Thoughts on Friendship

I'm in the middle of two books right now, "The Happiness Project" and "Living Beyond Yourself: Exploring the Fruit of the Spirit," and both have just touched on the subject of friendship. And since one of my goals is to spend time nurturing relationships, I found these parts to be particularly salient in my quest to be a better friend. And, by reading those books, I'm knocking out two more goals (Read 18 books and finish the Bible Study I started an embarrassingly long time ago) so... BAM.

Thoughts from "The Happiness Project":

In her chapter on Friendship, Gretchen Rubin states that "everyone from contemporary scientists to ancient philosophers agree that having strong social bonds is probably the most meaningful contributor to happiness." She goes on to make a list of strategies she can use to be generous in her relationships. I wanted to list them here as both a reminder to myself (I'll remember them better writing them than I would from reading them).

• Help People Think Big: always encourage your friends in their goals and ambitions. Giving someone  some positive strokes and possibly helping them reach accomplishments will both make them feel good and make you feel good. She says that "one of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy; one of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.
• Bring People Together: "Studies show that extroverts and introverts alike get a charge out of connecting with others; also, because people are sources of information and resources for one another, if you help bring people together, you provide them with new sources of support." 
• Contribute In My Way: Use my gifts and talents to help my friends. In lieu of giving gifts, use the ones I have to help in some way.
• Cut People Slack: "Remember not to judge people harshly, especially on the first or second encounter. Their actions might not reveal their enduring character but instead reflect some situation they find themselves in. Forbearance is a form of generosity."

The other key that she talks about is showing up. Be there to celebrate with your friends when something important happens: having a baby, opening a store, new job, etc. Take the time to deepen casual relationships and to confirm closeness with good friends. Also, spend time with those you don't know as well. "The 'mere exposure effect' is the term for the fact that repeated exposure makes you like music, faces--even nonsense syllables-- better. The more often you see a person, the more intelligent and attractive you'll find that person." And the same goes for their feelings about you.

When making friends: smile more frequently, actively invite others to join a conversation, create a positive mood, open a conversation, try to look accessible and warm, show a vulnerable side and laugh at yourself, show a readiness to be pleased, follow others' conversational leads and ask questions.

From "Living Beyond Yourself":

In her daily devotion on Philos: Friend Love, Beth Moore uses scriptures from the book of Luke to encourage us to:

• Place our friends in a high personal position/in high esteem (Luke 14:10)
• Share joy/sadness with our friends- philo love is characterized by shared experience in that the joy of one becomes the joy of all, etc. (Luke 15:8-9)
• A common pursuit or interest can make you friends- this is the adoption of like interests. However, be like Abraham in James 2:23 where he adopted God's interests as his own instead of like Herod and Pilate in Luke 23:8-12 where the common interests were evil in nature. Be cognizant that the catalyst of friendship is not always positive and be wary of this.

Galatians 6:10 says: "Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers."Philadelphos is Greek for brotherly love- we should strive to show this love to our friends.

God has blessed me with some amazing friends that I definitely don't want to take for granted.

Goals Update

Goals for 2012:

Complete the Couch to 5K training program to get back into running
I've been working on this one slowly but surely. I was doing pretty well but I've been sick for about a week, so I haven't been running at all. I felt like the first couple weeks were really too easy but then week 4 came and it got a lot harder. I started by increasing the speed of the run sections from what I used to run, but that's definitely become harder as the amount of running has increased. I repeated week 3 just to help build up. I'll be repeating week 4 once I can go for 30 minutes without coughing repeatedly.

Read at least 18 books (progress can be tracked on my blog to the right)
As you can see to the right, I've read 7 books already in 2012. I love reading and I've been lucky enough to have some free time to sit down and read. I think it's safe to say that I'll reach my goal of 18, but I don't want to jinx myself because life will only get busier as the year goes on.

Complete a second Photo A Day project
So far, so good on this. A lot of them have been taken on my iPhone, which is becoming my main camera  lately. It's easy to pull out and use whenever and with the iPhone 4s, the camera is quite a bit better than my previous phone. I really enjoy looking back over a year of our lives once the project is over so I'm really interested to see how 2012 pans out in picture form.

Make a realistic budget with my husband and stick to it
Stephen and I sat down and looked at our spending habits and have constructed a budget that should work. We have had a couple unusual things so far this year (additional income via tax refund, additional expenses to fly me to CA and later to send us both to Nashville) that makes things slightly different, but we're hoping to be able to use this going forward. I guess we're in the "testing to see if it is realistic" stage.

Actually finish the Bible Study I bought an embarrassingly long time ago
I haven't actually started on this one. It's next to my bed and I really don't have an excuse. I've been so wrapped up in the novels that I've read that I just haven't made the time. But I will.

Get pregnant again (God willing) and have a happy, healthy pregnancy
Well this is really in God's hands, but I'm still taking the steps to make sure it starts healthy. I've continued to take prenatal vitamins and I've been cooking more at home to try to eat healthier. Thanks to Pinterest for the recipes :) I've also been able to use Pinterest to get some really cute ideas for when we have our future babies.

Blog more frequently
A work in progress, but I think I'm off to a good start.

Spend more time nurturing relationships
This one is probably going to take the most time. This is the one that truly pushes me out of my comfort zone. Spending time nurturing relationships with the people that I'm already close to is not going to be uncomfortable for me. I just really need to spend the time to check in more often and see how my friends are doing. It's a little more difficult being so far away but I really need to take the time to do it. I'm heading home to California this weekend and hope to be able to catch up with some friends while I'm there about their lives. It's going to be tough due to the time constraints, but I really would like to do so.The really hard part is going to be nurturing new relationships that I'm forming out here in Colorado.

Truth be told, I'm really an introvert. Some people may not think so because I'm friendly, nice and once you get to know me I am very talkative, but I am not particularly good at meeting new people and developing relationships with them quickly. I do not enjoy going out and being in large groups of people (like at a party or something) very often and more often than not I'd rather sit at home, just the two of us, and read all night. I tend to turn inward in social situations unless approached. I prefer movies at home to movies in the theatre and I like going for long drives alone or with one other person more than I like any large social setting. I'd rather have a really important or deep conversation with one person than engage in small talk with multiple people. I enjoy having friends over very much, but afterword I'm tired, not energized. It's just the way that I'm wired.

We've recently met a few new girls out here through some of the guys we know. And I really want to be that person who is proactive and welcomes them into the group and spend the time getting to know them better. So I've added them as friends on Facebook and suggested getting together in a smaller group. And I intend to actually do so. And yeah, that might not seem like much, but it's a step in the right direction. It doesn't come naturally to me to do things like that. I make it a point to be nice to people when I see them and to try my best to make them feel welcome and show interest in their lives, but that's more a result of being raised right than feeling comfortable doing so. So, going forward, I'm going to try to get better at getting to know people better.  We have a friend out here named Kelsey who is amazing at this. Literally within like 30 seconds of meeting Kelsey, she is asking you questions about yourself and getting to know you and within 30 minutes, she probably knows your life story. It's so impressive. I adore Kelsey because she has really taken the time to get to know me and to talk to me about some serious issues in my life. It is truly a gift. That is what I would ideally like to be like (or at least something closer to this). But it's going to be a process to get there and it's going to take baby steps.

Adventures in Domesticity

Thanks to the wonderful invention that is Pinterest, my dear sweet husband has been the guinea pig for a lot of new recipes lately! And, thankfully, they've all turned out well. Here are a few that we have tried that we liked:

Crock Pot Chicken Taco Chili:
The last time we tried a Weight Watchers recipe, it didn't end well. We both took a few bites and couldn't eat more. This time, however, even Mr. I-don't-eat-leftovers ate the leftovers! It was good to eat as chili from the bowl and good to eat on tortilla chips as a sort of dip.


Baked Parmesan Tomatoes:
Anyone who knows me well knows I love tomatoes. I could eat them like apples if it didn't make such a mess. So when I saw this baked tomato recipe, I knew we had to try it. They were REALLY good. I accidentally thought it wanted fresh thyme instead of fresh oregano so that's what I used and it was really tasty. The parmesan had just the right amount of saltiness to go with the tomato. Definitely going to have to make these again.

Garlic-Rubbed Grilled Cheese with Tomato and Bacon:
Well, we all know how I feel about tomatoes from the last recipe and everything is better with bacon, so how could this possibly go wrong? I didn't use the fancy cheeses listed in this recipe because I never have them on hand and if I bought them, I might never use them again... so I went with classics: cheddar, mozzarella, and parmesan. I also totally forgot to rub the garlic on the bread (they smelled so good, I got distracted...) and it was still REALLY good.

Breaded Garlic Chicken in Lemon-Butter Sauce:
Oh garlic, how I love thee. This recipe was really good. I, of course, added extra garlic because I love it so. I'm also really lucky that Stephen does too because the smell might kill some non-garlic lovers. I was a little worried that the chicken would have an "eggy" taste from browning it first in the egg-parmesan mixture, but it did not. Maybe the garlic overpowered that, too :) I served it simply over some angel hair pasta with a little butter, salt and pepper and we both really enjoyed it.

Pizza Casserole:
Pizza casserole, renamed Pizzagna by a friend of mine. This was tasty and easy. I followed this recipe exactly as it is (but let's be honest, garlic could have been added!) and it was good. I made it last night, before Blizzard 2012 hit the Denver Metro area and with only two of us, we can be assured to have enough food to wait out the storm. I'm betting the leftovers are actually better than fresh (since most tomato based pasta dishes get better the longer the ingredients marry) and I'm looking forward to having some soon. It is about lunch time...

And, for the Super Bowl this Sunday (which will be at our house!) I'm attempting Blue Moon Cupcakes. Should be a hit with my cute husband since Blue Moon is his favorite beer.

If you'd like to follow my obsessive pinning habit, I can be found here.

And also, why have I never thought of this before?

I love ginger ale and I love strawberries. Why have I never put the two together until I saw this?