Tofu Redo

Some of you may remember our first attempt at tofu a couple months back with the oh so fabulous tofu tacos. The idea was on point, but the execution failed miserably. It was our very first attempt at tofu and it was evident. One of my good friends whose a veg made some for me  awhile back so I know they can be good. Maybe one day I'll get it right.

Well, despite the epic fail, we weren't too afraid to give it a try again. We didn't do mexican food this time. (If anything we avoided it.) We took the asian route instead. And might I say, we did good! Not to boast or anything.

Tofu stirfry is what we decided on and it was 100 times better than the taco attempt. We both scarfed down our plates and agreed to have it again tonight. Yes, we are dinner repeaters. And I will admit...sometimes I'm an outfit repeater. Maybe tonight I'll wear the same outfit I wore yesterday so it will be a double repeat offense. If only I could remember what I wore yesterday...

The reason we are eating so much tofu right now is because Andrew and I are on a fast. A 40 day fast that started before Thanksgiving and lasts until the 28th of December. WHEN WE LEAVE FOR AFRICA! Everyone going on the trip was encouraged to spend the 40 days leading up to the trip (replica of Jesus fasting for 40 days...except I don't think he ate anything!) fasting and praying for God to work miracles, work through us for His will, and prepare our hearts for serving and leading. 

We chose to do the Daniel Fast. Daniel was a servant and prophet of God in the old testament. Whenever he fasted and prayed to God he always refrained from the wealthy/rich/king's food and ate only plant based foods. Nothing pleasing to the mouth or body and 3 times a day got on his knees and prayed. Not eating meat was not a big deal for me....it was the coffee, chocolate, sweets, bread, and cheese that have gotten me. I live and breathe off of those 5 food groups. (Yes, they are food groups to me.) For the first week I had headaches and never felt like I was full no matter how much I ate. 

Have you ever done the Daniel Fast? I'd love ideas for creative food recipes.


Stuff we already do a lot of...


Stirfry
Oatmeal made with unsweetened soy milk, fruit, cinnamon, and raisins
Rice cakes with all natural peanut butter and raisins
Mixed nuts
Whole wheat pasta and tomato veggie sauces
Veggies and hummus
Natural popcorn
Pure fruit smoothies


Just a few of the recipes I have booked marked to try....

Chunky Balsamic Apples
Vegan Tortilla Soup

The Burger 


Call me crazy but we've been eating this way for so long now it's kind of growing one me. Except I'd add coffee to it. :)

First Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a wonderful week giving thanks and spending time with loved ones. Andrew and I did quite a bit of traveling to celebrate our Thanksgiving.

First stop.....

Atlanta, GA

We had such a wonderful evening with some close friends of ours. Most there were friends that once lived in Athens but have moved to Atlanta after graduation. Not only did we feast, the person who invited us stood up and shared why they were grateful for us. So encouraging! Thanks to by BFF Lauren for inviting me and the husband! The 2 hr. 30 min drive there was totally worth it.

Next stop....

Macon, GA

Took Lydia ice skating. It was her first time ever and she had a blast! "Two more times!" "One more time!"

Her and I also have a common bond of playing the violin. She was so excited for me to hear her play and play for her. I couldn't really do much on her tiny person violin but she was so cute. I think Andrew had the most fun out of us all playing the violin. He was the one who didn't want to share. Now I know whenever he complains of being bored I'll just pull mine out and he'll be content for hours. Who knew!?

We had such a wonderful time there. Always feel so loved and taken care of by his family. 

On Thanksgiving day, we made homemade chocolate chip waffles and watched the beginnings of the parade. We were able to watch just long enough to be graced with Daniel Radcliffe's singing and dancing. HA!

Then we left that morning to drive to Florida for...

Stop #3...

Cocoa Beach, FL

I forgot to take pictures of the feast but my mom did a top notch job! It was so nice to see my grandparents and aunt and uncle there. The wedding was so rushed that I barely (or not at all) got to spend time with them. 

While down there, Andrew golfed for the first time and I helped my mom with this ridiculously hard puzzle. It's still no where near done after hours of time put in.

And we set up the Christmas tree. The fam will back down to the beach shortly for Christmas as well.

Then final stop...

HOME!

After the 10 hour drive home, we put up our first Christmas tree. It's pretty puny but who cares. We were excited! Got to go get more ornaments this week. It's a bit bare.   

So now it's on to tests, project, and programs to finish out the semester. We are and will continue to be bogged down with books for a couple more weeks. So close! But based on the weather today...I feel Christmas coming up soon. Thank goodness for warm coats, socks, slippers, and heated homes.

Weekend Visitor

The clocks have gone back and the sun is now going down as I am leaving my class at 4:30 pm. How depressing. Because of the change, Andrew and I have been going to be earlier and waking up earlier. Following the sun's lead I guess. And I'm not ashamed to say that I'm enjoying going to bed earlier. I feel much happier and more productive with a nice relaxing morning instead of rushing to get to where we need to be going.  

Things have been happy here in the Chase household. School has been going exceptionally well for the both of us (besides the fact that we are both dying to be done!) and Andrew is loving his job. And when Andrew's happy....we are all happy. :) A lot of opportunities have been coming up in the past week for future jobs for him. Almost everyday he's getting new phone calls and emails with potential offerings. He's so encouraged that people are seeking him out.

We are both playing flag football with our friends. He with the guys and me with the girls. We are practicing for a tournament that will be in January. This is the first year for the girls bracket. So excited!!

This weekend we had a fun visitor staying with us. 

This guy....

Please excuse my sleepiness. But he's just adorable. Mom and Dad went out town so Jaxon came to live the college life for a weekend.

But the poor guy was so homesick the whole time :( 

He kept waiting by the door and he hardly touched his food all weekend. But despite being homesick, Jaxon still managed to sneak in some mischievousness. 

And by the end of the weekend....

He was a pooped pup.

And we admit....we miss him. It hasn't been the same coming home to an empty house. No furry friend to greet us anymore. One day we will have one our own! :)

Thanksgiving is right around the corner and we are more than eager to see family. I haven't seen Andrew's mom since the wedding. We will be doing some traveling to see both sides of the family.  Africa is getting closer! 42 days and counting until we leave. 

Well....sorry so brief. Have a good week and thanks for listening!

Joyful Day

In case you didn't know, Andrew and I were selected to go on a mission trip to Johannesburg in South Africa.  The trip is through an newly established group called Swamp Corps. The idea of Swamp Corps is to take a kids camp that has been going on here in Georgia for years to places around the world.  This isn't just any camp. It's a week long 24/7 camp where kids leave their families, come learn about Jesus, build friendships, and develop a relationship with God. This particular camp saved mine and Andrew's life.  It's the place that helped us to be where we are today. The Swamp is what helped build the foundation and inspire us to become disciples of Jesus.

We've been so blessed to also work out there as counselors. Andrew for 7 years and me for 3. That is where we grew individually in our walks with God, helped mentor and train other kids, and grow in our relationship as a couple.  And now......we get to help take all the goodness of this camp to Africa!!

First, Swamp Corps started in Jamaica.  That camp has been going for two years and then Barbados started this year. And now this is Africa's first experience.  Other trips in the works are Kenya, Brazil, and India. God has been working hard.

Well, 10 days ago, I was crying because I thought we couldn't go on this trip anymore. With everything that was happening to our cars we had a lot more set backs financially than what we thought.  I kept telling myself that God wouldn't have selected us out of so many to help with this camp and then not provide. And well today I'm crying again because someone donated 1,000 dollars to Andrew and I!

It was donated anonymously so we can't give a proper thanks to whoever it was, but we are sure it's someone we are close to and knows all the set backs we've had recently. So to whoever you are....you are an angel to us. You've relieved us, built our faith, and made us evermore grateful. We thank you so much!

So with all that said.....

57 DAYS TIL AFRICA

October Ups and Downs

October is a long month. 31 days if you hadn't been keeping track. That leaves a lot of room for things to happen. And oh did "things" happen to us this month. You may have noticed that I haven't updated the blog since earlier in the month. My mind and self have been lost in so many things this. I'm not going to bore you with the stories of the bad things because God has taken care of them and there is no need to complain. 

In short, my car = dead transmission. Andrew and I = car-less for over a week, super stressed, and trying to figure out where money will come from. However, God is a faithful father and didn't let us down. 

We have wonderful friends and parents that support and love us. We thank so much our friends that let us borrow their cars or gave us rides places. And we are SO grateful for our parents making phone calls, knowing people that can help us, for generously donating money, and for letting us use their car temporarily. We have the best people in our lives. Even though it was hard, we were never not taken care of through this tough month. 

We thought losing Andrew's car taught us about faith and gratitude. HAH! We had no idea what God had in store for us. But He definitely took care of us.

Now lets forget about the bad and talk about the good things that happened in this month.

1. It's without a doubt Fall outside! My favorite season of the year. I went out for a walk and picked some colorful leaves to frame. These are just a few of the gorgeous finds I made outside our condo.

2. We've been absolutely loving our CSA produce baskets we get every week! I never want to go back to grocery store produce. Farm fresh is the way to go! These are just a few items from the basket we picked up today. 

The trend has been eggplants, peppers, tomatoes, radishes, and all sorts of greens. This week we got a GIANT sweet potato (not pictured here), fresh garlic, lettuce, and chard (that's what's in the bag). I've found that I LOVE radishes. Simply sauteed with their leaf greens. So simple and yummy. And of course the tomatoes are to die for.

3. I got a letter from my dear friend Lisa. She moved to London back in August and I miss her terribly. It was so nice to hear from her and it was a great encouragement in the midst of all the discouragement.

4. I had an awesome thrift store find to go in our home. I am never able to get out of the house except for school and church with Andrew needing the car every day for work, but one morning I had "car freedom" for 2 hours. 2 HOURS! I can not tell you how excited I was. So with my two hours I went.....thrifting!

$5 dollars. This shelf made my 2 hours of the month worth it. 

(That's our guest book on the wall and one of these days I'll get it framed.) Along with gaining a new shelf to set up in our house...I was able to unpack 4 boxes that same day.

Still got this much to go....

5. My birthday! I'm a mere 23 years old now. My birthday was the 27th but since it feel on the first day of Fall break for school. I decided to "celebrate" my birth this extended weekend. :) Since Andrew and I are on this  spoiled "we only eat farm fresh foods" kick, we went to dinner at Farm 255. DELICIOUS!

And I got some fun gifts that I've been wanting for a long time. 

[And a rain jacket :)]

These running shoes have the Nike + feature so it will record my distances and help me train for any future races. So legit.

So in summary of this long month and this long post, the month of October has shown us how blessed we are.  Blessed more than we will ever know. 

Sorry for such a long post! Had to make up for not posting anything all month. Love you all.

Happy Friday

You know that feeling when you've been working on something important for weeks? Stressing over it and spending hours upon hours preparing for that something? And then it ends? You finish and you don't have to worry about it any more? Well that finished feeling feels a little something like this....

....a nice long sip of your favorite coffee as you soak in the pleasant aroma. This morning, I woke up and was able to drink my coffee for pleasure. Not because I needed it. But because I wanted it. Turned in the last of my multiple major projects that I've had looming over me for the last month. Sure I have more to come, but I have a few days to soak in this feeling of relaxation.

This will be the first weekend since the beginning of September that I don't have to spend any of my weekend working on school work. It feels so good! So this weekend, Andrew and I are going to Helen, GA with some friends of ours. Oktoberfest is going on right now. I've never been during the festivities so it will be an interesting experience. I'm just excited to enjoy a fall day outside.

Other ideas for enjoying this fall:

Pumpkin and apple picking

Carve (or paint) a pumpkin

Bake a pie from scratch (using picked apple)

Preserve leaves as they change colors in a frame. hang up for decoration or give as gifts

Go for a walk with someone you love

Make homemade apple cider

How do you like to enjoy the fall season?

Hope all of you have a wonderful weekend! Happy Friday.

CSA members :)

Last night, Andrew and I signed up for our first round of CSA boxes. We found out about them several weeks back but thought they all ended in September.  But my amazing husband did his computer thing and found the Roots Farm in Athens is doing a special fall CSA box for the months of October and November! YAY!

If you don't know what CSA is...check it out!! You pay a reasonable fee to a local farm in your area and they'll provide you with a generous amount of their fresh produce every week. Most run from April-September. Every week you get a new variety. With the season we are in we'll be getting fall and winter veggies but when we do the April-September session we'll get everything you can think of.

On their blog, they posted the produce for us to expect when we pick up our box this week. 

This Week:

All kinds of varieties of 

-Tomatoes
-Eggplant
-Peppers
-Okra
-Kale
-Radishes
-Summer Squash
-Cucumbers
-Dill

I can't wait!!

I'm not even going to know how to cook with some of that food. Good thing they give you recipes along with the produce. :)

Tofu Tacos

Tacos. You can't go wrong with tacos. They are the Mexican comfort food of Americans. At least in our household they are. We had tacos 4 days ago for dinner and tonight we wanted them again. But all we had in the fridge was tofu. I've never worked with tofu. So we gave it a shot. 

Tofu tacos. More like disgusting tacos. 

Soggy. Didn't hold any of the flavors. None even made it to Andrew's plate. I at least gave it a shot. 

Good thing I keep a constant supply of black beans and yummy veggies. Tofuless Nachos was on the menu for tonight. 

Dinner failure #1. Two months and four days in and we have our first dinner failure. I think our cooking percentage is pretty awesome. Lesson learned....tacos are only meant for carnivores.

Death in the Family

So after a wonderful weekend of celebrating in Nashville, the drive home wasn't so celebratorious. Yes. I made that word up. Andrew's love-hate relationship with his car finally came to and end. The poor thing was like the little engine that couldn't. We were just a mile and half from being at the top of the mountain when the engine crashed.

So we called a tow truck. Unlucky for us, EVERYTHING in Tennessee related to car shops are closed on Sundays. So our towing guy decided he wanted our undriveable car (yes I made that word up too) for $100. Let's just say 10 minutes later Andrew and I were sitting in a Cracker Barrel parking lot in South Pitsburg, TN with all we had on us against the curb. 

We made a to-go order and enjoyed a meal in the parking lot as we waited for my parents to drive over an hour get us. I have the best parents in the world!! But we eventually made it home in good spirits and safe. Things could have been a lot worse. 

Now we are learning to live with one car. It's only been two days and it's been hard. Not a bad hard as in we are complaining or we can't function. We are getting along just fine. But changing a mindset we are used to having is not so easy. We are having to completely change the way we think about spending our days. I used to run my errands, go grocery shopping, and visit people while Andrew was gone at school and work. That doesn't work anymore. We feel completely blessed and so grateful to still have one car. I've been clinging to the scripture "be content with what you have" in other areas and now I'm applying it to this. Not only are we learning about true gratitude, but also complete oneness through sharing everything. 

RIP Camry 9/25/11

You will partially be missed.

Nashville Bound

T-minus 2 days til in Nashville, TN!!!

Line dancing. Cowboy boots. 

Lots of good food. Best friends. Family. Celebrating. Marriage. Mr. and Mrs. Casey Cox. I'm so stinkin' excited!! Nashville here we come! 

Sorry for the lack of updating our blog. I'm so busy looking at other peoples' blogs that I forget to update my own! I'm so addicted to pinterest right now. I'm addicting to looking at peoples' pins, finding my own pins, and finding the next cool blog. Who am I turning into!? Sure it's sucking my time up but through this disgusting addiction I've learned a lot of new recipes and crafty ideas. If anything I'm becoming a better person. Buh! Who am I kidding...

So we had our first football home game a few weeks ago. GO DAWGS! Hadn't cheered those words in a while but it was good to be back at the game again. It was definitely different without our typical group of tailgating/Georgia football-watching friends. We are so happy our friends have moved on and gotten jobs and are succeeding but...seriously....at least come back and go to the games with us!! Needless to say we didn't go to the next home game. It wasn't worth it.

Andrew started a job! Yay for some income!! God really has blessed us in the beginning of our marriage. This job showed up out of no where and pays so well. He gets to work everyday so it keeps him active and he loves what he's doing. Technical Support Adviser....or something along those lines is his title. He's considered faculty at Athens Tech, had his first faculty meeting today with all the professors, and has the power to literally kick anyone out of the school with the click of a button. 

He's still mad at me that I won't let him get a dog right now. I WANT ONE TOO! So badly. I want this one....

....a Labradoodle. He wants this one....

....an Alaskan Malamute. Or this one....

....a Weimaraner.

I wouldn't mind any of them. Just in a year or so. :) So we settled. For this....

A bird feeder. Andrew made it himself. There's two of them and we've yet to see a bird eat from either. It's ok. We're the new kids on the block. We'll give the birds a couple weeks to find us.

Engagements. Marriages. Best Friends

18 days until Casey Cox and Brittany Mehring finally get married! After like 7 years they finally realize they are meant to be together. Their engagement photos are finally posted and I'm obsessed. So obsessed. I'm so happy for them and can't wait to be traveling to Nashville so soon to celebrate. Pictures will definitely come later.

Now this is for you Frenchy....Lauren's engagement throw-down!! AHHH! So not only is one of my best friends getting married this month but another just got engaged.  Andrew and I were so excited to be apart of the whole day with her and Zach.  

Now I know all the stress my friends had lying and pretending during the week I was getting engaged. It was hard and I didn't even see her everyday!! I had to pretend that I had no idea about the upcoming braves game (when Zach had already given us the tickets and parking pass the week before) and convince Andrew how fun it would be to go. The good thing about Lauren....she's the most gullible, believing, unobservant, and oblivious person I know. 

We started the date at an awesome new burger place in Atlanta with her and Zach, and Carly and her date. Flip Burger. SO GOOD! Gourmet burgers. The whole night was so awkward because everyone on the date had a secret and was avoiding something so we felt we couldn't really talk at all. I mean we talked. But it wasn't as casual and easy to do as it would have been with out this HUGE secret looming over us. 

So we finally make it to the Brave's game. 3 innings late. 

So Andrew and I were the chosen ones to "have" to leave the game early because we had a long drive back and Andrew was really tired from having 8 ams all week. The whole game he had to pretend like he was tired to be convincing. "I'm so exhausted from trying to be tired."-Andrew

But it worked. We said our goodbyes, gave one last yawn, and then we ran to the car. Angels were with us all night. As we were driving on the interstate (speeding most likely because we were hurrying), a tent fell of off a car in front of us. We somehow made it out not in an accident nor anyone else behind us. And when we were trying to get back into the complex...the call box wasn't working and a nice gentlemen who lived pulled up next to us and gave us his key to get in. God wanted this to happen! I'm convinced that man was an angel.

We helped Lo Yo set up the scene down by the river at their apartment. Which by the way is stunning. I wish I had scenery like that right by my place. We thought we weren't going to get it all set up in time because the game let out SO MUCH EARLIER than expected and people kept getting in the way and asking us questions.

So as Zach was walking her down to the dock, a couple told them, "Hey, you can't go down there, someone told us there is about to be an engagement there." HAHAHAHA. So to divert her, he started taking her another direction which was well....our direction. Right where we were "hiding." All we could do was cover our faces and hope that since we couldn't see her she wouldn't be able to see us fully exposed just sitting on some stairs. Luckily Zach saw us before she did and then I guess decided that was a good moment to just let her know it was here that was getting engaged. So they made their way to the deck where all else is self explanatory.

Down on one knee!! YAY!

And what she's been waiting for....for several months....

A kiss! Oh yea, a ring too :)

I'm so happy for them and can't wait to begin this journey towards their marriage. I knew this day would come from the first moment they liked each other. They are a perfect match. So we celebrated the night away with champagne, wedding magazines, and exchanging stories of how the moment finally came to happen. 

Lying, speeding, not even getting to see the Brave's game, and getting home at 2:30 in the morning was so worth it.