06.29.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 9:26 pm by kelly
….I want to be a green beret! I really really really want to be a green beret! Today at church, our pastor offered up a summer reading plan, similar to one a library or school would give you. They are listed as follows:
Green Beret: Read the whole Bible in 90 days-12 pages a day.
Grey Beret: Read the New Testament in 90 days-4 pages a day.
Camouflage Beret: Read 1& 2 Samuel in 2 months-a chapter a day.
Pink Beret: 1 Psalm a week (hot pink if you read two Psalms a week).
Even before the service officially began I was thinking about how I could rearrange my schedule to ensure I achieved Green Beret status! I could cut something out here and wake up extra early there and maybe read during my lunch break. I WANT TO BE A GREEN BERET. You see, I want to be the best that I can at everything. And I mean everything. I pick only the best; I do not compromise. The thing is, I’m already getting up pretty early so I can complete homework for my Tuesday night Bible study, we are busy a few nights a week (at least three) and we teach Sunday School every week. Is the eternal salvation of a third grader less important than my need to fulfill my own desire to be the best (in my eyes)? Hm. The Lord and I wrestled with this one a bit. Then I realized it’s okay if I’m a pink beret this summer. It’s only my own measurement of success to become a green beret and maybe, just maybe the Lord doesn’t want me to be prideful about my accomplishments. Oh, and maybe He wants Jonathan and I to stay married. I don’t think that if I maniacally chased my own desire of things we’d have a great marriage. I like being married. I will be a pink beret and I will be thankful that the Lord has so far given me a great life to enjoy. I’m not putting things off, but I’ll allow myself some time to relax. To celebrate, I put the clean sheets on the bed tonight without ironing them first. (If you’ve never had ironed sheets, you think this is normal. I promise, once you iron them it’s hard to go back.)
And while I’m thinking of it, we may just trim down those activities. If you don’t see us much, it’s okay to call or swing by. Maybe I’ll be doing something like reading a book for fun or just hanging out at home. That’s a really nice idea.
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06.24.08
Posted in Uncategorized, home at 10:12 pm by kelly
Well, Brad the painter showed up this morning at precisely the time I poured the milk over my cereal (toaster oven and microwave have been removed from the kitchen) to begin painting! Thankfully, he didn’t rush us out of the house and he and his business partner, Dustin, got to work at filling all the holes in the wall so we can have beautifully painted walls. We returned home from work/Bible study tonight to find the first coat of paint has gone up on the ceiling and the east wall of the living room. I promise we’ll post photos once everything is finished up. Last night, we were able to have Rusty (Jonathan’s brother) over for dinner. He and Jonathan also took down the chandelier from the ceiling and cruised the neighborhood looking for a ladder to borrow to install the new ceiling fan. Found the ladder, but we didn’t get the fan up yet. We’ll do that once the painting is finished.
There’s your update from Redmond. Good night!
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06.22.08
Posted in Cooking, recipes at 9:17 pm by kelly
One of the new recipes I found was for Black Bean Enchilada Bake (thanks Sarah!)
It was pretty good if I do say so myself, but really, you don’t need much of a recipe for this one. Play around with it!
Here is the recipe:
2 cups chopped onion, fresh or frozen
1 and 1/2 cups chopped red pepper, fresh or frozen
2 garlic cloves, minced
3/4 cup salsa
2 tsp. ground cumin
2 15 oz cans black beans, drained (I also rinsed them)
12 6″ corn tortillas
2 cups monterey jack and cheddar cheese blend-shredded (I used pepper jack and cheddar because that’s what we had on hand)
3 tomatoes chopped (optional)
1/2 cup sour cream (optional)
1/2 cup sliced black olives (optional)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Combined onion, pepper, garlic, salsa, cumin and black beans in a large skillet and bring to simmer over medium heat. Cook, stirring frequently for three minutes (I put the onions and garlic in first and sauteed them up a bit before adding the other ingredients).
Arrange 6 tortillas in the bottom of a 9″x13″ baking dish overlapping them as necessary. Spread half the bean mixture over the tortillas and sprinkle with half the cheese. Repeat the layering process until all remaining ingredients are used.
Cover dish with foil and bake for 15 minutes. Carefully remove foil and serve warm (I removed the foil then broiled it for a couple of minutes to make the top a little crispy). Garnish with tomatoes, sour cream and olives (we did not do this, but that’s up to you).
I think if we do this again I’ll serve it with a bunch of lettuce and tomato on top like a taco salad. It’s a pretty easy go-to meal for midweek. I also added an extra teaspoon of cumin and cilantro, but we really like both of those.
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06.17.08
Posted in Uncategorized, family, fun, marriage at 9:31 pm by kelly
For my birthday, Jonathan’s parents (Mom and Dad McPherson) kindly gave us a gift card for Victor’s Coffee. This weekend, we headed to Victor’s for a little breakfast after sleeping incredibly late and it was delicious. As this was a birthday gift, I went all out with dessert for breakfast, I mean, a waffle. Jonathan maintained his sensibilities and had an oatbran muffin. Thanks Mom and Dad McPherson!
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Posted in OCC, travel at 11:02 am by kelly
I’m heading out right now to send two important envelopes during lunch. One is my application for my new passport (goodbye old passport, I’m going to miss you!) and the other is our official applications for our trip to South Africa. Oh boy!
It’s been an interesting day, but I’m confident the Lord is bigger than any of my niggling worries.
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Posted in home at 7:12 am by kelly
We’re usually up fairly early in the morning. I’m out of bed between 5:15 and 6:00, depending on the morning, and Jonathan’s not far behind. This morning, however, I was feeling a little like the old allergies were kicking in and my head was full and I just couldn’t get it off the pillow. Then I heard it: a breakfast bird meeting of crows on the lawn in our backyard! Oddly enough, rather than compelling me to get out of bed, I snuggled deeper under the covers for refuge. Stinking birds.
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06.11.08
Posted in family, fun, home, yardwork at 5:37 am by kelly
I’m just like my mom sometimes.
I laughed this morning at the realization that I am now frequently in our yard at 5:30 in the morning, in my giant white bathrobe or a pair of sweats (often wearing my big yellow plaid rubber boots!), watering the plants or cutting a flower or just quickly pulling a weed I notice from the kitchen. JUST LIKE MY MOM! At first I was afraid I might be scaring the neighbors, but I think they’ll be okay and really, when’s a busy gal like me supposed to find time to survey the situation of the yard and flower beds and garden if I can’t do things like that in the morning? I may need to find a “stealth” black bathrobe though. Poor Jonathan, just sleeping, unaware of his wife’s potential to be the crazy lady in the neighborhood seen in the wee hours of the morning, wandering in the yard. Hey, at least I’m wearing the bathrobe!
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06.09.08
Posted in family at 6:48 am by kelly
Today is my (Kelly’s) grandpa’s birthday. We were all together last night at my grandparents’ house to celebrate. It was a great time and it’s always fun to celebrate my grandpa! Since our birthdays are so close together, we often share parties but this year we just had back-to-back weekends of birthday celebrations!
Here is a photo of Jonathan and Grandpa at Thanksgiving:
And Papa and I at the engagement party my parents threw for Jonathan and I last summer:
Happy Birthday! We love you!
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06.02.08
Posted in OCC, marriage, travel at 7:19 pm by kelly
(This is South Africa’s national flower, the King Protea or Giant Protea )
Well, holy smokes! We’re heading to South Africa. If someone had come up to us a year ago, I never would have thought this was possible. We’ve got the time off cleared by our managers and, more importantly, we’ve got a strong calling from God to go.
Here are some details about the trip as we know them:
We are heading to Durban, South Africa (east side of the country on the coast)
We will be working with an organization called Ithemba Lethu
We will be there for about 9 or 10 days.
Our trip is in early December.
Once we know more, we’ll post more! Please pray for us that we’ll have a supernatural ability to reach the children in the program and effectively communicate Christ’s love. Also, we’re praying that the Lord will bless us with His wisdom in how we interact as a team and as a couple, that we would be a team that works together well and that each of our gifts and talents would be used in the best way possible. May God be glorified in our lives!
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Posted in Uncategorized, fun at 7:06 pm by kelly
Okay, here goes. I (Kelly) am going to finish up our 100 things tonight. Or try.
46. Kelly often prefers coffee to tea.
47. Kelly and Jonathan both enjoy walking on the trail near our house.
48. We have Netflix. It’s kind of great.
49. Kelly is a real sucker for the “if you liked this, you might also like” suggestions from Netflix.
50. Thanks to them, our queue is at 156 DVDs right now. What can I say? I’m a sucker!
51. Kelly stocks up on canned goods and other non-perishables like there’s a storm a comin’. If you ever need black beans, tuna, rice or pasta come to our house. The pantry is full.
52. We both enjoy board games quite a bit. We have several at our house right now.
53. Kelly is a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to things around the house. Jonathan is very patient.
54. Jonathan can play both the piano and guitar.
55. Kelly cannot play either instrument.
56. We both like to sleep with the window open in the summer-good thing the window locks.
57. Jonathan likes to have a fan blowing directly on him while he sleeps.
58. Kelly does not like to have fans blowing directly on her, ever.
59. We have more stuff than people our age probably should, yet we still seem to have a bare house in many ways.
60. Right now there’s some sort of semi-irritating whistle happening in our house. I can’t tell if it’s the wind or what. It’s only semi-irritating though.
61. We like to be up pretty early in the morning.
62. Kelly’s favorite part of painting is the skillful application of blue tape.
63. Jonathan doesn’t mind that Kelly enjoys taping.
64. When we travel, Kelly always maps out the closest Chik-Fil-A, Sonic, Culver’s or In-N-Out burger.
65. Kelly loves, loves the waffle fries at Chik-Fil-A.
66. We enjoy traveling together.
67. So far, we’ve been to Portland, Pensacola, FL, New Orleans, Aiken, SC, Dallas, San Antonio, Tulum and Wisconsin together.
68. Kelly needs a new passport and is very happy!
69. Kelly’s current passport photo looks like a man.
70. Jonathan obtained a passport just for our honeymoon and boy is he going to use it!
71. One of Kelly’s favorite things is a nice drizzly, grey day at the beach and a warm cup of tea.
72. Alternately, Kelly enjoys a nice sunny day in the woods or on a lake or at the beach.
73. We are members at Overlake Christian Church in Redmond, WA.
74. I think it’s pretty neat that our pastor is searchable on Wikipedia.
75. We are busy with activities almost every night of the week, except Mondays. Mondays are for relaxing!
76. Kelly is sort of terrified of pregnancy and the whole birthing process. I’m very impressed with my friends who are mothers.
77. Kelly is older than Jonathan.
78. If Kelly forgets her lunch, she subsists on Sea Salt and Vinegar (Tim’s Cascade) chips and Coca-cola classic. It’s sort of gross.
79. We really do love oatmeal.
80. We keep 2% milk in our house as a healthy compromise. Kelly would drink whole milk…..but we’re trying to be healthy.
81. Kelly cannot think of a dairy product she doesn’t enjoy consuming.
82. We both really enjoy going to the library.
83. Sometimes Kelly reads books that are like television. And she doesn’t care what you think about it, really, she doesn’t….
84. Of her siblings, Kelly is the shortest.
85. The best way Kelly remembers anything, spelling, Scripture, lists, etc. is to make up a little song. That’s why she hums pretty frequently.
86. We like to dine at pretty nice restaurants and get the “small plates”and share them.
87. We heart happy hour-not for the beverages, but for the fact that we can have dinner for less than five bucks each if we’re thinking of it.
88. Kelly really loves stationery and paper in general.
89. Kelly also likes stamps-postage stamps and come to think of it, post offices.
90. We have friends scattered all around the country. We’d like to visit all of you, even our friends who don’t read the blog so will never read this message.
91. We were married in January.
92. Kelly gets to be a bridesmaid in September for Carrie and Dan’s wedding!
93. Sometimes Kelly’s desk makes her shoulder hurt.
94. We’re working on fixing that.
95. One of Kelly’s favorite outfits for herself are navy nylon shorts and an avocado green tank top. It’s hideous and beautiful at the same time.
96. Kelly drives a subaru.
97. Jonathan drives a honda.
98. Both cars fit in the garage at the same time. This makes us happy.
99. We have a few fruit trees in our yard. None of them have given us any fruit yet.
100. We like to turn in sort of early for the night.
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