from copy editor to chef

Matt reminds me occasionally of how I get a few laughs on my blog at his expense.

What can I say? He's an easy target. Truly though, I only poke fun because I love him so. We just celebrated our six-month anniversary this past Sunday. It doesn't feel like we've been married for that long already, but at the same time, it feels like we've always been married because married life wasn't a big adjustment for us like I was told it would be. We just meshed together perfectly from the moment we were married.

Here we were six months ago:


Photo by Hope Photography

We were so happy on that day, but you know what? I think we're even happier now. As easy of an adjustment as married life was for us, we still have learned together and grown together. Even after dating five years, I never knew just how being united together could truly take you to a whole new level. I didn't know you could love even more.

But anyway, this post isn't about our awesome love, it's about AWESOME FOOD!!

I quit my job two days before I married Matt (as I would no longer be living in Tennessee), and I've been unemployed (yikes!) ever since. Because of this, I've taken it upon myself to strictly be the one responsible for dinners (unless it involves the grill) and cleaning.

That all changed once our little green olive (that's what size the baby is this week) made his/her presence known a few weeks ago. As I feel either (or both) fatigued or nauseous all day long, I don't get a whole lot accomplished. (Thus the reasoning for the smaller number of blog posts.)

Matt has been absolutely wonderful - graciously and willingly stepping into the role of house wife. He's been such a trooper, and I'm so proud of him. I've asked him to do many, many things for me (some of them in the middle of the night when he's dead asleep). And he always puts the baby and me first. I can't imagine going through this experience alone. Matt is going to be such an awesome father!

As part of Matt's new (but temporary) house wife duties, he's been cooking dinner. To celebrate our six months together, we ate at Red Lobster (I was craving shrimp, and we had a $10 off coupon!). Matt tried the peach bourbon bbq bacon-wrapped scallops. LOVED them. He was determined to try making them at home.

He found the actual recipe online, and thus, his chef adventure began. First, he made the sauce (without the bourbon).



Then he prepared the scallops.



Next, he wrapped the scallops with bacon. (We use turkey bacon to make things a little healthier - you can't tell much of a difference in the finished scallop product.)


He speared them, brushed them with olive oil, and sprinkled them with garlic and pepper.



Most foods are sounding gross to me right now, and scallops (usually one of my favorite seafoods) sounded disgusting while he was preparing them. I had no intention of trying them. This was my grossed out face:



After that, they were ready for grilling! In the dark! And with rain! (Grilling in the dark while it's raining isn't a required step.)




And the finished product (after grilling and adding the peach bbq sauce):



Matt was raving about them as he started devouring them. Admittedly, they smelled really good, and I was drawn in and tried them. Pregnant Misty gives this one a thumbs up! Non-pregnant Matt agrees wholeheartedly. He'll definitely be trying them again some time. As for me, well, I guess that depends on if our growing baby wants to give me my appetite back.

Just wanted to share my husband's triumph with his chef antics.

a walk in the park - a memorial park, that is.

I don't usually make it a habit of going to cemeteries to take photos - I promise.

Matt and I may be a little strange (or a lot), but a couple of weeks ago, we stopped by Gaston Memorial Park.

Yes, a cemetery.

Thankfully, our time there wasn't to honor the passing of a friend. I suggested we drive through because there were some beautiful dogwoods in bloom, and I was curious to see the grounds of this massive memorial park that first opened in 1946.

When out and about in Gastonia, we frequently pass by this cemetery, and even still, it overwhelms me every time I look over at its magnitude. I can't imagine how many people must be buried there. And nearly every time we pass by, there is at least one, usually more, green funeral tents set up for a recent death. I get a little sad each time I see this, though I have come to expect it. I guess it makes the reality of people dying every day more real to me.

Ok, my point with this post isn't to be depressing, so I'll move on.

Matt and I have both always been interested in looking at grave markers and seeing what you can learn about a complete stranger. We like looking at the age differences between husbands and wives to see who "robbed the cradle" and such things. And it's always heartwarming to see couples who live to their 80s and pass away close together. You know that their love must have been so strong that they couldn't take being apart after spending such long lives together. We always say we want to be one of those couples some day.

We like finding interesting names and groups of families all together in their final resting places. It's neat to see a picture of something, like a fisherman or pet, on a tombstone - you know what that person's biggest interests were. Or bible verses, quotes, and other special writing. (One grave marker said, "How YOU doin'?" for a gentleman who passed away at a young age. We knew right then that he had a sense of humor.

At Gaston Memorial Park, the majority of graves appear to have silk flowers accompanying them. When walking through, I was curious to know if family members do this for their loved ones, or if the grounds workers there take on this task. I felt sad for the ones we saw who had no flowers and whose grave markers were covered in dirt. Had they been forgotten by loved ones? Maybe all of their loved ones had passed and there was no one left to remember them.

Anyway, it was an interesting learning experience on a warm, breezy April afternoon. It was very quiet and peaceful. We managed not to fall into the lake in the middle of the grounds there while talking with the geese. We also saw two mallards mating there. Wow. That was interesting. Thought I stepped into an episode on the Discovery Channel for a minute.

This was some of the wisteria at the memorial park.



Does Matt still qualify as a child?

2 + baby = 3, and that's a magic number!

It's been nearly two weeks since I last blogged. It's not that I had forgotten about blogging, but there have been a couple of reasons for the silence.

#1 - I didn't feel like blogging since what I wanted to blog about the most, I couldn't at that point. Everything else I could have blogged about paled in comparison and left me uninterested.

#2 - The past two weeks have hit me hard. I've been fatigued for a while now, but fortunately, you can be lazy and still blog. But the past two weeks, sickness has accompanied the fatigue thing.

If you're reading this, then you've probably already seen my Facebook update that would explain why this is the case. If not, well, our little family will gain an extra member later this year. Right now, that extra member is the size of a large raspberry but working toward becoming about the size of a medium green olive this week.

On a side note, when I mentioned the "Three is a magic number" song from Schoolhouse Rock to my mom, she had never heard of it. WHAT??? We even experienced the joy of "I'm just a Bill" in my government class in high school. This stuff is classic. Anyway, we're looking forward to our family soon being that magic number of three.



Yesterday, I was able to see our little one for the first time (in all of its blobby dinosaur-like glory) via ultrasound. Its heartbeat could already be detected. It was so loud and fast! A whopping 167 beats per minute. Amazing.

In those moments, my heart was overcome with joy. I finally "felt" pregnant in a very surreal way. I could finally "see" what was making my body feel crazy and visually connect the two. It was one of the most beautiful experiences.

I had to wait for a good while before I was able to meet with the doctor afterward, and I was just smiling up a storm, staring at my sonogram pictures in amazement that the little weird looking thing in the picture is actually growing inside of me.

We weren't planning to make the announcement for a few more weeks, but my doctor said now is a fine time to share the news since we saw the baby and the heartbeat. We're praying that God will keep our baby growing and thriving in its little home.

Everything is going well so far with just a couple of hiccups here and there that are being addressed. At this point, I'm 8 weeks and 2 days. Next Thursday, I'll enter the third month. I'll be so happy to be out of the first trimester in just a few more weeks! With each passing week, I breathe another sigh of relief. And every time I experience a symptom or two (which is pretty constant), I try to be thankful for it, as it's a sign that things are going well.

Speaking of symptoms, I think I'm about to get sick again, so I'm going to wrap this up for now. Please keep praying for our soon-to-be family of three!

Easter joys

Thought I'd share some pictures from our Easter related activities. We had a wonderful first Easter together. It's like having a new child and keeping track of all the "firsts" for the baby. We always make note of our "first" moments we share as husband and wife. It's difficult to believe the sixth month mark is already approaching. You'd think we'd be out of the "lovebirds" stage, or nearly at least. I think we'll feel like newlyweds still for a very long time.

One thing we'll soon have the opportunity to do together is both sing in the choir. Choir practice is being moved to Wednesday night, at least for a trial run to see if that day works better for people, so Matt will be able to come along with me to practice now. That makes me very happy! I love singing with him, even though we'll be singing along with many other great people.

We should have taken our "Easter" picture before church. Our choir sang our Easter medley during the morning service, and I was sweating like a gorilla at the zoo from it. We sang four beautiful songs from the "Rose of Calvary" cantata. Nevertheless, here's us after church:



Have any of you parents ever had a child who complained about eating vegetables, and well, basically anything that's good for you? That's Matt. He's my child that I have to feed and plead with to try things. I've learned that I will always lose on getting him to try stuff.

Anyway, here's our Easter lunch. When mom asked what all I made, and I told her what, she asked, "why so many things?" Simple answer. Matt. He won't eat many things - mac and cheese is his staple food. Is he still nine years old? Ah, what can you do?

Here's the break down:

Me: Ham, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, corn, deviled eggs (gotta have those for Easter!), green beans and sweet potatoes. (Matt hates these last three, of course, but I hadn't had sweet potatoes in ages so I was determined to have them.)

Matt: Ham, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, and cranberry sauce (which I don't like).

Besides the ham, potatoes, and cheesy macs, everything else we ate was different. Fortunately, all of this was very easy to make and didn't take much time. I don't know what I'm going to do with him though!



And on to egg coloring. I don't think I've dyed eggs in a few years, and Matt said the last time he died eggs was 1987 (insane!). He read the directions wrong at first and said not to add water. I was wondering how the egg was going to soak in three tablespoons of vinegar. So, we got that straightened out. (How many college degree holders does it take to figure out how to dye eggs correctly?)




I wanted them BRIGHT! So we waited ...



And waited ...



Time to check them.



I was happy to see some UT orange blazing through. I miss seeing orange every where. These people here just like UNC and Duke.



And our completed eggs! Obviously egg coloring is for kids because we young adults didn't manage to do it right. Not sure what's up with all the white lines and splotches on them.

Oh yeah, I also learned an important lesson with our egg coloring experience. Don't buy the $1 Paas box. At LEAST splurge for the whopping $1.88 box. Ours didn't include any stickers or a wax crayon to write with. Anyone know if you can use regular crayons? We didn't have any of those either, though.

Three eggs broke when we boiled them. Any egg boiling pros know how to prevent that from happening?

Maybe next year we'll improve our egg coloring skills. Next year I'm buying a more expensive Paas box!



Since Matt and his co-workers (except the big wigs, of course) had to slave away at work on Easter, I decided it would be nice to send some Easter cupcakes and cookies. We made the cookies a couple of days beforehand since they take time. The recipe is one my mother has used from many years that she borrowed from a good family friend. They are known to us as "Kelli's Cookies." We always make Kelli's Cookies at Christmas time, so I thought it would be fun to try them out now and use icing dyed something other than red and green!

Matt was a pro at putting the icing on!




Blue is my favorite color, so it was fun doing a pastel blue. I had never attempted these cookies on my own before. My mom was always the one to roll out the mound of dough. It was much harder to do than I thought. It didn't seem to be the perfect consistency like when mom makes it. It really made me miss her! And I *almost* missed us shooing away my brother and dad when they would swoop in like hawks over mom and me and steal one (or five) immediately after we add the icing. Almost. They didn't look as pretty as mom's, but I did one up her on one thing ...

No burnt ones! It wasn't for nothing that mom got the shirt for her birthday that said, "Dinner is ready when the smoke alarm goes off!"

Done!



Some of my favorites. Matt got creative with a few.



A great first Easter, indeed!

Who will call Him King?

Throughout elementary and middle school, I wanted to be this woman.

Some of you may no longer recognize her face, but if you followed Christian contemporary music in the late 80s and early 90s during her heyday, you probably knew of her.

I'm referring to Sandi Patty.

You may remember her like this:



(A little side note: Her name was misspelled on the album cover of her first recording, so throughout most of her career, she was known as Sandi Patty.) By the way, that's a fabulous tape in the picture above. Yes, I still have this on tape some where. I had most of her tapes and the majority of my accompaniment collection is made up of songs performed by her. Let's just say my lofty childhood goal of being Sandi was never met in the least bit but I still like to try.

So why Sandi? No, I didn't want to be Sandi, but I wanted her voice. If you ask anyone who knows about Sandi what's the first thing they think of, I guarantee you they'd say, "She can sing high!" That's what I wanted to do. I wanted to sing high. Sandi was known for her triumphant songs with a massive explosion finale that resulted in her rocking the rafters with some crazy high note. She'd effortlessly hit a high C. Her songs were always powerful, and I'd sing them (or try at least) at the top of my lungs.

Obviously, I never became Sandi, but I do think listening to her for all those years developed my voice into a first soprano range. Most people don't know, but I can actually sing rather low - I could easily be a tenor. In fact, my high school music director insisted that I was an alto, but I sang second soprano. The following year, when we had a new director, he put me on first soprano. I was happy. Thank you, Sandi!

Now that you know my Sandi Patty history, I wanted to introduce you to one of my favorite Easter songs she used to sing. This song was released back in 1990 on her "Another Time, Another Place" album. It's called, "Who Will Call Him King of Kings?"

This is about the only version I could find on youtube of it being performed, but this will give you an idea. Keep in mind that this song is 20 years old.



Here's the lyrics:

In cold despair
They'd laid Him in the tomb
The body of their Master fair
Third morning came
As they returned to pray
Light was shining everywhere
But Jesus' body was not there

And as they gazed at an empty grave
The earth around began to shake
And they were so afraid
But voices of angels filled the air
Their shouts proclaimed "He is not here"
And you could hear them say

Chorus 1:
Who will call Him King of kings
Who will call Him Lord of lords
Who will call Him Prince of Peace
Such a wonderful counselor, Mighty God
Who will call Him King

Their spirits soared
As fear was turned to joy
Standing there before their eyes
Jesus clothed in radiant white

And with a voice they'd heard before
He told me "Go and tell the world that I'm alive"
They ran as fast as feet could fly
"The Lord is risen" was their cry
And you could hear them say

Chorus 2:
We will call Him King of kings
We Will call Him Lord of lords
We will call Him Prince of Peace
Such a wonderful counselor, Mighty God

Repeat Chorus 1

Just like He said
He is risen from the dead
And the people say

Repeat Chorus 2

I will call Him King of kings
I will call Him Lord of lords
I will call Him Prince of Peace
Such a wonderful counselor, Mighty God
I will call Him King
I will call Him King
I will call Him King

-------

I wanted to share this song with you to ask, do you call Him King? Not just today on Good Friday, or in church Sunday for Easter. Do you call Him King every day?

This is a question I also have to ask myself. It's so easy to get dressed up on Sundays, head to church, and call Him our King. We pick Jesus up off the shelf for the day and feel like we've done something great.

Do you ever wonderful if Jesus looks down on our world today and asks, "Who will call me King?"

I was humbled this week while Matt and I were reading several chapters together of Christ's journey to the cross in His final days. We read the accounts in both Matthew and John. I thought I knew the "Easter story" forward and backward, and yet, I was surprised (and sadden) at my lack of knowing several particular details about what happened in His final days before being nailed to the cross. The death and resurrection of Jesus is what paved the way to us having life everlasting, and yet, I've taken it for granted. It is easy for me to call Him King, but do I serve Him as a King? Obviously not like I should.

I don't want Jesus to be my Sunday King. I don't want Him to only be my King when I'm struggling and need His guidance. I want Him to be King of my life always. He gave the ultimate sacrifice for me when He was blameless and sinless, and yet, I struggle to surrender to His will. What would we do without saving grace?

Who will call Him King?

there's a first time for everything

It's April Fool's Day, but I won't try to fool you because I've never been able to pull off any good April Fool's Day jokes.

Instead I'll just tell you some highlights from the week so far.

We've taken advantage of the beautiful sunny weather the past few days and have been busy doing some fun stuff, which is why I haven't blogged in a few days.

We purchased our first home last year, and I'm all about the outdoor flowers this spring. I've always loved the idea of having your very own flowers and plants in your very own yard. Now, that's a reality for us, so of course I wanted to run out and buy flowers. My mom has always had good luck with impatiens [side note: I've always thought these were called impatients, but according to the faithful Internet, that's just an incorrect spelling. Lesson learned for the day.], so I've been waiting impatiently (no pun intended) for the stores to get them in stock.

Matt and I checked out this cool nursery/florist/gardening/everything place in downtown Gastonia called Ford's Seeds. It was awesome, especially because they had impatiens! A flat of flowers was $10.99 (nice price!), so we bought salmon and hot pink colored impatiens and marigolds (had to let Matt pick out something). We also bought a few more vegetables for our garden.

Matt is my official carrier when shopping, so he kindly carried the flowers to the car.



When we got home, we planted our new vegetables. (The flowers waited until the next day.) Matt loves when I put him to work. He's very cooperative as long as he gets to sit down on the job. Here he is looking mighty busy (cough cough). Hey, at least he's still smiling at this point.




I had to fulfill my wifely duties and lay down the law with my shovel when he wanted a break. This is a break-free zone, Matt! Back to work!



Just kidding! I'm not THAT hard on him.

This week, we also checked out Martha Rivers Park. I asked Matt, "Hey, doesn't Martha Rivers make flour?" He said, "No, that's Martha White." Guess I can't keep my Marthas straight. This park is huge with a walking trail, several ball fields, a picnic area, and a big fort area where children can play. Matt planned to push a small boy to the side and take over the fort castle, but I stopped him from entering the play area before all the mommies had a chance to start glaring at him. (Ok, I may be getting a little far-fetched now.)

Anyway, we started walking around the trail when I noticed a large patch of clover. I mentioned how there must be some four-leaf clovers in an area of that much clover. Matt said he had never seen (in person) or found a four-leaf clover.

WHAT?

Everyone must have this experience at least once in their life (and this is a good excuse to be lazy at this moment). We stopped walking, plopped down on the ground, and started our search. I found two or three first and showed him but told him he'd have to find one on his own for it to be official.

Sure enough, he found one.



Conquering the world. One four-leaf clover at a time.



Something else I learned on our little outing: these things are gum balls from a sweet gum tree. Matt, of course, was my source of information on this (as always). He's the true human encyclopedia.



The weather is going to continue being gorgeous for the next several days. Makes me so excited. Bring on the vitamin D!