Last minute dinner

It’s been a while since I share a recipe with you and last night’s dinner is completely worthy of being shared.

My day was long, working, visiting my aunt who just had surgery, and preparing anything for dinner was the last thing on my priority list. So I figured I would just make grilled cheese sandwiches because they are quick and easy.

Then I remembered that I recently pinned a grilled cheese spin-off, so I decided to run with that. Plus, it gave us an excuse to break out the panini press we received for our wedding.

Ingredients:

-          Shredded Mozzarella Cheese

-          Bread (we used regular sandwich bread)

-          Olive oil

-          Pesto

-          Chicken

-          Garlic powder

-          Salt and Pepper

The first thing I did was preheat the oven (325 degrees) so that I could cook the chicken. I then took a defrosted chicken breast and sliced it in half so that it would be thinner and fit a sandwich better. I brushed the chicken with olive oil and then sprinkled on salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Then I cooked it in the oven for 25 minutes.

While the chicken was cooking I prepped the rest of the sandwich. I brushed olive oil on the outer side of the bread for both the top and bottom slices of bread. Then I spread a generous amount of pesto on one of the slices and sprinkled some cheese on top of the pesto.

Once the chicken was done I put it on the slice with cheese and pesto, added more cheese on top of the chicken and then put the sandwich on the panini press and let it do the work.

I didn’t honestly have high expectations for the sandwich, but it was phenomenal! So if you are looking for something for dinner tonight, I highly recommend it!

I wish I had taken pics, but we were starving and ate quickly!

When the going is tough...

A telling time in any relationship is when you have to be there for your significant other/spouse. When things are sad, scary, frustrating, or uncertain, it is not the most glamorous time to be present. If you are with someone who doesn’t understand they have to take the good with the bad, you may end up even more upset, rather than feeling better.

I am so blessed that Josh understands there will be times in our relationship when things aren’t great. When I will need him to be there to dry my tears and help me to see the big picture. I am so thankful for his ability to do that too.

When things go crazy, I have the tendency to completely submerge myself in the situation and almost drown in it. I get caught up in feeling helpless or stretching myself thin trying to make every other area of my life perfect in order to make up for the not perfect parts.

There are numerous situations I could talk about in our relationship where Josh stepped up and helped me to see the light at the end of the tunnel. He has been there for me in ways that I honestly didn’t know I would ever need.

For example, when my aunt was battling breast cancer. That was of course a difficult time for me and my family. There was no preparing for what it would be like when she left us.

Then there is the fact that my grandparent’s health is declining. In a matter of what seemed like days, one ended up in the hospital and the other moved in with my family, and then later ended up in a different hospital. It was chaos. For about 7 days my grandparents were at hospitals in different counties and when it came time for their release, they had to move into a rehab facility.

Situations like these are not things you plan on and each one had its own effect on me. They shake up your day to day life and can be difficult to cope with.

Having a spouse that I can count on to not ditch when the going gets tough is a blessing. No one wants to deal with tough situations, but they are a part of life and when you love someone, you stick it out and stand beside them. 

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I am so fired up about how incredible this promotion is that I wanted to share it with all of you!

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Here's the link!

http://www.nerium.com/shop/averi/products

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Recharging

Happy Monday!

Have you ever had one of those weekends that you need a weekend from? That is exactly the boat I am in today. I am still wiped out from everything we had going on over the last several days.

I spent a few days in St. Louis, MO for my companies Spring Conference. That in and of itself is a ton to take in. It is roughly 8 hours a day of non-stop training and announcements followed by a lot of time connecting with people across the country. It may sound like a lot of work, but it really is a big party most of the time. This conference was especially awesome because we unleashed a new instant eye cream, a customer loyalty program, and enhancements to our compensation plan. It was an awesome couple of days. 

On top of that, Josh and I went apartment hunting literally 15 minutes after I walked in the door from St. Louis. We drove out to Manitowoc and did several showings. Thankfully we ended the day filling out an application for a place we both really loved and fit our criteria. (Prayers over that would be much appreciated).

By the time Josh and I got in the door after our tours, I was well past spent. I had accomplished a ton in a short amount of time and was ready for some much needed relaxation and sleep.

And that is exactly how we spent our Sunday. Since I overslept, Josh and I attended “church for shut-ins” (that’s what we call it when we watch the sermon online). After busting my butt for the previous few days, it was great to bring it full circle and have time with my husband and God.

In this fast paced, get things done, instant gratification world, it’s refreshing to take a moment (or a day) to recharge and focus on what’s important. Because of the day we had yesterday, I am ready to face this week fresh-faced and ready to work.

Little "thinking of you" surprises

This weekend is going to be a whirlwind for Josh and I, more specifically me I guess. Tomorrow I am leaving to go back to my parents so that on Thursday morning I can take off with my mom for our companies St. Louis Convention.

I will spend two days at conference and then I am booking home Saturday so that Josh and I can go do a few apartment showings in our future new town. (Please pray we find a place we love and can sign a lease!)

Traveling like that isn’t my favorite thing in the world, but it’s a crazy time for Josh and I, as well as my family, so we have to fit it all in.

One thing I do like about travelling is that I get to leave surprises around for Josh. (You may have seen the notes I left around for him the last time I was gone in a previous post).

I love doing little things for him that let him know I am thinking about him, and this quick trip is no exception. For the last few days I have been coming up with things I can do for him and I am pretty excited!

Now, since he is busy with school, I know he hasn’t been keeping up on my blog so I can share some of what I will be doing with you.

My first priority is cooking for him. Since I cook every night when I am home, I don’t want to skip a beat. So I have come up with meals I can prepare ahead of time and all he will have to do is pop them in the oven. For example, I will make him pre-prepped salads for lunches, taco meat for nachos/tacos, and chicken.

Another thing I want to do is bring back the love notes. Today I will write out a bunch of cute little notes and tomorrow I will hide them all around the apartment for him to find throughout the next few days.

The last thing I want to do is restart a fun thing we did while we were dating. We would have a lip-sync battle. One of us would pick a song and video tape ourselves lip-syncing it to send to the other person. And this would go back and forth. It’s super fun and an easy way to make the person you love laugh. Of course if you are up for it, you can all-out perform your song. (Maybe one of these days I will post one of the old recordings...)

I hope he likes my surprises!

It's in the moments

It’s a special moment in your life when you realize you have found the person you want to spend forever with. When you know beyond a shadow of doubt that this person is the only one you want to let in to the complexity of who you are, good, bad, or indifferent.

I had that moment with Josh several months before we even started dating. In fact, I think our entire relationship leading up to us dating primed me to know early on that he was the one for me.

There are countless examples of moments in my life when Josh stepped up and was there for me in ways that I never asked for or expected. Our relationship, from the beginning, was close and unwavering. He seemed to always have my best interest at heart and he was truly the best friend I had ever had (and will ever have).

I think that deep relationships are formed in the small moments. When there are two choices to be made and you consistently choose the one that may not be easy, but brings you closer together.

When Josh and I were Seniors in high school and our friendship was still fairly new, I suffered a big loss. One of my closest friend’s moms died suddenly of an aneurysm. This woman was a close family friend and like a second mom. It really shook me up. I had a lot of hang ups because of it and it was something that I held on to for a long time. In fact, for about a month I wasn’t great. I would walk out of class in tears if it was quiet for too long, my appetite was diminished, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I distinctly remember being unable to fall asleep one night because of it and instead of blowing me off and leaving me to deal alone, Josh stayed up on the phone with me until I fell asleep.

That was just one example of countless moments in our relationship, where Josh or I have chosen each other, and been present even when it may have been difficult.

Like I said above, deep relationships are built in the small moments, when you think things may not make a difference. But those moments stack up and can really create something amazing.

Post Senior Year- a pic from one of our "moments" that led us to where we are

Multi-tasking and Relationships

Multi-tasking. It’s something that everyone seems to be doing, and unfortunately, they aren’t doing it very well.

I have found myself recently becoming more and more of a multi-tasker. For example, I may get dinner started while I am in the middle of cleaning our apartment. Something like that isn’t a terribly big deal because most of the time in the early stages of cooking, it isn’t completely hands on.

However, an area that I have also been multi-tasking in is doing things while I am on the phone. At first it started off as just doing mindless stuff like folding while I was mid-conversation, but lately I have been catching myself on the phone with someone and checking my emails. Both of those activities require complete attention, you can’t retain what you read while you listen to what someone is saying. It just doesn’t happen.

I’ve found that when I start doing that, I am no longer respecting the person I am on the phone with. I am choosing to do a task that can wait over giving someone my full attention. And that’s just not very polite. Especially since it’s completely obvious when someone is no longer paying attention.

Of course that scenario can also be replicated when you are actually with people. How many times have you been spending time with friends or family to notice they are all on their phones? (Maybe they are checking social media or texting). It’s kind of gotten out of hand.

This behavior started to creep up in my marriage too. I will admit to being the biggest culprit because I work from home so if my phone rings I have myself trained to react. Josh and I could be mid-conversation and if my phone goes off, I lose my train of thought because I have this knee-jerk reaction to check it.

Since we didn’t want technology or “multi-tasking” to get in the way of our relationship, we developed a no phone zone. So starting at about 7:30, we put away our phones and computers and enjoy the evening together. More often than not we sit around and talk about things that we normally would not have if we were both distracted. It has really benefited our marriage to take that time for just us.

I know that multi-tasking is a way of life and something that is not likely to go away anytime soon, but I have decided I am going to continue to make a conscious effort to not multi-task my time with other people.