Another week begins!

I can't believe that this week is October already! I am so ready for cooler weather! This week, it's supposed to dip down to 82 for a high, though! I think I'm going to wear my parka. Anyway, I am done with my "Lock-In" week at work, so that means my schedule gets a little more flexible, but no more free lunches, and my floor will be very empty! I will be the only person in a cube on my side of the floor...

This was a really fun weekend! Friday night was the debate (which I only watched part of), and then I got to talk to Trey for a little while as he was finishing up helping some friends pack their house. On Saturday, I went running on Katy Trail with my running girls, and it's a really nice place to run. It's busy, but much less intense than running and competing with the bikers at White Rock Lake. They have separate trails for runners with that rubber track and a paved trail for bikers and rollerbladers.

If you're looking for a funny movie, you should definitely go to Ghost Town. I went with a couple girls from work and a girl from church this weekend, and it was great! The premise sounds more like a scary movie because this man sees dead people, but there's nothing scary about it at all.

Sunday was a pretty normal day for me, and it was nice to enjoy the weekend. After church, I had lunch with a friend, then shopped around Target, came home, did some random things around the house and helped make dinner. It was delicious, if I do say so myself! I even touched raw chicken (ugly raw chicken face still happens, but it's getting better)! We made Elegant Chicken and Pasta, which is chicken and whipping cream and parmesan cheese all baked together to make a kind of chicken alfredo, and you serve it over pasta. Soooo good!

Anyway, time for me to head to bed! I guess I'll be dreaming of chicken. Oh, and Courtney asked me, "How long does the cooken chick?" lol...

Whoa!

My mom started a blog!! You can visit it here or click on the links to the right. Sorry for the recent lull in posts, folks. This weekend, I'll try to do some more in depth posting.

Courtney, Chelsea and I are running the Tour Des Fleurs 10K on Saturday morning benefiting the Dallas Arboretum, which is very close to the area that I'd like to live someday. We've been training since the beginning of August, and we're working towards the White Rock Half Marathon in December, so this race is perfectly timed in our schedule! They even gave us really nice dry weave shirts that are cute too-- pink and green for the girls, and I think the guys had navy and red. Haha, and I was just reading on the website that it's the "Best Post-Party in Town" with a complimentary massage and lots of food from tons of different vendors, Einstein Bros included!

It's time for me to study now-- my exam is 2 months away now! Who thought that after college, I'd still be taking exams and studying? Well, actually, I guess I did since I signed up for this before college ended...lol. I hope everyone has a great end of the week and weekend too! Happy Thursday!

Correction

For those of you keeping up with the blogging competition between Trey and I, I would like to add clarification to a comment he made in his most recent blog post, "Fall Begins". It may be misleading and you may be wondering how we are dating right now since I "denied [him], shot [him] down right where [he] stood" at that fateful point of our bikeride. Despite these allocations, I really really really liked him, but was leaving for Japan the next fall and thought he might be in New Zealand the following winter, so I thought the timing was rather unfortunate to start a relationship. However, just a few weeks later, while watching Ben Hur, he grabbed my hand, and I didn't want to let go and had resisted his charm for too long, so I held his hand for the rest of the movie, and thus the adventure began. So, don't feel too sorry for him, he won in the end (or beginning...)!

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Baker Sisters' Cafe

Tonight, I made the most wonderful batch of fried green tomatoes ever! They were tomatoes from the Farmers' Market, which is probably why they were so good, and even Dora ate a few (oops...we weren't paying attention). I don't really use a recipe-- just kind of eyeball it, but tonight, I did double batter, which was definitely the right choice.


Fried Green Tomatoes
Heat about 1/2 inch of veggie oil in a pan on med-high. In one bowl, mix cornmeal, Lowry's season salt, and pepper. I just mix up enough so that you can smell the seasoning, but so that it's not overpowering. In another bowl, combine 2 eggs and a little milk and mix up with a fork. Slice tomatoes a little thicker than 1/4 inch. Dip in eggs and then cover in cornmeal mixture. Do it again! Set in hot oil, and turn when that side turns golden brown. If it turns too dark too quickly, lower the heat-- they're no good burned, but you also don't want to cook them forever!
Take em out when both sides are golden. I like to drain them on a cooling rack with paper towels underneath. Serve 'em hot with ranch dressing or just plain. Yumm. Southern cookin'. Gotta love that fried goodness. Phil doesn't even like tomatoes, but he liked these!

Time Tested Beauty Tips

On my iGoogle homepage, I have beauty tips, which are usually pretty worthless, but this one, I really like. Apparently, Audrey Hepburn is usually given the credit for it, but it was actually written by a man by the name of Sam Levenson. It was just one of Audrey Hepburn's favorite poems.


"Time Tested Beauty Tips"

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.

For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.

For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.

For beautiful hair, let a child run his or her fingers through it once a day.

For poise, walk with the knowledge you'll never walk alone.

People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; Never throw out anybody.

Remember, If you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm.

As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.

The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman must be seen from in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides.

The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mole, but true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she shows, and the beauty of a woman with passing years only grows!

Inspired by Samantha

I've been wanting to get a haircut, but I've also been a little nervous until I saw that Samantha had gotten one. She told me to go for it, so I did! This is for you, mom, since you wanted to see pictures. My hairdresser's name was Fouzia, and she was really nice! I went to a place called Ulta-- never heard of it before, but I'd go back.

The Best Labor Day Weekend Ever

Let's be honest, even though I have a great job and a great place to live, it's been a little harder than I thought it would be getting used to this whole "real world" thing. For one, and probably the biggest one, I miss my friends. It's weird not being able to run down the hall or across the lawn and then go to the pub and play games or watch a movie or some other random concoction of funness we might have.

So, when I first moved to Dallas, it was exciting. You know, having to rush around and get things done and feeling like you've got things to accomplish and zooming through the list of to-dos makes you feel good. I've been working for a month now, and half of that time was spent in D.C. for training, and even though it was really cool to go there and get to meet a lot of new people, I was really having a hard time being excited about what I am doing. I mostly keep thinking that I should be doing something more exciting, something that will give me this awesome life story, and I can tell people how I traveled all over the world after college and took pictures of beautiful places and people and met interesting people and all of that. And that would be cool, and I would love that and have an amazing time, I'm sure.

You're probably wondering about now how this was the Best Labor Day Weekend Ever if so far all I've talked about is what I miss and what I wish I could have. So, here I go. I was talking to Trey and saying how I get really unsure of myself when things change in my life, and his reply was that I should make a list of things I am grateful for whenever I feel like that. A lot of this is coming to me right now...here we go: I looked up the word "bless" in the Bible, and in the New International Version, it comes up 62 times. The Sermon on the Mount is full of "blessed's", and they all seem to be for people who are not on top of the world-- they're poor in spirit or mourning or hungering. And then there are the peacemakers and the merciful and the pure in heart. Who knows what they are doing. They could be out in the world doing something really amazing or maybe just working at home, but they are blessed because of how they are doing it.

When I look at the people who mean the most to me and have helped me the most, it's pretty clear to me that they'd be the same no matter what their job was. Story time: I was really shy when I was in elementary and middle school. Even if I knew the answer, it terrified me to speak up in class, and I had a teacher in the 5th grade who loved to call on people--not to embarrass them, but she was really fun and young and spunky and just wanted everybody to get their chance to talk. One day, I think we were diagramming sentences (not joking, I loved that!), and Ms. Pascal called on me. I must have given off some mental alarm that showed her how mortified I was and probably waited for a while to answer, and then she just said to me, "All you can be is wrong." I don't really remember what happened after that (probably blacked out...just kidding), but I've remembered her saying that to me a lot.

What I am getting out of all of this for tonight is that being grateful and blessings are not about being right and wrong, and they are certainly not about freaking out about the future. Worry is ingratitude in advance (thanks, Warren!). So, right now, I am grateful for:
1) seeing Trey these last two weekends
2) having the pugs to come home to every night
3) most days getting to see Courtney and Phil
4) tubing down the Comal River
5) my license that will coming back to me soon, hopefully!
6) having a good job right out of college
7) being able to afford a new car
8) my mom and dad getting to go to China

It's time for me to go to bed now. More to come later on!