In the Land of Rain

Inhabitants of this lush city of Lynchburg frequently call the town by the endearing term of "Drench-burg." It feels like it rains all the time like it has been for the past two days and will continue to do so for the next several days.

Take a look at our forecast from weather.com:

I actually enjoy rain. There's something peaceful about a rain shower. However, it does get dreary especially when the sun decides to disappear. 

I found this cool website that lets you compare the average rainfall of different U.S. cities. That's how I came to my conclusion that Lynchburg is in fact more rainy than Seattle. Actually, the thirty year averages of the cities shows that Lynchburg has a higher monthly rainfall than Seattle 7 months out of the year. Kind of interesting.

Average annual rainfall:
Lynchburg: 43.31 inches
Seattle: 38.25 inches

The most important thing about living with rain is owning a pair of rain boots or wellies as the British love to call them. I have invested in three pairs of different rain boots since I've been in school year. That's an average of one new pair per year! I think that means that I need another new pair for this year. No worries, I have already found a pair that is way out of my "rain boot budget."

My favorite for this season by Joules // Photo Credit

Cowboy Boot Style; Every respectable southern girl needs a pair like these  // J. Peterman

Designer: Coach // Photo Credit

Designer: Burberry // Photo Credit

My other seasonal favorite is the slip on by Sperry Topsiders

The thing about wellies is that they come in all shapes, colors, styles, sizes, and prices. There is a pair out there for everyone. Do you have a pair of rain boots? What do they say about you? Do you NEED a pair of boots?

What are my three pairs of rain boots?

The Southern Girl's Sunshine // Photo Credit

my slide-on wellies that I bought from Academy last winter; these fit perfectly with all my pants!

Black & White Coach

I think rain boots allow me to love the rain just a little bit more. They can brighten a dull day.

Trying out "Tot"

Sometime this summer, I made a trip with my dad to Walmart to see if they carried shock for the pool. I was unaware of the love affair that I was about to embark on as I entered the Outdoor Living area of the store. After Dad and I discovered the aisle with the pool chemicals, we turned around to see small little grills. Yes, grills!

I walked over towards these little things and saw this precious little red round grill and fell in love. I even more so fell in love with it's delicate price of $15.00! I left my little love there at Walmart as I pondered how much Jordan and I would benefit from it's capabilities.

Pics of Tot in Black from Walmart

That little love story leads us to our first weekend back in Lynchburg. Aly and I were running errands around and I told her that I needed to go to Walmart. I went straight into the Outdoor Living area, didn't even walk through the general area of the store but straight to where I could find my little red grill. It was that moment when I bought him. Him being Tot, Jordan and I's small red grill. I was so pleased! We went back to our apartment right away and I put together Tot. He more precious than I had imagined.

Now this post on my little red grill may seem a bit extreme... but if you had visited our apartment just after I had cooked dinner, you would understand my excitement over this purchase. You see, when you use a grill pan on your stove to grill any food, your apartment fills up with an immense amount of smoke to the point of where you can hardly see anyone else in the room. The windows always had to be open, the ceiling fan going, and the crazy loud oven top fan sucking. The room was always filled with this smoke. It would take a good 60-90 minutes for it to clear out of our little one bedroom apartment. Now that doesn't seem like forever but it is unpleasant especially when you have people coming over.

Do you understand why I am thrilled about tot? We can do our grilling outside and at our convenience! Our apartment place does have several grills around the pool and the park but those are to far away to quickly grill. They really are good for large gathering or a fun day by the pool. So this is why my little red grill was necessary. 

Needless to say... we have never really used a charcoal grill by ourselves before. I think I was a little excited the first time that I tried to fire him up that I wasn't patient enough and well let's just say it didn't work.

as we were waiting for the charcoals to ash over

That all changed last night as Jordan and I fired up Tot for the second time to grill us some brats! Let me tell you, Tot did an excellent job. As well as my man ;)

the finished product

Jordan was in charge of the "man job" of grilling although I hung outside with him to keep him company. He asked me prior to grilling if I could play catch like he was disappointed that I was a girl. Well, of course I said I could and I would since he thought it would be fun... Well we had more than enough baseball mitts (3 total) but we were lacking in the baseball department since he managed to throw them all into the lake this past Saturday... so we just hung out, listened to music, and talked while Tot did his thing!

I also threw together some yummy corn for dinner too! I sauteed 2 tablespoons of butter with about 1 cup of frozen corn. I then flavored the corn with some garlic powder, freshly ground pepper and sea salt, Grill Mates "Roasted Garlic and Herb" seasoning, and a bit of sugar. The corn was delish!

I hope to get a lot of use out of this little guy.

Cherished Cleaning

Jordan and I decided at the beginning of the semester that Sundays would be our weekly cleaning day together. We take a little bit of time to pick up the place extra well. There's always some vacuuming, dusting, and cleaning of mirrors. Of course, picking up the clothes that have managed to live on the ground during the week.

I am starting to really enjoy this time that we spend together for there is really nothing to think about but ourselves and our little place. Plus, cleaning isn't so bad when you have a helping hand!

We start cleaning when we get home at 10 after our early church service. Today, we started by making our bed which was interrupted by Clint Black singing "When I said I Do" to which we had to have a little slow dance to. Such a precious song. :)



Jordan vacuumed today as I scrubbed the kitchen floor. We went to the laundry room at our apartment club house and started FOUR loads of laundry. Visited the car center and vacuumed out both of our cars. I also went back to wash my rims since they get so black just from driving, I guess it's a sports car thing? Who knows.

By request of my hunk, I cooked grilled cheese and ham sandwiches along with tomato basil soup for lunch. We then proceeded to fold our massive pile of clean laundry before he headed out for practice.

There's something about the hour that we spend on Sunday mornings that I absolutely cherish. I hope that this tradition will continue "until the end of all time..."

Cooking in the Kitchen with Sarah

All the boys spent the day at the lake on Saturday, so Sarah and I decided that we would have a girls night by cooking together and just catching up.

Sarah is one of my dearest and best friends. She was one of my "quad-mates" freshman year which is how we met and became such good friends. We then were roommates our sophomore year and had such a fabulous time! Our room was decorated with all shades of pinks and purples, our favorite colors. It was the perfect year to have as my last 'single' year since Jordan and I got married the summer after sophomore year. Sarah was also one of my bridesmaids!

Sarah and I just get each other. We can get a full paragraph of words from each other in just one glance of an eye. We can seriously clearly communicate to each other through our body language and eye glances and know exactly what the other means. It cracks me up! We think alike and share a lot of the same beliefs on many topics so it's so easy for us to understand each other. There are always plenty of stories to tell whenever we are together even if we had just seen each other earlier that day or the day before! I just love my time with her!

Well, we decided to cook a new recipe that I found on pinterest. We chose a panko crusted chicken breast stuffed with ricotta cheese, grape tomatoes, spinach, and basil from For the Love of Cooking.

Our side was oven roasted potatoes from Plain Chicken.

photo credit

Both items were absolutely delicious. The panko crusting was divine on the chicken as well as the stuffing. The potatoes were SO easy to make and tasted fabulous! I'm going to include the recipe for the potatoes in this post in hopes that y'all will try them because they were so easy and simple to make... 

Easy Oven Roasted Potatoes
Printable Version of Recipe
Ingredients:

• 2 large potatoes, scrubbed (we used 6 small potatoes and plenty of left overs)
• 3 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
• 1 Tbs Italian Seasonings
• 1 tsp salt
• 4 Tbsp Parmesan cheese (we used the soft shaker kind)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 450. (We did 400 since that's what our chicken called for)

2. Slice the potatoes into thin slices about 1/4 inch thick. Do a perfect job like Sarah... ;)

3. Mix all the ingredients of oil, seasonings, salt, and parmesan cheese into a large size Ziploc bag then add the potatoes and shake to coat.

4. Place potatoes in a single layer on a baking sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes at 450 (or about 30 minutes at 400) until lightly brown. (We got out the potatoes and flipped them halfway through) Top with Parmesan cheese and bake for another 5 minutes.

I truly cherish the time spent with my girlfriends. It is always such a treat and a blessing! If you try either of these recipes, I hope you enjoy!