be still my soul

i love the beach. as a teenager i always thought, oh wouldn't it have been more fun if we had gone somewhere else for vacation. oh was i wrong. i'm so thankful that my mom gave us the experience of going to the beach every year when we were growing up.

i have special memories from one beach in particular, seagrove, fl. located next to seaside these white sandy beaches are full of memories, thoughts, books, walks, prayers, laughs, and footprints. my soul is more still at the beach than anywhere else in the world. i see this and somehow everything seems like it will be ok:

this year i was able to go to seagrove with a group of girls who are so special to me, the vandy interns of 2005-2006. these girls represent so much, they welcomed me into their group during a time when my life was turned upside down. i haven't seen many of them in a few years so it was great to catch up, we talked non-stop for the whole time and ate lots of good food. i'm so thankful for these girls and can't wait to catch up next year!

this quick trip was the perfect end to summer and was the perfect respite for me before another semester starts. i plan to make this my screensaver on those days when 24 hours to get stuff done doesn't seem like enough...

be still, my soul;

the waves and winds still know his voice who ruled them while he dwelt below

gooooo dawgs!

since we were rained in today we couldn't go to a dawg game watching party so we stayed in with our dog to cheer on the dawgs. that's a lot of dawgs in one sentence!

so excited that football season is here, i only wish we lived closer to athens!

meatless meals

i'm not the biggest meat eater and could go without it on most days (beside Chick-Fil-A of course :) but i never thought that joe would join me in this. surprisingly i've sneaked in meatless meals, and he even suggests them from time to time.

this pasta dish became a staple for us this summer. pasta, goat cheese, and basil oil...what more could you want? we made variations including this one here with angel hair and tomatoes. i like to think of it as adult macaroni and cheese :)

this couscous recipe joe picked out and made and it was delicious. a great flavor combination and i would have never thought to combine cumin and cilantro to balance each other out. this one got compliments from both of our coworkers when we took leftovers.

we are trying to make more meatless meals for both nutritional and monetary reasons. it's also a great way to try new recipes we otherwise wouldn't have thought of!