Week 17: Sickness, sweets and snow

Kind of crazy we have been married for 17 weeks now, but here we are! It has been a great and relaxing week -- thank goodness! I am not a person who thrives rushing around being busy all the time so it has been nice to have a bit of a break. My current work site is awesome and leaves me time to get most of my projects done there which gives Jonathan and I our evenings back! The beginning of the week I was pretty sick, but thankfully I am about good as new. My coughing fits and seemingly constant nose-blowing got a bit bothersome to both Jonathan, my co-workers and I. 

Chicken Alfredo

Thankfully, Jonathan had Bible Study on Monday, so I just stayed home, worked on feeling better and studied another chapter! For dinner we had chicken alfredo, Jonathan got to play some guitar when he got back while I finished studying and then we got our chili and cornbread ready for Tuesday! 

My voting outfit!

Tuesday was another slow day, Jonathan got some stuff figured out from Monday at work and I got to study again. I must say, I have the best husband. He did the dishes so I could study Tuesday night and then we got to spend some time together in the evening just relaxing. Our chili was delicious and so was the cornbread! Right when we got home we went for a run, I went 2.25 miles and Jonathan went 2.5. We are working on preparing for a 5K. To clarify - Jonathan can run a 5K easily, but he is patiently waiting for me to be able to run the distance. We DID get to vote, so that was great!

Wednesday we both ran 2.5 miles! I was pretty surprised, especially since I was still not feeling great! Jonathan helped me figure out how to watch TV while I ran, it helped the time go faster since we were on the treadmill. I had to make dessert for small group this week and I decided to make my favorite cake - apple cake! It is the perfect fall dessert. Of course, I ran out of flour and wasn't sure how to prepare the apples for it...so after a call to Mom/Dad and Jonathan running to Dollar General for some flour, we finally got the cake made and iced! Running out of flour turned into a blessing since Jonathan brought us back some Reese's cups! 

Thursday we had small group, which is always good. It is also the day we make our grocery list, another thing I really enjoy. Planning our meals for the next week is always exciting to me, we really enjoy food around here!

Friday we had our first snow...which is typically exciting but it is a little bit chilly and early at this point! So we are now using our snow scrapers and blasting the heat in our cars every morning. We ordered East of Chicago subs - our go-to meal for ordering in. During our dinner we watched Numb3rs on Amazon Prime, then we watched Unbroken - a fantastic movie, if you haven't seen it, you should. It's always great to gain a better understanding of the sacrifices people have made for our country and our freedoms.

Saturday was a pretty big day for me - we ran 3 whole miles!!! I am finally ready for the 5K on Thanksgiving! Of course, we have to keep doing this until the 5K, but I honestly didn't think I could do it, so it was a huge surprise and we are super excited about it! While I studied half of my weekend chapter, Jonathan cleaned the house and worked on some Christmas shopping and our Operation Christmas Child box. We got a tracking label, so hopefully we will find out where our box ends up going! We had planned on having cajun pork chops for dinner, but I forgot to get them out of the freezer...so we had sloppy joes and juicy noodles instead and saved the pork chops for today! Before we ate Jonathan played his guitar and we sang some worship songs, something we really enjoy. Then afterwards we played games, another activity we enjoy! Splendor and Carcassonne were our games, Jonathan picked the first and I picked the second...ironically, I won the first and he won the second! We had a good time though and enjoyed our evening together!

Above: Donuts and hot chocolate from the bakery
Below: cajun pork chops over rice

Today has been great! It was the last week for Operation Christmas Child drop off so we got to help check boxes in and make sure they were full enough and ready to go. Because of this, we had to get to church around 8:20. To get ourselves awake and ready to go we went to Vogel's Bake Shop and got donuts and hot chocolate. Jonathan got a custard filled one with chocolate icing and peanuts on it and I got a peanut butter icing filled 

cream stick with chocolate and peanut butter icing on the top - it was all absolutely delicious! Additionally - it was only $5 for two donuts and two hot chocolates, we will definitely be doing it again sometime! After church we went grocery shopping to get everything we needed for the week, then we came home, put all of the groceries away and made our lunch and stuff for the week. We had cajun pork chops and rice for lunch. I made them once before and I won't lie - it was pretty terrible. Kind of caught our mouths on fire. I will say, we were very hydrated after since we were drinking all the water in sight but we cried the whole way through the meal because it was so spicy. TODAY it was really good though! I think have successfully figured out a delicious way to make it. After lunch I got my chicken salad ready for the week and made some apple-cinnamon muffins for breakfast. This afternoon we watched football, Jonathan worked out, I did my nails and finished studying. 

Lil Landis Eats:

• Tuesday: Parmesan Chicken and Spaghetti
• Wednesday: Potato soup
• Some day this weekend: Steak and potato casserole
• Breakfast special: Apple-cinnamon muffins

* Note * - the scones last week were awesome! 

The upcoming week is expected to be the perfect mixture of relaxing and exciting. Tomorrow I am meeting up with a friend for dinner, Thursday we have our last small group and the weekend is still a pretty big question mark but we have quite a few fun ideas, we will let you know how it turns out next week!

Love - Alli and Jonathan