A fresh new idea

“Where do I want to be in my life 4 years from this day?”

That is the question I am trying to pull myself along with as I struggle to find motivation for where we live, where I work, and many other things in our life right now. We have been married a whopping 9 months, and so far they have been the best nine months I could ever ask for with my partner, but the most difficult nine months I could imagine throughout the rest of my life.

I believe that Hope is the only truly positive motivation that I have for pursuing my goals. Hope that those goals will be a better place for me to rest that where we are now. Hope that pushing towards those goals will not wear out the patience of a fresh young marriage. Hope that those around us might also be blessed as we achieve our goals.

I’m not sure if that is all too much to ask, but I feel strongly that without asking those questions, we could never be satisfied once we’ve actually reached our goals. There are far too many unknowns for us to step out blindly and say that it will be good because we have all the answers already.

So, I have to pose this as a question, not as a statement;

“Where do I want to be in my life 4 years from this day?”

And of course, I mean not only “where,” but also “what” and “with whom.”

Along the road to those goals, I want to be engaging with and writing about ideas that matter. I want to wrestle with issues of great significance in our world as well as our own community. I know that we will not reach our goals tomorrow, or even the day after that. And so as we trudge along through the day-to-day madness of our world, I want to be grounded by healthy discussion and fresh new ideas.

Because that is all the great minds ever started with, wasn’t it? A fresh new idea, and the willingness to take a risk on it.

I think you might need to be jealous....

...Because I have about the best family & friends a girl could ever ask for!

Seriously--they are amazing. We are a little less than 7 weeks away from our wedding, and the lovely ladies in my life threw me a wonderful bridal shower and bachelorette party last weekend.

I didn't think I would be so emotional about it all, but a lot of my friends live far away and I only get to see them once or twice a year, so it really meant a lot that they were able to make the time to come celebrate with me, especially when they're going to have to trek back here for the wedding in less than two months.

I am so thankful that I've been blessed with such a great mom, sister, and sisters I've found along the way.

The day in pictures:

Sis and Mom sandwich--they were the hostesses with the mostest!

Las Amigas: Ange, Julia, Erica, Me, and Kati

Jeff's beautiful sister Kristin and I

Me and the Aunties

So I might have eaten about ten pounds of this....

Which means I may or may not be able to fit into THIS. :)

Sister Love <3

Beautiful baby cousin Avery

Aunt Sandra and I

The ladies in Jeff's life & my mama

Sissy-poofer laughing her head off at me embarrassing myself in bridal shower games. And no I will NOT show you a picture of what they made me wear!

Look how classy my mom was with the candle & eucalyptus leaf decorations

The girls who drove over 5 hours to come celebrate with me. Pure love.

THANK YOU so much to everyone who made that day so special! I love you all!

-margo-

Our new toy....

So Jeff and I's Christmas gift to each other was a new DSLR camera. I used to be really into photography with my old film SLR back in the day, but the cost of developing just got too expensive and eventually I sort of stopped taking pictures. Except with my little digital point-and-shoot, of course.

I was fully thinking that after we got this not-so-surprise gift for each other, that I would be the one hogging the camera all the time and taking all kinds of great photos, but my future hubs has been taking some really amazing shots. Check it out...

Seeing things from his "Point of View"

Sittin' on the dock of a bay...

Sunset at our park the other night.

Oh, oops! He didn't take that one! ;) He's just so handsome, I couldn't help myself.....

Voted best new recipe of 2011.....

Drumroll please.......

And the winner is......

Roasted Chicken Chimichangas!!!

The Salsa Verde is crucial for this recipe!! I was drooling over this, I'm telling you!

These were so good, and super fast to make. We adjusted

a recipe from Cooking Light, so we can't take full credit, but MAN was it good! If you have time to grill the chicken ahead of time and shred it, it makes the recipe even faster, but if not, you can just cook the chicken before you throw together the rest.

So here's the goods:

2 cups cooked shredded chicken breast

1 cup shredded Pepperjack cheese

1/2 teaspoon Cilantro

1/2 teaspoon Oregano

1/4 teaspoon Cumin

3 cloves garlic, minced

5 ounces dices green chiles, strained

6 Whole Wheat wraps (We used La Tortilla Factory Whole Grain ones)

1 can No-fat refried beans

1 cup Salsa Verde

1.) Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

2.) Take the first 7 ingredients and toss together in a mixing bowl. Make sure they are tossed well and mixed together nicely.

3.) Take your wraps, spread refried beans down the center of each wrap. Then add the chicken mixture and wrap it up tightly.

4.) Spray a cooking sheet with no-stick spray. Place all the Chimichangas on the sheet and spray the tops with the cooking spray as well.

5.) Roast in the oven for 7 minutes.

6.) Dip in some Delicious Salsa Verde and savor every last bite!

Makes 5-6 wraps total.

Roasting the Chimi's is a lot healthier than the typical method of frying them. It was a lot more satisfying as well, in my opinion. ENJOY....

They say 60% of the time, it works every time.

To answer your questions: 1.) Yes, we really do look this good in person. 2.) And no, we were not playing with a five year-old or checking our teeth for spinach--this is what we do for fun.

Jeff and I really believe that the most important part of our day is not what we do, but who we do it with. We really want to record all of the amazing, silly, or fun memories we're making so they can be shared. Hopefully you're not at the TMI level of information-overload with some of the things we write about.

Just because pictures are way more fun than reading (I always liked the fuzzy picture books better that my college Nietzsche books), I'd like to give you an idea of some of our favorite things, which will often be the topics for our blog posts:

US: You'll hear a lot about our daily (mis)adventures

FOOD: we love making it, but especially eating it. We're foodies through and through.

FAMILY and FRIENDS: Shown here, my mom. AKA the coolest lady I know. And no, she didn't pay me to say that.

RUNNING: We love training and racing. Almost as much as we love a cold beer afterwards.

-Margo