Tacky Valentines Day

We fully embraced V-day this year by way of a tacky get together with friends.  It turns out that this is much cheaper and equally as fun as a date night.  Lacey Shaffer invited several of our friends over for appetizers and Red Roosters.  Red Roosters are very good but beware..  We then hit the town and went to hear The Last Waltz (coverband for The Band).  They were great and it was a night to remember.

Green beans

Brittany and I have a mutual love for green beans.  We could truly eat them for every meal and be more than content.  We came across a great recipe in our Southern Living cookbook - Green Bean, Walnut, and Feta salad.  We did a little tweaking to the recipe, all of which I recommend.

Ingredients:

- 2 pounds of fresh green beans (our favorite are the Italian cut)

- 4 oz of crumbled feta cheese

- 1/2 cup of chopped pecans (or walnuts)

- 3/4 cup olive oil

- 1/4 cup white wine vinegar

- 1 tbsp of chopped fresh dill

- 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic

- 1/4 teaspoon salt

- 1/4 teaspoon pepper

Directions:

Boil green beans until tender.  Run green beans under cool water and drain.  Mix in a bowl with the feta and pecans

Whisk together olive oil, vinegar, dill, garlic, salt and pepper.  Pour contents over green beans.  Place in frig until chilled. 

Here's the link to the original recipe - http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=258147

The original calls for an onion.  Brittany doesn't like onions so I only put them in my portion of the salad.  It was much better without the onion.  It was just too contrasting and sharp of a taste relative to the rest of the dish.

After reviewing this post, I have come to the conclusion that I must get a job.

'Dega

Nascar is self admittedly not my style.  I've heard all the factoids about it being the largest spectator sport and the amount of money it brings in but I just don't get it.  I can understand the interest in the speed but I just truly do not see the sport in it.  Go fast, turn left.  How can someone be consistently better than others at this?  It's beyond my capacity to understand.  

I have come to realize that a great many of my "normal" friends enjoy Nascar - specifically Talladega.  This fact makes me more receptive to Nascar, but I will likely never go to an actual race - I take a little bit of pride in saying that I've never been..  Although, as of this past weekend, I have been to the actual track.  

This thing is massive.  The track is huge, ~2.6 mi.  The grandstands are the largest seating structure I've ever seen.  And the redneck per capita is second to none (please see the Mullet documented above).

Now the reason we were there: One of our friends, John Howell, got a Christmas present from his girlfriend, Lacey Shaffer (she's in the third picture).  This present was pretty cool (even by my standards/lack of understanding).  John was able to take 6 laps around the track in an actual race car.  He gets to drive and has an instructor ride along with him.  They can get up to about 180 mph.  Unfortunately, there was some moisture on the track and so they wouldn't let the cars run.  It was a bummer but still a very neat experience.  

Gettin' it did.

Here in the unemployed world, life can take on new ventures every day.  This past week, I occupied my time by way of construction.  Let it be known that I am the one and only son of David Stegall.  The byproducts of this statement are far reaching and, most relevant to this blog post, generally means that I have no inclination or knowledge of doing anything in the realm of construction.  My father was as shocked as I was at the outcome of this project.  My Madre's kitchen floor was lacking as can be seen by picture 1 to the left..

I have dabbled in the flooring business on occasion - I had a little carpet company in college.  My sophomore year I lived in the fraternity house and my roommate redid the floor with some laminate wood.  I handed him a hammer or two during the project and felt as though I was savy enough to be the General Contractor in such an undertaking.  So, I used my salesmen tactics on my Mom and convinced her that she should let me put a new floor down.  Being her favorite child, she bought into my tactics.  I then proceeded to pull up her floor (in picture one) and so began project - little did she know that it was an experiment.  Pictured below is the sub-flooring after I pulled up the old floor.

We purchased the materials from Lumber Liquidators, which I highly recommend.  It saved some considerable money.  My Mom has bought in to the whole "clean and green" movement and wanted a cork floor.  I had never heard of or experienced such things.  It's just as you would imagine cork to be.  Cushiony and very welcoming.  I laid the floor down and after a few broken ice makers and some moments of frustration, I got it did.  The finish product is to the right.

More to life

It has been too long since our last blog post.  I apologize to our diligent readers.  We are back in Birmingham and settled in.  Brittany is keeping the lights on, in more than one way, and I'm on the job search.  The life of someone searching for a job in finance is a little less than exciting at present, hence my lack of stories to share on the blog.  Basically, everyone should buy land and learn to farm.  Sharecropping seems more promising than stock broking..

Being back around family has been great.  To some extent, the lack of blogging has been because we've had a major expansion of outlets on the social scene.  In New York, we certainly had friends but it was just different.  We had more time to ourselves, which was great for our first 10 months of marriage, and could do more blogging.  Plus we had a lot of unique experiences while we were up there and wanted to share with all of you. 

This afternoon I was doing our monthly budget update and was feeling the common frustration associated with such activities.  Luckily, we had committed to go to a homeless shelter in downtown Birmingham and Mama Dooba (my mother) was coming to pick us up at 2:40.  It was perfect timing.  The shelter, which is an old firehouse (pictured above), is very similar to the Jimmie Hale Mission.  On the weekends different churches and groups get together and provide a meal.  Mama Dooba was in charge of green beans and we helped serve the meal.  It was a great time.  The people that we served were so appreciative and obviously in need.  The experience put my ridiculous budget worries in perspective.  

We will step up the blogging going forward.  Go gators.

The Roof at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Well we almost missed out on one of the coolest things to do in the city... go to the rooftop garden at the Met.  Thank goodness we did it the last weekend we were there.  The atmosphere and views are seriously amazing.  I definitely recommend seeing this if you are ever in New York on a Friday or Saturday night in the warmer months.

New York

If you would have asked me about 5 months ago to describe how I would feel about leaving New York, sad probably would not have been a thought. But to tell the truth, I am sad about leaving the place we called home for the past little while and the incredible friends that we made. Living there changed my life. That probably sounds drastic, but it really has. I have gained a broader perspective on life and the world that I hope will stay with me forever.

I can't help but think about the things we will miss the most...

1. Our Bible Study -  We started attending a Redeemer Beta Group Bible study this past May.  Our co-ed group, of about 15 people, met every Tuesday night for about 2 hours to discuss and study the week's sermon.  Not only will we miss the discussions and weekly fellowship, we will miss the great friends that we made through the group.  One person in particular that we will miss is our group leader, Christine.  She has been such a special blessing to George and me over the last few months.  If I could sum her up briefly, I would say that she is one of those rare people that you know are put into your life for a reason... a person that inspires you and that you hope to be like one day.  I think she is just great and wish everyone that I love could meet her.

2. Our Auburn Friends - Thank goodness for Southerners in New York!  We had so many good times with Wade and Pat and, in the last couple of months, Jan Paul and Mary Catherine.  We will always remember our trip to Mystic, Connecticut, Mohegan Sun, weekend dinner outings, the Auburn bar, and many more.  

3. The AU Bar - This was probably one of my favorite things in the city.  Even though this season hasn't been that much fun to watch, it is a neat experience to be in the middle of New York while surrounded by Auburn fans.

4. Our Neighborhood and Favorite Places - You would think that living in a city as big as New York, we would have never eaten or gone to the same place twice.  Oh contrar.  We loved our little part of the city and frequently chose our favorite places over branching out.  Some of the places that we regularly went to were Delizia's Pizza, a quiet little cobblestone park on the East River, the little authentic wine shop across the street, J.G. Melon, Carl Schultz Park (especially the small dog run), and Best Health Gourmet Deli.  In retrospect, it was kind of nice to have anything we could possibly need within 1 block of our apartment!

5. Redeemer Presbyterian Church and Tim Keller - Our church will definitely be missed.  If you have witnessed Tim Keller speak or listened to one of his sermons, you understand.  At least we can still download his sermons and listen to them from Alabama!

Eagle Eye Cribs

The Auburn University television station, Eagle Eye, did a special on George during our senior year of college.  It is Auburn's version of MTV's Cribs (a TV show that shows ridiculously expensive and fancy houses of celebrities).  We recently found the link to it, so I thought I would share...

http://eagleeye.auburn.edu/story.php?id=805

Big News...

WE ARE MOVING HOME!!  Yeah!  It is something that we have been thinking about for the past few months and are thrilled that it is actually happening.  Last Wednesday, I accepted a job offer back with Alabama Power in Birmingham, and since then, George and I have been on cloud 9.  I can hardly even sleep with all of the excitement that moving home and beginning a great job brings.  

Thinking about everything that has to be done to actually move so soon is a slightly intimidating thought, but our anticipation is a huge motivator.  George, Clancy, and I are packing up in a U-Haul and heading south on October 20th... just a couple of weeks away!  Ready or not, here we come!

Gameday!

War Eagle!!

We love Corso today!