Possibly my worst date ever.

There are several things to catch up on before I tell you this story. First, I've been keeping up with (and even stepping up) my New Year's Resolutions. Hooray! Jeff and I have been working out three times a week for over a month now and I'm definitely starting to see results. I also decided that I also felt emotionally unhealthy because of my addiction to Facebook/StumbleUpon and other such websites where I'd lose myself for hours, so today marks week one of my two month internet diet. I'm only allowed to use certain websites that I actually need (and my blog so I'm not completely unconnected from my friends and family back home for 2 months).

As you might remember, one of my other resolutions was to try to enact a date night every other weekend. Yesterday was actually only our second date since we came back to DC, but we're working on it.

Yesterday also crashed and burned.

You see, a few weeks ago on his way to class Jeff saw a flier for a guitar/cello concert on February 15. He loves guitar and I love cello, so this sounded like the perfect Valentine's Day date, especially since I had class on the 14th anyway; so, we went online and found a little Italian place close to the church where the concert was held, and I was pretty pumped about it all.

First, we got to the restaurant and the "restaurant building" it was a part of turned out to be pretty much just a mall. Not the classiest. No big deal, though. Then we ordered, and the food was probably mediocre at best. I'm pretty sure I could've made better Italian food. Then there was a minor debacle over which dessert to get. I wanted to split a chocolate hazelnut tart; Jeff wanted... pudding.

As you can see, Jeff won. It was ok, though, because not only was it better than I expected, but this silly little Italian pudding also ended up being the best part of the whole evening.

After we polished off the pudding we headed over to the church for the concert. The guitarist started and only played for about 15 minutes. It was a very pretty Spanish guitar improvisation on a classical piece I didn't recognize, but that kind of guitar is really more Jeff's thing than mine and in any case I was just waiting for the cellist to start. You have to understand, I love cellos. I think they make what is possibly the most beautiful sound on the planet. So when this world famous, highly acclaimed, played-and-taught-at-conservatories-all-over-Europe cellist came out, I had high hopes.

What I was not expecting was an hour of the most painful cello playing I have ever heard. Seriously. This woman sounded like a little kid who's tired of practicing and just starts hitting his instrument with his bow. I was impressed... by how she was able to make such awful sounds come out of such a beautiful instrument. And she gets paid for this. People like this. Heck, the other people in the audience seemed to like it! I'd kind of like to tell you who she is but I'm afraid of getting a C&D letter in the mail, so if you really want to know so you can look her up and prove me right, send me an email.

So that was our first Valentine's Day as a married couple! Mediocre Italian food and horrific violence against my favorite instrument in the world. But in all honesty, we got each other cute gifts and we had fun together. And now I have an awesome/awful story to tell!

Oh, and one quick, barely related note that occurred to me as I was thinking about the atrocity of that concert. For a concert, a bunch of unrelated individuals come together and bond over their love of a particular artist as he or she performs. For a church, on the other hand, a bunch of people bonded by their love of God come together and listen to a message that speaks to each person's individual life. That's it... not terribly profound, it just occurred to me that a concert is the opposite of a church service and I couldn't sleep till I wrote it down last night, so I figured I should at least share it.

Oh, and at least we looked pretty:

Man. I am so short. Oh well.

I feel like a true DC resident.

It occurred to me as I was thinking about this that I've actually done and experienced lots of things that are probably necessary to be a resident. I've ridden the metro a zillion times, including once when the giant escalator of death in Tenleytown broke and we had to walk the rest of the way up. I've experienced a rally and been angry at the tourists not knowing how to cross streets/walk down sidewalks/ride escalators/use the metro. I at least attempted to hear a speaker at Busboys and Poets. I regularly eat at Five Guys. I can navigate a roundabout (most of the time). I've seen most of the monuments.

And now I've experienced a serious snow, shoveled off cars the next day, and eaten a Georgetown Cupcake.

Here's the snow from Wednesday night out our back window Thursday morning:

The final verdict was that it was about 8 inches. For some of my yankee friends this wasn't very much, but for this Texas girl it was absolutely insane. I loved it.

Then on Friday Jeff and I were supposed to go get our DC licenses, but since it was still snowing Jeff opted out of driving. So I went out shopping for the afternoon with a couple of friends, and we got Georgetown Cupcakes!

If you don't know, Georgetown Cupcakes is basically a DC landmark and I was told that they were worth the huge lines. Oh my gosh, were they. The one on the left was a Strawberry Champagne that I brought home for Jeff, mine on the right was Chocolate Ganache. I can't speak for his, but mine was heavenly. Oh. So good. Now I want cupcakes again.

I know there are still more things to do before I can really feel like a resident, like experience the cherry blossoms or Embassy Week or see the President (or, you know, get my DC license), but I do feel much more at home here than I did a few months ago. For 5 months here, I think I'm doing pretty well.

Starting Over, Part 8,067

Well, 2010 was one heck of a year. I graduated from the best university in the world. I said goodbye to the city that I've called home for the past four years, not to mention all of the amazing people I loved there. I married my best friend. I moved a thousand miles away from my family, my friends, and everything I've ever known. I started seminary. I got my first position as a youth minister. I was stranded halfway across the country as my family fell apart and struggled to put itself together again. I made wonderful new friends (without whom I wouldn't have survived at all--CD group, Dumbarton folks and Thursday night bunch, I'm looking at you) and managed to succeed in my classes despite taking a ridiculous number of them.

But with everything that happened, I feel like I slacked off in some things, like this blog (which, I'm told, "people actually read, you know!"). And in keeping up some of my relationships. And in remembering to take care of myself. So let's see if I can keep this up, shall we? Maybe if I share my resolutions I'll be more apt to keep them, or so I've read. So, in no particular order:

-Lose my newlywed weight. Apparently that's a thing? No one warned me!
-Do so without going back to looking as anorexic as I apparently did when I started college. Again, no one told me!
-Pay more attention to my readings for school. They're assigned for a reason. Mostly.
-Go to chapel more. Since I'll be in choir this semester that shouldn't be too hard, right?
-Work harder on serving other people, especially Jeff.
-Finally establish that date night we've been talking about since June.

And to that end, we decided to start the new year with a date day, which was wonderful. Actually, we started the new year with the wedding of some of Jeff's friends, then a day of catching up with some of our best friends before they/we head off again, and then we got to have a day to ourselves. Slept in, did a little work to justify taking the rest of the day off, then headed out to do whatever we wanted. Which meant getting a little dressed up, going to the gigantic playground in town, playing and taking pictures, getting some amazing TexMex while we can, spending almost two hours in Starbucks (next town over, of course, because Sulphur Springs is one of the few places in the world that still doesn't have one) just reading and drinking tasty warm drinks, and attempting to see Harry Potter again. I say attempting because turns out the theatre we tried to go to closes at 8 now, at least according to the guy who stuck his head out the door to ask if we needed any help. Despite the fact that the internet said they were showing HP7 at 8:45. But I'm not going to go so far as to say that it was shady, or allege that they were having massive drug deals behind the theatre facade, or anything like that... maybe.

All in all, though, it was a fantastic way to start off the year.  And now to get organized with work and doing reading for school, and we'll be back in DC at the end of this week. As much as I've loved being in Texas and everything that goes with it--family, friends, places I grew up, accents, friendly people, access roads on the freeways, warmer weather, Houston thunderstorms, Dr Pepper in every restaurant, TexMex, Bluebell ice cream, everything being cheaper--I'm also really excited to get back to DC and our life there.

I wanted to end with a picture from yesterday and one last thought. We were watching TV (also crazy, since we don't have it in our on-campus apartment) and saw a commercial whose premise was "What if we treated every day like New Year's Day?" I loved it. I've always loved that thought. Every day is a chance to make your resolutions again, to change the way you live or the way you look or the way you feel. So even though it's January 4, happy new year! Go out and be the person you wish you could be.

Dr Pepper, Queso and Triceratops

Yesterday was an awesome combination of home and my new city.

If you aren't aware, one thing that Texans take pretty seriously is their food. If you go anywhere outside of Texas and get something that Texans normally make, it'd better be pretty friggin' awesome or we'll make fun of you. So when I found the Austin Grill here in DC (complete with choices like Austin Wings, Bevo Salad, and Magnolia Eggs), I was both apprehensive and excited beyond belief. A friend of ours from UT is here for the semester, so we decided it would be a good place to catch up, reminisce, and miss things like Bluebell Ice Cream.

Also, one thing you should know about me is that my two addictions are Dr Pepper and queso. I was told that I wouldn't be able to find Dr Pepper up here, so I was ridiculously excited when I found out that it's actually in basically every grocery store. Restaurants, on the other hand, still make me sad when they don't offer it, or worse, offer Mr. Pibb like it's the same thing (hint: it's not). When we got to Austin Grill and sat down the waitress said their drinks included "Pepsi products," and smiled like she gets this question all the time from native Texans when I almost yelled at her, "Does that mean you have Dr Pepper?!" Queso, unlike Dr Pepper, is something I've found you can get at basically any so-called Mexican or Tex-Mex restaurant, but the quality often leaves something to be desired. I figured with their menu, though, it'd be worth a shot. And oh, man was it worth it. It definitely wasn't Kerbey Lane, but it was good enough that I think my withdrawal symptoms should stop. Also the whole restaurant was decorated so well that it actually felt like Austin, and they have live music on Monday nights because let's face it, if you're going to claim to be Austin-y you have to have live music. So lunch yesterday was an absolutely fantastic combination of food and people from back home, and it made me happy.

After that awesome dose of home, though, I got to explore my first museum in DC. The district is basically a museum-lover's paradise, and I am very much a lover of museums. So after managing to get lost in the three blocks between Austin Grill and the National Mall, Jeff and I met up with a bunch of my youth (note: "a bunch" of my youth group is approximately 5 people, because my youth group is approximately 10 to 15) and went to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, which is free and awesome. We didn't get to explore the whole thing, but I did get to see three of my favorite animals.

An elephant: (sorry, this picture is kind of blurry)

A giraffe:

And a triceratops:

We also watched an IMAX about the ocean which I was very glad didn't include any super-deep-sea creatures, because those things are terrifying and it might have ruined my awesome day.

In summary:
-Dr Pepper and queso are addictive, but it's ok because I've found places to satisfy my cravings.
-If you're ever in DC and are really missing Texas, go to the Austin Grill.
-Museums are amazing and DC has approximately a million of them.
-There really should be more giraffes in my day-to-day existence.
-There really should be fewer terrifying evolutionary mistakes from the bottom of the ocean in existence, period.
-I might be able to survive here.

Edit: Blogspot and/or my internet is failing, and I can't actually upload my pictures. Sad day. I'll do it soon, I promise.

Improvisation: Good Food, Bad Faith

If you're reading this just because you like me but you happen to not care so much about Jesus, I'll start with the food for you. If you're reading this because you like me AND you like Jesus, feel free to keep reading after I'm done talking about cooking. I'd encourage you, though, to read the whole thing regardless. I mean, I wrote it. Come on.

Seeing as my husband and I are both poor grad students, financial aid doesn't come in until next week, and we desperately need to go grocery shopping, tonight's dinner was courtesy of let's-see-what-I-can-make-from-what-we-have-left. Lucky for us, it came out pretty tasty. Simple, but tasty.

Let's call it a creamy chicken and broccoli bake. That sounds good, right? Unfortunately, I completely forgot about pictures until we'd already started eating, so these are the leftovers. Sorry, it's not nearly as pretty as when I took it out of the oven. I know that it looks so tasty that you all want to run to the kitchen and make it right now, though, so here's the (super simple and very approximate) recipe:

Ingredients:
-8-10 oz. egg noodles
-16-20 oz. alfredo sauce
-1-2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (1 really should be enough, in my opinion)
-1 1/2 cups frozen broccoli
-1/4 cup onion, chopped
-rosemary and basil to taste

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook noodles as directed; drain, set aside. Meanwhile, in large skillet, cook chicken breasts over medium heat, seasoning with rosemary and basil. Once fully cooked, remove chicken from skillet and chop. Pour sauce into skillet, add chicken back in. Add broccoli, onion, and more rosemary and basil to taste. Cook over low heat until warm. Pour noodles into 9x9 baking dish, then pour sauce mix over top. Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes.

And thus concludes another successful experiment in cooking, where you can usually throw together things from your pantry that sound good and it'll come out pretty tasty. Within reason, that is. Adding chocolate to this mix probably wouldn't have been too good, despite the fact that I have perfectly tasty chocolate chips sitting in my refrigerator door, calling my name.

Which leads nicely to my theological thought for today. Yesterday, actually- this was an issue that came up during my Intro to the New Testament class yesterday morning. Pantries and refrigerators, on one hand, are full of all the random things that sounded good to you when you were walking through the grocery store with an empty stomach. They're designed to hold all of your miscellaneous ingredients until you decide to take a few things out, mix them up and eat them. The Bible, on the other hand, is neither a pantry nor a refrigerator. Its contents may vary from poetry to law, romance to mourning, but taking it as a whole there are themes that run throughout and everything contained within it is there for a reason. Those reasons are multifaceted in themselves, but that's a completely different post.

The point here is that the Bible isn't something we can pick and choose from. When we focus exclusively on one Testament or the other, or quote a single verse without giving it its proper context, we are effectively creating for ourselves a "canon within the canon," to quote my professor. And if we're honest, that's pretty much our tendency. If you think about the "Bible" that you carry around with you from day to day, the parts of it that you think about and live by, it's likely just the parts you like best. The parts that fit in with your view of the world and the way it should be. Thomas Jefferson, for example, literally took scissors to a Bible and compiled the parts that he thought were best, boiling the Bible in all its complexity down to a thin book of philosophy. What we do may not be as drastic as that, and you probably can't buy my mini-Bible on Amazon, but we do the same thing in spirit.

Now, I can't even begin to tell you how every verse of the Bible should be interpreted. Some (most) of it, I'm not even sure of myself. What I am sure of is that it at least needs to be acknowledged. When we cut and past the parts of the Bible that we like best, it stops being a living book that speaks to us and becomes instead our custom-made philosophy on life, telling us only what we want to hear. And that's not the Bible I want to read.