A Day Full of Love

Here's your traditional Valentine's day shot: flowers, cards, wine, candles.

 

I have say, Valentine's Day was not much different from any other night with Brian. That's a compliment, not a compliant. His gifts to me? A clean kitchen and dining table set with candles, flowers and a card when I got home. My gift to him? A delicious dinner, his favorite dessert and a card.

Frankly, minus the cards and flowers, it's how we spend our evenings most nights. I start on dinner, unwinding from the day while he continues to write or skypes with his family. I can hear them talk, debating the bible, discussing his middle brother's wedding plans, laughing about how his youngest brother is totally smitten and won't be home until the middle of the night. I holler at him in the study, "Honey, we've got hot fried fish ready to go! Tell your family I love 'em!" He gets off the call, comes in, looks at the bounty in the kitchen and tells me, for the 50th time that day, that he loves me.

The best husbands pour the wine

 

We sit at the dinner table most nights, talking about our days or what we're reading. We're discussing some exciting steps in our life and we sit over cleaned plates with glasses of wine, debating pros and cons, asking God to show us how best to follow His plan, pulling bits from sermons or bible study to apply to our life. I can't go into detail on what we're considering, but it's become clear that God is speaking very strongly to me through what I've been reading about missional living. As Brian and I talk over and over again about our priorities, our dreams for how we want to live overshadow goals for accomplishments, prestige, wealth. It's inconsistent with the American dream which creates tension and anxiety. But where will we liiiiivveee? Who will hire us? How will we support ourselves? How we will support the family we hope to have?

That would be Brian's spot empty, because I served myself first.

Sometimes, when there's a lot of tension on your heart, it's really nice to be able to sit down to a comforting, delicious meal. This Panko-Pecan Tilapia fulfilled that need last night and set us into silence for a few minutes.

Panko-Pecan Tilapia

2 fresh Tilapia fillets. (Any flaky white fish would do)

3 eggs, cracked and whisked together with a folk, in shallow dish

coating:
1/4 c AP Flour
1 c panko bread crumbs
1 c finely chopped pecans
1 tsp Seasoned Salt (I use Lawry's)
Ground black pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne
Mix your coating in a second shallow dish

 

Rinse and dry your fillets. Take a large frying pan and fill it about 1/2 an inch up with vegetable oil. I heat it on medium high heat and test it before I put the fillet in. I seem to have a knack for getting the oil right for frying things, if you're unsure, google fried fish temperature. Google'll set you straight.

One at a time, dip your fillets in the eggs, really move it around and get coated well. Dip it in the panko-pecan mixture, pressing the coating onto the fish.

When your oil is hot, gently slide the fillets in and do not leave the kitchen. They will not take long. Give them 3 or 4 minutes on the first side, until the costing is crispy and golden. Gently flip them over with tongs until the other side is golden. Let drain on paper towels.

Call your dinner partner in. Hot fish waits for no man.

Real food, not "plated" but seriously good

 

 

7 Month 6: Spending

Waste month is over and it's time to look at how we did:

1- Carpooling. Brian and I are going to try our hardest to drive 1 car this month. We did really well on this. There were a handful of days when our schedules force us to drive separately, but otherwise we carpooled most of the time.
2- Become recycling vigilantes. We do recycle, but are lax about what goes in the garbage. No more! I'd say we got better about this over the month.
3- Always using our reusable grocery bags. Another habit I'm lax about. The key is putting them in the car. We missed this a couple times, but did get better. At least now with composting I can easily get rid of the paper bags.
4- No fast food/take-out. Basically, no food that comes in a container you have to toss. This also means I have to eat all my food at restaurants. There was one fast food incident that we won't talk about but otherwise we did really well: no pizza, no thai, no lunch takeout.
5- All Starbucks runs have to be made with a travel mug. No cardboard cups. I went to starbucks once in the afternoon for an iced tea and got a plastic cup. Otherwise, I used my new travel mug, which I adore.
6- Eating everything in the fridge before it goes bad. Also, eating out of the freezer and pantry before hitting the grocery store. Eh, not so much. We're moderately good about this and didn't get better or worse.
7- Hopefully composting. We are asking our landlord if we can built a little compost bin in the backyard, and we'll get a counter top pail for the kitchen for scraps. I'm hoping to do some gardening this summer and hate the idea of good compost items going to waste. Yes! It's amazing how small our trash bags have become since composting and recycling better. We could take it out once every two weeks if it wouldn't smell. As it is, we could switch to a smaller bin if we wanted.

A lot of these habits will continue- the travel mug is a habit, composting is necessary, carpooling is fun and we saved a little in gas money over the month. Not as much as I thought we would, but we still drive about the same amount, but together instead of separately.

This month is spending and the goal is to pick 7 places to spend our money this month. As I'm just coming up with this today, this will start tomorrow. I looked over our bank account for this past month, and we spent money in 23 places (which lumps all our bills together). This included basics like groceries (3 different places), gas, Brian and my's respective coffee shops and my daily parking. Our extra's this month were a couple different restaurants, the movie theatre, target, cash for the farmer's market, haircuts.

My picks for the month:
Online Bill Pay - yes, this is a bit of a cheat, but other we wouldn't be able to eat.
Parking
Pick N'Save & Metro Mart for goceries - this means no Sendik's (my favorite, more expensive, grocery store). Those two are owned by the same company, so I'm lumping them together.
Gas
Brew Bayou - Brian's coffee show on campus

That leaves us two spots to play with over the month- a favorite restaurant we'll hit a couple times, or an emergency Kohl's trip....?

Things I'm not counting: our money to church and compassion international, or spending money on gift cards. We'll see how we do!