway through the book. I encourage all single women out there with the desire to be married to check out her Web site. Good stuff!

OK, back to the book.

This book is awesome! It boldly confronts the misconceptions about having kids. You don’t have to get all your ducks in a row before you have kids; kids don’t ruin your life; they do require sacrifice, but it’s worth it; your biological clock doesn’t tick forever; kids don’t ruin your marriage; etc. As an older couple when we got married, Josh and I obviously have addressed having kids in the near future. And this book calmed a lot of my fears and gave me much inspiration for having babies. ☺

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who’s engaged, married and thinking about kids, or a couple with young kids. I plan to read this to Josh after we finish Sacred Marriage just because it’s so good. I think it will quell any fears he might have about having kids as well.

Counter Cultural Reading (Part 1)

Since we’ve been married, Josh and I have read two great books that came highly recommended and they are just too good not to share …

The first one is Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas. I bought the book right before our wedding and Josh & I started reading it together soon after we returned from our honeymoon. One thing we enjoy doing together is reading, so we always have a book we’re reading through together. (This works because I’m a good out-loud-reader and I’m a visual learner. Good thing Josh is an auditory learner, otherwise he’d be out of luck, I guess!)

I had heard of Mr. Thomas’ books before from other bloggers, but had never picked one up before. Let me tell you, this one is amazing! It challenges the cultural belief that marriage is supposed to make you happy and suggests rather that marriage is to make us more holy – more like Christ. What a shocker in today’s culture! It goes totally against the grain of what our society shouts at us everyday: if it doesn’t make you happy, then it’s not worth it. What a load of crap from Satan.

Mr. Thomas discusses disciplines in marriage like service, prayer, love, respect. He also explores ways that married teaches us to persevere, show respect, and forgive. The book is rich with insight and we are reading it quite slow, as we like to discuss the sections of the book. It truly has stirred some great conversations between us. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is married or engaged. It applies to all stages of marriage from newlywed to 60 years of marriage. I think it’s a book we’ll revisit from time to time throughout our marriage.

Stay tuned for the second book tomorrow …