thankful

Whew. It has been the craziest, the most amazing week of my life. Between driving to and fro for spending thanksgiving with my family and the boy's family, and working, I couldn't be happier. Yesterday Charlie and I were able to stop for lunch at this place called Salt Factory. It was absolutely delicious. More than anything, I was grateful for that one on one time with him. We caught up on our lives, and our future plans. We laughed, teased, stared at these awfully jumpy kids at the next table, made plans to come back, held hands and shared a ginormous sliced of chocolate banana pudding bread.

We got marinated olives to start, which Charlie absolutely HATED. I kid you not. He made faces the entire time. But they were delicious to me. 

I didn't really get around to clicking pictures of anything else, even though the boy prompted me to. The goat cheese ravioli was AMAZING and his lamb burger was juicy and tender. [and bloody, he really shouldn't get his meat cooked to rare. Eww.] All in all, I'm grateful for this memory.

 

In so much joy, 

Nisha 

wednesday

I came back to Dahlonega Monday morning after spending lots of time with the boy at Ft. Benning and even making a detour to spend a night at my parents. These last few days have been all sorts of challenging in the best possible way, it's as if God is inviting me to a life of more. Maybe that is why it has been almost troublesome because in many ways I have been resisting change but today I decided to give that control over. This is something that I still struggle with spiritually because even in every day life I kind of like to have control over things that will happen or how my day is planned out (or so I like to think.) Today I decided to make a list of things making me incredibly happy:

- Monday morning I found out that my little sister and I get the opportunity to volunteer at the upcoming Life is good music festival in September. Needless to say we are both unbelievably thrilled about this.
- Over the weekend Charlie and I laughed endlessly about the silliest things. I told him in another lifetime I'd be a thug life gangster with a grill in my teeth and then we both pretended to be gangsters. We sang way to loud to "Payphone" as I pretended to be Adam Levine and him Whiz Khalifa. I jumped on the cart at the commissary (grocery store on post) and he pushed me around on it, all the kids were super jealous.
- I love getting to see good friends.
- Chelsey wrote me the SWEETEST letter which made me all teary, it was good friend moment.
- I was glad I was finally able to take them to the Thai restaurant in Columbus since I've been raving about it to Chelsey and her beau since we met.
- Chewy likes to do this thing where he'll go an sit on the stairs for no apparent reason and peak out over the railings so that when I'm sitting on the couch I can just see his big ole eyes and ears peaking out. It is the cutest thing ever.
-  I started reading this wonderful book called "Love Does" and it is absolutely divine. It is exactly what I needed right now.
- I'm off from work until Friday so at some point this week I plan to grab my hammock and go on a picnic with Chewy and my baby sister.
- Everytime I don't eat healthy balanced meals I end up with really bad migraines, and lately I've been failing at eating well so I got this horrible migraine last night. It was good because it reminded me to treat my body well.
- I just love that Chewy is a cuddle bug.
- I miss Yoga something crazy right now. I really need to get back into it soon.
- I'm thankful for this blog lately.
- She & Him makes me so happy!!! I absolutely adore Zooey Deschanel.
- I'm looking forward to these next few weeks.

in joy as always,
nisha

Garlic and herbs stuffed mushrooms

One of my all time favorite appetizers has got to be stuffed mushroom caps. Yesterday I was hardly in the mood to whip up some fancy meal with a lot of ingredients that needed to be bought. I found this recipe and thought oh how simple. I ended up making stuffed mushrooms and avocado tartines (recipe later this week) for dinner which totally ended up delicious. I was able to find the spreadable cheese at walmart which made my heart extremely happy because Dahlonega can be VERY limited in the produce/ingredients found here. Anyway, I followed the recipe but I kept it in the oven for 20 mins because I like the mushrooms on the crispier side and I used Italian breadcrumbs because I had some in the pantry. [Word of advice: Put these in last while you make dinner/lunch because I made these first and then they got a little cold and the texture was less than pleasant.] I couldn't find any precut mushroom caps so I just cut them myself by making a small circle with a pearing knife and caving the stems out. Just be careful because mushrooms are pretty delicate. Hope you enjoy! xx

in joy as always,
nisha

wednesday

Tonight my mind kept wandering to a dear friend of mine. I kept thinking of everything that she was going through and how I hated not being there to support her through it all. You know how it goes... We both get busy, come back to each other, get busy again. Regardless we have seen each other through many hard nights that come with becoming a woman, from heartbreaks to prayers, so I couldn't help but want to lift her spirits a little bit. So instead of a text or call I just picked up a pen a wrote her a letter. Nothing too long, a simple quote to let her know someone was praying for her. The quote said : "It is only against the pitch blackness of the night that we see the glory of the stars. And it is only against the pitch blackness of man's radical depravity that we begin to see the glories of the gospel." Isn't that the wonderful thing about friendships between us women? We love, without question. Or atleast try to and I truly believe that's our calling. To heal a heart. To spread kindness into this somewhat jaded world that we live in.
I've been thinking a lot about friendships lately. Being especially careful to invest love and time in those women who are my biggest cheerleaders, truly nurturing young ladies. I've spent countless priceless years in some friendships that I've realized haven't been good for me. (I can see Chelsey nodding in approval as she reads this.) I've wanted to believe that those investments would pay off in either a kind word or some other way that didn't leave me so drained, but that hasn't been the case. I've decided to only tend to friendships that have been meaningful to me in every way. I don't mean this in a ugly, mean way by saying there's some sort of score kept in such relationships but at the same time there is this unspoken gift of presence and kindness without which any relationship will wilt. I prayed a lot about this decision because it's hard for me to let go of people no matter how badly they treat me, so it's great to have some clarity in this area.
Time is precious folks, lets make sure we are spending it doing the right things with right people.

In joy as always,
Nisha

tuesday

My, my! It's been an absolutely crazy day. It started with waking up at 5 AM because Chewy decided to leave a little surprise by the bed for me. Let me tell you folks, when your day starts with cleaning up puppy pee... it sets the tone for a somewhat mellow day. THEN, after I showered Chewy left me ANOTHER surprise to clean up. At this point I had given up and decided that there was no point losing my temper because I'd given up, surrendered and waved the white flag. As I was getting dressed, I accidentally put lotion in my hair. This day would surely be a complete total goner. To top it off, it's been gloomy and raining all day outside. I just stayed in, cleaned a bit, picked up a lot of puppy surprises, fixed the blog on this new URL[which I also accidentally deleted today], got to facetime with the mister... the usual. He did however tell me that we were on no contact terms until friday since he's going to be heading to the range BUT I get to see him friday night. I am somewhat stoked about it but God knows he's going to be exhausted from staying away and sleeping out in the rain. Anyway.
I just decided to share some pictures from when we went berry picking a few weeks ago. It was kind of a spontaneous, spur of the moment idea. We drove up to Pine Mountain to grab lunch while I was down at Ft. Benning visiting the mister. Rose Cottage has become one of our absolute favorite getaway lunch spots. It's this quaint family owned cafe with the best tomato bisque I've EVER ate, and they do the BEST four course dinners. Must try if you're ever in the area. We picked up a flyer from the place advertising this little blueberry garden. We decided that we must go because the mister's mom adores blueberries and what's summer without stained fingers?

The place was this little backyard farm behind a family's home. Nobody was home and so we had to call them like four times and in the end we ended up putting money in their mailbox. We might have also played with their two gorgeous golden labs, and one of them was so attentive and obedient that even when we told the other to sit no matter how far she was she would still sit! I really hope one day Chewy can be like that. We plucked four pounds of blue berries and stained out fingers. 

           

Days like this are why summer will always be my favorite time of the year.
In joy as always,
Nisha.

summer

After accidently deleting my last blog, and not being able to use the URL again, to say I was frustrated would be an ultra mega understatement. I blogged about how much I loved the summer time and how I was looking forward to a relaxing, calm summer on my porch with lots of cold sweet tea. I hope that despite the new URL, much of the rest of this summer will remain pretty much the same.

Shirt:Charlotte Russe, Skirt:J.Crew Factory Store, Necklace:Thrifted, Nails:Essie, Rings:Pandora

here's to hoping another fun filled summer for all of you! 

in joy as always, 

nisha 

sponsor info

At this time sponsorship is available in the way of a button swap! If you are interested please feel free to send me a quick email at starthandingoutstars@gmail.com

xoxo