This is the stuff...

Have you heard this new song (titled This is the Stuff) by Francesca Battistelli? I love it. Check it out: So break me of impatience, Conquer my frustrations, I've got a new appreciation It's not the end of the world!

Ya'll, I had a great moment last night.  I got to go out to eat with my Amazing Husband, the new Native English Teacher from Amazing Husband's school (he is from Ireland and has a delightful accent!), and one of my Amazing Husband's co-teachers.  Guess where we went.  Did you guess a sushi restaurant?  I was not overly excited as I was remembering my last sushi experience.   BUT, it was a wonderful meal.  I did not have to eat the sushi straight up.  We dipped the sushi in a red sauce and then wrapped it in sesame leaves.  We also had some clams.  They were delicious.

So let me set the record straight: there are good sushi restaurants in Korea.  Sushi does not have to be straight up.  You can overcome the squishy taste.  You can do it!  It's not the end of the world.

The Delicious Story

No, I am not dead.  I am sure if you have emailed me recently, you may think that I have died.  I have not.  I am burned out on email.  Each time I hit that “Reply” or “Compose Mail” button (with the best of intentions in mind) all energy is sapped from my body.  Sorry friends and fam. I will reply to your emails, just give me a few days.

Trying to look candid :)

Yes, I have run 38 miles since Saturday.  Yes today is Tuesday.  Of course, I had a delicious dessert to regain some of those burnt calories.  Hello, warm delight + ice cream.

Yes, I did come up with a lovely idea for supper.  Check out this recipe.  It is called Bowtie Lasagna (not as good as the real lasagna)  It is so quick to pull together (Hint: when you buy ground beef, brown all of it at once, then drain the grease and divide into zippy bags for the freezer...that way you can just pull one bag out and you will have speedy dinner prep.  Thanks Binks for that lovely idea).  We substituted plain yogurt for the sour cream (I did not have time to go to a Western store to get the sour cream).  I left out the salt (who needs added sodium?) I may have added a bit more cheese than it called for (extra protein right?) EDIT: I remembered as I was brushing my teeth this morning (the morning after I posted this) we used spirally pasta because bow-tie pasta is not popular here.    Overall, it tasted great!

Yes, this blog post does have an exciting story:  Okay, so on Saturday my amazing husband and I were walking around downtown.  I thought to myself, "Self, I could really go for a cup of coffee".  A few seconds later, my amazing husband looked at me and said, "Would you like a hot dog?"  I wanted to say No and tell him about the coffee, but I wanted to compromise too....so I asked him how a cup of coffee sounded.  He wanted a hot dog.  This is were the rubber meets the road.  Die to self.  Let's start looking for a hot dog stand (not the hardest to find in South Korea.)  And then a miracle happened!  

Yes, Mr. Wow does exist

We rounded a corner to find (sound effect) Mr. Wow!  Full title: Mr. Wow since 1999 The Delicious Story Hot Dog & Coffee.  I am not joking.  Dreams do come true.  I got my coffee, Amazing Husband got his hot dog.  Have I told you that my husband is amazing?  Well, he is.  He let me have a few bites of his hot dog.  It had mustard on it.  Sometimes I forget how good America tastes. 

Christmas in March

I know that  none of you get Christmas music stuck in your head in March, but I never said that I was normal.  I am SO SAD that I forgot about this song until this past weekend.  It would have totally made the countdown.  The song is titled "Come Let Us Worship the King".  I think my church's choir may have sang it when I was growing up.   I tried to find a good version of it.  I really like this version I found of it, because you can hear the piano a lot.

Aw SNAP!  (If you want Koreans to stare at you more than usual utter this phrase.)  I just looked up the lyrics to this song.  I think Sandi Patty may have written this song.  This totally makes my day.  I love Sandi Patty.  She goes in the Amy Grant, Keith Green collection (known as music from my childhood).

Random story: the church I went to growing up had a fabulous pastor, his daughter had the exact.same.voice. as Sandi Patty.  I am not joking.  It was amazing!  Gives you goosebumps when you listen.

Happy listening!

One of those days

Yesterday while walking home from school, I made a mental list of all the reasons that I wanted to run (this means that I did not feel like running).  Then I opened the door to our apartment.

The box from America was sitting on the table.

Ya'll, there was goodness from home in a box on the table (I think my first thought was: Thank you Jesus that rapture did not happen today!).  NEW RUNNING SHOES that I immediately took out of the box and kissed.  Real Granola cereal!  Magazines written in English!  Warm Delights in three different flavors!  A Christmas card!  A Reese's microwave cake! An extension to my wardrobe in the form of a sweater from America!  And my amazing husband got his soccer cleats.  Thank you Mama-Boma-in-law and Daddio-in-law (for the record, not only do I have an amazing husband, I also have amazing in-laws!)

Hello 500 miles of happiness!!!

Motivation for running = 0.  Motivation for sitting down and gaining 20 lbs by eating everything in the box = 100

And my amazing husband was watching TV.  And it was cold outside.  And I was going to run by myself.  And it was windy.  And it was 5:00pm by this time. (In my world you can start making supper at 5pm and not be considered to be 70 years old) And well just start making up ridiculous things {insert here: what if zombie shaped polar bears attack me while I am running?  What will I do?}  I can be really good at making up excuses not to run!

So I changed out of my school clothes into my running clothes.  I told myself the whole time that I was only going to run for 10 minutes.  (I knew that I was not going to run for 10 minutes, but if it gets me out the door...)  I, of course, was quite dramatic throughout the is whole process.  Poor amazing husband.  He just kept watching TV.  Yup, it was one of those days.   A day when running motivation = 0

sigh

So I started on my 10 minute run.

Recently God has been trying to work on my heart.  I (like a mature person) has been metaphorically burying my head under the blankets and pillows, saying, "just 5 more minutes, then I will get up!"  By "get up", I really mean stop being stubborn.

Newsflash: there are no metaphorically pillows or blankets when are you running.  About 5 minutes into my run God went to town on my heart.  I prayed, I confessed my sin, and I praised Jesus for all that he has done.  I can be content. I know that this might be hard for you to believe, but I complain a lot.  Every evening, I do my little, "5 thankfuls for the day" but I do it with the wrong attitude.  I am going to start trying to be content in every situation, not when I feel like it.

Really only 370 calories?

Fast forward: 7.5 miles ran, hot showered taken, supper eaten, and I am diving into one of the warm delights (I told myself while running I had to burn 800 calories so I would not feel guilty eating the one, um yeah, definitely only 370 calories for the whole entire thing).

 Am I glad that I ran?  Yes.  Will another day come when I do not feel like running?  Yes.  Will I tell myself that I only have to run for 10 minutes, then 10 more minutes? Yes.  Is God good? Most definitely!

So, what do you do on days when you have 0 motivation for exercising?

The first day of school!

A new school year has begun!  So far my most challenging moment of the day (besides not knowing when I will be teaching) was trying to explain roasting, frying, sautéing, grilling, steaming, and boiling to my co-teacher.  It is one of those times that I am so happy that I grew up as English as my first language.  Have you ever thought about it: you fry an egg in a pan, but you saute vegetables in a pan too (and you fry chicken in a fryer).  A fryer is different than a friar.  We have a roaster for roasting, but you can also roast in an oven.  And you can eat a roast.  On top of all of this, Koreans are not well acquainted with how to use ovens or how ovens work.  So I also got to teach about cooking spray and different styles of cooking in an oven.  In times like these, I am incredibly happy for google images!  A picture is sometimes worth a thousand words (sometimes not, showing my co-teachers roasted vegetables and trying to describe the flavor are two different things).

Thank you Subway for letting me borrow your logo here...

Speaking of food, we went to SUBWAY yesterday!!!!!!  It was ah-maz-ing! (picture me jumping up and down for happiness right now)  We had tried to eat at Subway once before, but it was closed.  Yesterday, we were conquers!  It was open and they had subway cookies!  Praise.the. Lord.  Mmmm Subway cookies!  mmmm Subway bread!  Ya'll, I have been eating white bread (and rice bread) for the last 6.5 months.  I do not eat either types of these breads in America, I am a whole-wheat girl all the way.  One funny thing to me: subway in Korea is totally 1990s.  I think Subways in America must have shipped all of their old decorations and such to our Subway, because our Subway looked like the Subways from my childhood.  They had a pretty short menu and not all the veggies I had been dreaming of, but that is okay.  I still got tuna, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, yummy bread, and a cookie!  My amazing husband was looking forward to his pizza sub, but they did not have that on their menu (he was a good sport about it).

Speaking of yesterday, I got to talk to my sister-in-law.  It was so great.  She is so fun!  I had a chance to Skype with her because it was Independence Movement Day (or something like that) so we had the day off of school!  In honor of this day, there were South Korean flags being flown everywhere.  My amazing husband made some Soon-doo-boo Chigae (a spicy tofu soup that has lots of veggies in it).

I stink at conclusions, just ask Binks.  She always used to proofread my papers for me in high school.  She always had some constructive criticism for the conclusion of my papers.  So think of a conclusion for me.  I will be explaining the difference between roasting and baking to my co-teachers...

The Last Day of...

Well it is the last day of February AND it is the last day of desk warming.  Bittersweet.  I think I could be a professional desk warmer.  I rock at it.  So far in the few hours I have been here today I have sipped on my coffee, checked my email, listened to my Daddio-in-law's sermon, chatted with my college roommate, did a Sudoku, caught up what is really happening in the world (I wasted a bunch of time on Facebook) and checked out my sister-in-law's pics from her recent trip (with my brother of course!)  I feel so productive.  On the docket for this afternoon is 1.) look up the definition for docket 2.) cross stitch 3.) make a meal plan for the week 4.) make a grocery list (I love grocery shopping!  love.it.)  I do think I might cry whenever we get back to the States and I walk down the cereal aisle.  What a day of rejoicing that will be!

I read a book this weekend.  Honestly, I was a little disappointed.  It was too emotional draining for me.  I felt like I got run over by a semi when I got done and it was fictional.  All of that for emotion for fake people.  It talked a lot about Christmas in America too (Christmas in America = longing for an oven).  However, I still think that Lauraine Snelling is a great author.  She has written a book in my top 5 of all time favorite books.  Better luck next time?  I hope so.

Did you know that Koreans love karaoke?  true story.  They love it!  It is called the Noribang (nori = sing and bang = room however do not confuse bang with bbang.  bbang = bread so nori bbang = singing bread)  I "got" to go to the Noribang this weekend.  So this is how it works.  You pay for hour, then you get to go in a little room (over sized closet) and you get to karaoke to your hearts content.  awesome.  Nope - no singing from this girl (or my amazing husband).  One nice thing is to only have to sing in front of the people you came with instead of, well, everyone.

While I am rambling about my weekend, just thought I would tell you that my amazing husband made me pancakes this weekend.  We topped them with strawberries.  Delicious!  He also took me to Paris Baguette from some mocha cream bread.  He is such a good guy.  The end!

*Imagine a really cool word here*

"You should blog about it"  Potentially the first time my amazing husband has uttered this sentence.

The scene: me standing in our apartment this morning trying his fleece on (just to see if it would magically fit somehow).  My amazing husband is large or maybe extra large (he is really tall).  I am a medium or a small.  I am sure you can figure out that the fleece was not fitting.

In college I would borrow friends' clothes quite often.  I had maximum access to cuteness.  Now, I am not in college AND I have been forced to downsize my wardrobe to two suitcases worth.  Let me rant for a moment: I had to bring professional clothes for summer and winter.  I had to bring running clothes for summer and winter (yes, it is a must).  Let me state that these two hads did not leave much room in the suitcase for comfy, lounging clothes for either season.  Thank you Amazing Husband for letting me take up space in one of your suitcases for my shoes.  To say the least, I feel like I wear the same clothes ALL the time.  Clothes shopping in Korea is a whole different story.  I should blog about that some day. Thus I decided to expand my wardrobe this morning by trying on some of my amazing hubby's clothes.   Hence his statement about me and my blog.

According to my amazing husband, my environment has changed yet my behavior has not.  There is a super cool word in psychology for this phenomena.  I am not sure what the super cool word is...but I am sure that is not boring and that it is super cool!

What do you do when you feel like you are always wearing the same clothes or the same outfit?