Body, Mind and Soul

Watch out world.  Steven and I are on our way to being the newest power couple on the block...aka we will soon be replacing Bragelina and I'm sure get lots of offers for our own reality tv show.  :) Having one year of marriage under our belt we decided to examine our relationship and see what we could improve.  We came up with two areas and hit the ground running with a new semester of school!  This week has been filled with strengthening our body, mind and soul.

#1 Body:  Steven and I both decided that we need a little more consistent exercise in our lives.  I feel like I should tell you my philosophy on exercise here for clarity.  I am completely against weighing myself because I never want to be unsatisfied with my body if I don't fit within a certain number range on the scale.  To be honest I really don't know how much I weigh and I am completely ok with that. But I have noticed that when I exercise I have more energy (which is a must in grad school) and my pants fit a little better (which is a must when you are on a budget and can't go out and buy more pants. ha!)  So this past week we started working out every day at the SLC at Baylor.  I'm also attending my very first spin class tomorrow with my friend Aurelia!  I am scared out of my mind, but so excited!  It has been so nice to step away from the books for an hour every day and go lift weights/do cardio.  Hopefully we will keep this up throughout the semester!

#2 Mind:  I'm in grad-school...need I elaborate more?  To be honest this wasn't one of the areas of marriage Steven and I decided to work on for the time being, but I needed to add it in order to have the relevant title for this post :)

#3 Soul:  There is always room for improvement in spirituality, so Steven and I decided to look at what specifically we could work on as a couple.  We both realized we are really good at talking about the theology of our faith.  Between my seminary/social work classes and Steven's love to talk about faith and politics we have conversations around these topics pretty much every day.  Something we both struggle with though is the devotional side of faith.  I attribute this to our almost identical Myers-Briggs types: INTJ (Me), ENTJ (Steven) which highlight our amazing ability to analyze things based on facts but our struggle to be more in-tune emotionally with our faith.  We decided to start doing a devotional every night before we watch our Friends episode...um...I mean go to bed :).  We are using "A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and other Servants" as our liturgy for these devotions.  I would recommend this book for anybody (couple or individual) who struggles in their devotional life.  The best thing about this tool is that it does all the structuring for you.  It follows the church calendar and for each week provides you with a liturgy full of prayers, scripture verses, reflective readings and even a hymn.  It really has made the experience of leading a devotional life together very enjoyable for Steven and me.

Lady Gaga + Britney

It might be time to dust off the marimba mallets from college and ask my percussion professor if I can get my key back to the marimba room...

Only in Aggieland...

Let me first preface this post by stating that I am, through marriage, related to Aggies.  My amazing brother and sister in-law both go to A&M and I love them dearly...

Let me also state that I grew up with a father who made fun of A&M all the time and grew up hearing more Aggie jokes than I could possibly count.

Let me also state that when I started looking at colleges my father told me I could go anywhere I wanted, but if I wanted him to pay for college I would not go to A&M...and I'm pretty sure he was completely serious...I never tested him though.

So when I went this past weekend to good old Aggieland to see my brother-in-law Ryan graduate I couldn't help but snap this picture and send it to my dear old dad.  

Perhaps at first glance you aren't really sure what is so great about this picture.  I mean obviously this is an Aggie graduation because of the maroon...perhaps you are chuckling a bit at the man with a cowboy hat on...but then again you aren't to surprised because it is A&M.  What is truly endearing about this picture is that this man isn't drinking coke out of his Styrofoam cup...no friends, that is his dip cup.  Apparently doing dip (which of course implies having to spit it out at some point) is classy enough for a college commencement.  :)

What's even better is that later in the ceremony his father (who is sitting to his right, not pictured, with a cowboy hat on too) at one point reached into his front shirt pocket and brought out a little metal tin, almost like a teeny-tiny embellished trash can which he opened and spat into!  I'm still kicking myself for not snapping a picture of that...he was much too quick and sneaky with his superior spit methods as opposed to his amateur son with his Styrofoam dip cup.  I really wanted to ask them at what point you graduate from a Styrofoam dip cup to a metal embellished travel sized dip spittoon...but I was afraid I would embarrass my in-laws.

This is why I will forever make-fun of the Aggies...even the ones I love dearly :) 

Summer's best

Sorry for the overload of blogs in the past 24 hours.  This is due to two things mainly (1) it's the last week of summer and I have no job, no school, thus I have been BEYOND bored, (2) I've had diligently been taking pictures of my cooking endeavors and various excursions in order to make blog posts for the past month and now have time to post them (see #1).

I have decided to put two of my favorite meals I have made this summer.  Truly delicious so I will boast :)

Enchiladas!
These were delicious chicken enchiladas with green sauce...like the kind you take a bite of and then proceed to say "oh...my...gosh."  I think Steven loved me even more after this meal, and the best part is it was ridiculously easy and quick to make so everybody wins.

Cinnamon Rolls!!! 

Ok these were in no way easy to make but very therapeutic.  I made them with yeast so it was quite a long process and you have to make them the day before because you chill them in the fridge overnight before you cook them in the morning.  Most amazing cinnamon rolls I have ever had though and they kept really well so I had one for breakfast every morning for the next week :)

the rolls...the two weird ones on the left were the end pieces I cut off, thus they didn't have any filling.

Cream Cheese Icing.  A bit different taste than the icing in the pillsbury can (a staple growing up) but still delicious.  

One of these babies in the morning and you won't be hungry for lunch...perhaps I'm on to a new diet regimen?

As you can see there are no recipes this time...hopefully this will entice you all to come visit me or ask me to make you dinner.  It's my evil plan to fill you all up with cheesy mexican dinners and sugary yeast filled breakfast treats...(insert evil laugh here)

Meet Marcel

Posted by my cousin on facebook.  I laughed out loud through the entire thing.  If we have the same sense of humor you will too...if we don't have the same sense of humor you probably wont laugh at all.

MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON from Dean Fleischer-Camp on Vimeo.

So you will recognize me the next time you see me...

I now come with bangs :)

...and am very excited about it apparently

Anniversary Weekend 2010! (aka longest post ever)

Steven and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary this summer and escaped the thriving metropolis of Waco and headed north up I-35 (east) to our future home Dallas for the weekend.

The trip started e-a-r-l-y...5:00am to be exact.  Because monetary funds are not plentiful in the Murray household we decided to save on gas by having me drive up with Steven Friday morning for his internship.  Luckily my uncle adores me and agreed to meet us at the Italy truck stop so that I could spend the day with him and my aunt :) The man picked me up before 7am, thus making him saint-worthy in my book.  Steven and I stopped by the Czech stop in West first where I had the most delicious strawberry and cream cheese kolache to warm my spirits in the wee hours of the morning.

I spent the day with my aunt and uncle and their three amazing dogs, Sophie (Black), Phoebe (Grey), and Trixie (White).  One day I will make an entire blog post about these precious dogs.  They are herding dogs and thus very protective.  They are hilarious though and I might have fallen in love with Trixie while I was there...  I will have my own Bouvier des Flandres one day for the following reasons (1) they are awesome, (2) they are big (big dogs are a must for me), (3) they are low activity inside and high activity outside (4) they have amazing personalities just like me, (5) they are great with the kiddos, (6) they don't shed, (7) they will scare the living **** (mom reads this blog so it must stay PG) out of anybody who tries to break into our house...biggest bark ever and they are huge!

PS...is it sad that my phone takes better pictures than my camera? (top photo taken with camera, bottom with my phone)  So to everyone who is considering Christmas gifts for me I would be appreciative of an awesome camera :)

I also got to have lunch with this precious child

She is my cousin's litle girl and she is a-maz-ing.  I asked her to say cheese and this is what I got...love her. We bonded over lunch while her mom and my aunt talked about more grown-up things. Our topics of conversation included (1) her stuffed Big-Bird who made a guest appearance at lunch, (2) her kids cup she got at lunch and all the colors, animals, people, and activities that were happening on it (she is very smart)  (3) my hair band which she called a bracelet, (4) her mac and cheese and using the big-kid-spoon to eat it, (5) my sweet potato fries.  It was quite distinguished :)

After an amazing day and night with my Aunt and Uncle (who have been housing Steven while he has been interning up in Dallas all summer), we headed out Saturday morning to the Dallas Aquarium.  Now for anyone who hasn't been to this aquarium yet be forwarned...it is about 15% aquarium and 75% wildlife preserve.  I have been to my fare share of aquariums throughout my life and thus have high expectations.   When I think of an aquarium I picture a lot of rooms with floor to ceiling glass and a ridiculous amount of fish including whales and great white sharks....the Dallas aquarium is not up to this standard.  There are 4 floors and only the bottom one had fish.  The rest had birds, snakes, monkeys, turtles, alligators/crocodiles ( I still don't know the difference) etc.  Total bummer...but we made the most of it.  

Thanks to Pixar I walked up to the tank and said "look Steven, it's a Dora fish" and then a 3 year old girl walked up and said "look Mom...it's DORA!!!!!"  Proudest moment in my life.

Luckily by the time we walked up to this tank I had learned my lesson and said in my head "NEMO!"

Shark...not as cool as a Great White or a Whale, but it did swim over our heads...I guess that's worth something

The Murrays at the Dallas aquarium lame wildlife preserve thingy with some fish and no whales or awesome sharks or big octipi or a place you could pet the sting rays...

Big alligator/crocodile thing...that was kinda cool I guess.

Rest assured that unlike my tone in this post we actually had a good time.  Steven has never been to an aquarium before so I guess this was a good one to start with.  One day I'll take him to New Orleans and show him what a real aquarium is like :)

We had a great dinner that night at Hillstone (Formerly known as Houston's).  It was a recommendation from our Aunt and Uncle and is apparently one of my cousin's favorite places to go.  We had a great time even though the average age of the people there was about 20-30 years our senior.  Apparently this is the place all the Highland Park parents go to eat on Saturday night, but let me tell you they know where the good food is.  I had amazing crab-cakes and Steven had a huge steak and we topped it off with a yummy dessert.  We were quite shocked when our bill came and we noticed they had charged me for a refill on my ICED TEA. What?!?!  It costs like 2 cents to make Iced Tea (it wasn't even a fancy flavored kind) and they charged me for a refill?  Who does that anymore??  I average about 3-5 glasses of Iced Tea at a normal restaurant, luckily I wasn't that thirsty and only had one refill....gah!

Us enjoying all done with dessert.  Why does it look like I'm pounding the table? Contrary to what you might assume by looking at our smiles in this picture we each only had one drink before dinner while waiting for our table...

May I also take this moment to shamefully plug Priceline.  Steven and I Pricelined (yes you can make it into a verb, thus further exemplifying its awesomeness) a hotel for Saturday night and got an amazing 4 star hotel by the galleria for $60! (that's more than 1/2 off!) When we got to the hotel we got upgraded to a nicer room for free!  If you need a tutorial on how to use this awesome website just let me know.  The Ferguson's don't go anywhere without pricelining first :)  

On Sunday (our actual anniversary) we went to Wilshire Baptist Church where I will be interning in the Spring to experience the worship service...loved it!  And then joined up with my other cousin Nancy to have a tour of Dallas, she is an amazing tour guide :)  We also had to stop at a 7-11 for a free slurpee since it was 7/11 and thus Free Slurpee Day!  This will become a tradition on our anniversary for sure :)  

That evening (back in Waco) we had some of our wedding cake.  We were quite skeptical (as shown by this picture), but were somewhat pleased with the results.  The icing was pretty awful but the cake part was still delicious.  

The jury is still out as to whether or not we actually enjoyed it.  

Ok...if you read all of that you are truly amazing and perhaps have too much time on your hands.

Dear Dallas

After spending all of yesterday within your city limits I have decided I love you for the following reasons.

#1.  You have 8 La Madeleine's within your city limits...that's not counting the surrounding cities in the metroplex.  I got to enjoy an amazing chicken caesar salad and tomato basil soup for lunch which I have been craving for months.

#2 Clothes.  You have a JCrew with all of its amazing cardigans, an Anthropologie with its ridiculous prices but a great sale/clearance section, a Francescas were you can find amazing accessories, an Urban Outfitters where you really have no idea what you will find when you walk inside, and a normal sized Gap (why is the one in Waco so weird?).  Now I h.a.t.e. shopping for clothes, so the fact that this excites me is pretty revolutionary.

Look at the first lady impacting the world while wearing a classic JCrew cardigan.  The ladies in the background may look like they are inspired by her speech, but really they are jealous that they aren't wearing J Crew

 

#3. Frozen Yogurt Galore.  Now Dallas, I must be honest, I have not had the best frozen yogurt experiences in Waco.  Our local do-it-yourself yogurt place (to be remained nameless) has left me disappointed many times.  The yogurt isn't always cold enough, leaving a grainy texture.  Also they constantly change their flavors and leave threatening notes on the machines that tell me I cannot taste the flavor until I have paid for it.  So I reluctantly went into Yogurtland the other day and it has completely changed my life.  It had tester cups for me to taste-test every.single.flavor.on.the.wall.  The yogurt was the perfect temperature and consistency, very very tasty and the toppings were fresh.  So thank you Dallas for introducing me to this amazing experience.