Pittsburgh 1

Yesterday's ventures:

 Enormous sandwiches...

 Cool street art...

 Ice cream...

 Old architecture...

 City-scape views...

 Hassling passersby into photo taking...  

Birmingham to Pittsburgh

Today I'm writing to you from Pittsburgh, PA!  I have joined Jesse on his current business trip while on my week off from school. We started our drive on Saturday morning and made a few stops along the way to enjoy some good food (of course) and some sight-seeing.

After a long detour around some wrecks on the interstate in Nashville we arrived at The Cookery, a small cafe in Nashville that has an amazing mission for the homeless in their community.

We arrived and placed our order, only to realize that we had walked into the middle of a senior citizen trip from a local church. The head chef came out to greet them and tell his story, then brought all the guys out of the kitchen and introduced them. Chef Swayn was homeless himself at one point in his life, and through desperation and brokenness found Jesus. He started reading the Bible and other Christian books at the public library and would pray for food when he was hungry and God would provide. He was amazed that Jesus would love and give to him. While in Texas, someone invested in his life and helped him get a job and eventually he came out of homelessness. He learned various culinary skills along the way and became a chef. He moved to Nashville and now uses his restaurant as a mission. He hires homeless men in the community and teaches them how to cook. And I don't mean flipping burgers. These guys were serving various international, made-from-scratch meals. Chef Swayn is originally from Australia, so he had incorporated some of his native flavors and dishes into his menu. He would literally go out in the streets and hunt these guys down, giving them small tasks at first to see if they would come back and actually receive his offerings. But he doesn't just give them a job, he has a mission center that houses them and they are all in a program that teaches them about Jesus and works to teach them other skills besides culinary skills so that they can work in whatever field they prefer once they make it to the end of the program. They work to find them jobs later and keep up with each of them to ensure that they haven't turned back to alcoholism, etc. that would turn them back to homelessness. He was amazing and it was beautiful to witness his passion for these men and his community. He is living out true servant hood and the love of Jesus!  At The Cookery, I ordered the Moroccan Chicken Salad and Jesse had the Australia Meat Pie. Both were delicious, but the meat pie was amazing - it was like the best, tender beef stew you've ever had wrapped in a flaky pie crust, served with thick cut fries sprinkled with a yummy spice mix.

Onward we drove, through beautiful Kentucky, then Ohio. We stopped in downtown Cincinnati for dinner at the Senate. It was obviously a popular place when we arrived. They are known for their gourmet hot dogs among other things. Jesse had the Korean dog (with kimchi, braised short rib, sesame seeds, and pickled cucumbers), while I had the Lindsey Lohan (with goat cheese, caramelized onion, bacon, arugula, and balsamic) - maybe named because it was a hot mess to eat.  Both were delicious, and we followed them with Pretzel Beignets and Caramel Marscarpone.

Back on the road, we made it to Columbus, OH to stop for the night. We awoke the next morning and went to their zoo and aquarium. It was a huge zoo with many impressive exhibits to enjoy, but there were a LOT of people there. We found out after the fact that moms got in for free for Mothers Day. We still had a great time even though we had to dodge a million strollers along the way.

We also paid tribute to Mother's Day since we were not with our own mothers on their special day.

Unique to their zoo was a flying bat exhibit. It was a little creepy but they were hanging close to the viewing glass so we really got to take a close look at them wrapped up sleeping.

They also have an Australian exhibit which has a walk through kangaroo area. They were rather sleepy animals, but one Joey did come out of his mama's pouch while we were there. It was precious!

There was also a koala bear, and I wanted to hold him. I'm pretty sure I would react to a koala like Kristen Bell does to a sloth. (If you haven't seen that... google it.)

 The aquarium was small, but they had several tanks, with one giant wall at the end. A nice relaxing exhibit after the zoo chaos.

We made it into Pittsburgh Sunday night and have done a little exploring through the city. Stay tuned!

High Five for Friday

Cue the choir, and the angels, or whoever wants to sing a hallelujah praise...

1. We finished second year of optometry school!!! It was literally the most challenging school year of my life (as you have already heard). It was such a relief on Thursday to walk out of our last final exam for the year. Thankfully, Gussie gathered up our class to finally get a group photo of the class of 2016.
And this group of girls I could not have made it through without. They keep me straight, in the right place at the right time, and answer all of my silly questions late at night before exams. They keep me laughing through the hard times and listen to all of my complaints. I am so thankful to have such wonderful friends!

2. To increase the nerd level of this post even further, I got an iPad this week for the single reason of taking notes for class and being able to upload notes from this school year for future quick reference. Many of my classmates use their iPads in class, and I came to realize how convenient and well designed this device is, and how much more organized it could help me to be. All of those binders of notes you see above can be on the iPad to scroll through and quickly search if needed. Plus I can access digital copies of my textbooks at my fingertips any time. Jesse says I've crossed to the dark side by owning an Apple product, but it already came in handy studying for finals, and I can tell it is a great investment for school!

(I just had to share this one. She's just too cute.)

3. This Wednesday our community group had a farewell cookout for one of our members. Our friend Ronda has been in search of a job for a couple of months, and finally received an answered prayer. However, God decided to move her to Eufaula, AL, and away from all of us. We were both excited for her and sad at the same time. I am so glad I got to know Ronda while she was here. She is a strong woman with a sweet spirit and is someone you can truly always count on. We will miss her dearly, but plan to visit her soon, so it was not a final farewell this week!

4. We had dinner with friends Hannah, Adam, Kelsey, and Addy on Thursday night after I finished my final exams. I had to get out of the house, so we had celebratory drinks and Mexican food at Little Donkey. Hannah and I are both in the medical-school related world, so finding time to catch up can be few and far between. We enjoyed our time with them and got to hear all about there wedding plans for this summer. I cannot wait!

5.  I finished second year of optometry school! Did I say that already?... Well it deserves two spots on the list because it felt like quite the accomplishment. Plus, considering all I did was study for finals this week, nothing else interesting happened.

Happy Weekend everyone!

High Five for Friday

1. This week has been a little interesting. We spent Monday night huddled in Mike and Kelsey's downstairs apartment in case of tornadoes. Thankfully we did not have any damages in our neighborhood, and we were glad to have a safer place to stay.

(photo from original blog source, linked below)

2. I made this recipe this week, and it was pretty delicious. I'm not sure if anything with bacon can be bad, so give this recipe a try for a new pasta dish.  I was a little leery of the egg sauce, but it didn't have a weird texture and just made everything nice and creamy (without an overload of heavy cream!). I did also roast grape tomatoes to toss in too, which I think added a nice flavor to the mix. The roasted cauliflower was awesome - I would do that again as a stand-alone side.

3. Yesterday our Clinical Evaluation instructors, who have been with us for both Fall and Spring semesters held a little end-of-the-year party to recognize a couple of outstanding students, and then hand out several funny awards based on things they had overheard or seen us do throughout the year. I will spare you the names of the awards, as they are all corny, optometry-nerdy awards. We have all said and done some crazy things as we've been learning new skills along the way. And it's also been fun (and funny) to see how each other's personalities come out in various situations - whether it's the first time you see the retina with a certain tool and are blown away by what you see and feel like a rockstar, or when you freak out because you are stressed and feel like you suck at every clinical thing you've ever done.  We have a great class and it makes each day better knowing you have people going through this with you.

4. Today was the last day of class for spring semester! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! (Insert any other expression of unbelievable excitement here!) Finals are next week, so keep me in your prayers and thoughts. Jesse too, bless his heart, for putting up with me during such a stressful week.

5. Also today, Jesse took a placement test that sets him up for begging a Master's program in business. He took several business classes in undergrad, but not enough to major or minor in it. He has recently been interested in going back to get his MBA for a couple of reasons 1) it can't hurt to have an MBA on top of an engineering degree  2) it could help my practice one day to have someone that knows anything about business since we get little to no business education in optometry school  3) his current company will pay for it- so why not?!  Since he didn't have all of the required classes to start the program, he could opt to take this placement test and if he passed, he didn't have to make up the courses, which would knock off a year of classes for him.  Well, he pretty much aced the test today and is now just waiting for registration to open to sign up for classes! I am so proud of him!  If all goes as planned he will finish the same year as I do. So from now until then we will be some of the most boring people you know. ;)

Happy Weekend!

High Five for Friday

Once again, I forgot to post on Friday. I don't know why... I was completely distracted from studying yesterday and at the pinnacle of procrastination.  Finals are a week away, but my brain is pretty much done with this semester.  This week held lots of exciting things, though - let's start from last weekend:

1. Saturday we were home for my cousin Clint's wedding.  It was quite the ride out into the countryside, but the venue was gorgeous!  A newly built barn just for events like this, that screamed rustic Southern wedding. All the little touches Ashton had planned were absolutely charming, and there was a candy table.... probably for kids... but you know I had to get some!  And there was a grits bar that made my tummy swoon (twice).

And look how gorgeous my cousin Kelsey is in this seagreen color! (Which goes with her glasses, might I add. ;)  )

Little Adelyn also loved the candy bar:

2. We had Easter lunch with Jesse's side of the family on Saturday as well.  Marilyn made a delicious ham and veggie strudel, and Heidi brought her famous double-layer cheesecake.  We also hunted eggs (because you are NEVER too old for that), and Heidi found the "golden egg" with $5 inside! We were all eager to empty the candy out, and everyone was excited about Peeps.  (By the way... Peeps should be designated for Easter... we don't need Peeps for all the other holidays. That sucks the fun out of egg hunts and the original Easter Peeps. Just sayin'.)

3.  Church was amazing on Sunday, with a great worship service and a focus on the resurrection power of our living Savior! The same resurrection power that was enough to save you is the same power that can sustain you. So why do we try to chose what parts of our life we want His power to show up in? Salvation, but not in the hatred of a friend that has hurt us? Save us from all the ugly sins of this world, but not enough to save our marriage from the nothingness it's become? Strong enough to conquer death, but not to help you break your addiction? It's strong enough to restore you- restore your marriage, break addiction, and allow forgiveness (plus more). It doesn't change; it doesn't fade or lose its strength!
Service was followed by what has become the annual Domeny Easter lunch, where Kelsey cooked up a ham and all the proper Easter fixings.

4.  Jesse and I got sick mid-way through the week, but have (almost) fully recovered at this point. Feeling better always feels so good!

5.  After a round a chicken noodle soup and appetites were back to normal, last night we tried using pantry and freezer items to make a homemade spin on a local favorite dish of ours - Saw's Soul Kitchen's Pork and Grits which is a bed of grits topped with turnip greens, pork, and shoe-string onion rings. Divine I tell you. Now, it was a stretch, because we did not have BBQ pork, but I made cheese grits, we cooked up spinach as our greens, and Jesse topped his with shrimp (I'm sadly allergic), followed by French's onions. Mine was okay, but his was delicious. He tries to pretend he doesn't cook, but when he does, he always goes all out and it tastes amazing.

Happy weekend, everyone!

High Five for Friday

I've been busy practicing and preparing for my final practical in my Clinical Evaluations course so the past couple of weeks have been somewhat a blur. I didn't get around to posting a high five last week, so let's just do a little catching up over the past couple of weeks:

1. My mom and mother-in law were sweet enough to come up and be my practice patients over this past weekend. We took them to Little Donkey, a local Mexican restaurant we've recently come to enjoy. And of course we had to get pops. A 2 hour eye exam might have been a little tortuous, but they had a good time otherwise. We ladies even went shopping on Saturday together, which was fun and a nice break from my norm.

2. We also had Matt and Heidi here for the weekend as well. They went with Jesse to our friend Kyle's white water rafting birthday trip. They had a lot of fun splashing down the Ocoee River in Tennessee. Mike fell out at some point, which gave them all a good laugh after the fact!

3. We enjoy when Matt and Heidi come because they always want to enjoy good food in Birmingham. This time we went to Giuseppe's Cafe - a hole in the wall place I drive by almost daily. They served up delicious, fresh Italian food. Our table had a variety of calzones, lasagna, and chicken pesto pasta, along with canollis and Tiramisu for dessert. Everything was amazing. We will definitely return!

4. Rewinding to last Friday: in our Anterior Segment lab we got to practice foreign body removal. Since this did not involve inserting foreign bodies into each other's eyes (read ridiculous and dangerous), we practiced removing epithelium and debridement of cow eyes! Then we also practiced foreign body removal by using various instruments to pick brake dust out of gelatin behind the slit lamp. Surprisingly, this consistency is similar to the front surface of your eye and made great practice for FB removal. Here are Bonnie, Steve, and Maggie in action:

5. I passed said practical! Hallelujah! This little check box meant the world this week.

Other recent happenings:  Earth Day on the Green at UAB happened last week and Jesse met me for foodtruck lunches and we got to see Alabama Power's Teslas:

Last but not least, a reader sent me this precious photo frame she found with our blog title on it, all the way from Michigan!  Okay, okay - she's not some anonymous reader across the states; she's a close friend's mom, and probably keeps up with my blog in case there are photos of her grandbaby... Just kidding! Any time Sally comes to town she always tells me how much she enjoys reading our posts, many of which contain activities with her two kids (our friends) Kelsey and Mike. I will have to find a special picture to go in this perfect frame! Thank you Sally!

Even through the most stressful weeks, when I stop and focus on each week's "high five" I realize how much we're surrounded by precious, caring people that love and support us, and I'm so thankful for those people that warm our hearts.
This weekend holds a wedding, then a celebration of Easter Sunday.  Over the next couple of weeks this semester will wind down and finals will ensue. There is light at the end, folks!

We will see some of you soon! Have a great weekend!

25 years + full bellies

Last Friday was my 25th birthday and Jesse took me out to a wonderful dinner at the historic Bright Star in Bessemer - "Alabama's Oldest Restaurant."  It began in 1907 and moved to its current location in 1915, and is stilled owned and operated by the original family. They are famous for their steak, which has been voted the best in the state of Alabama. It's in a beautiful old building that has been well maintained through the years, leaving you with a fancy mom-and-pop kind of feel. Literally everything we ate was delicious and truly tasted homemade.

We were seated by one of the owners, who was welcoming and obviously proud of his establishment.  He walked us toward the back and seated me in "Sandra Bullock's chair."  Apparently the Bright Star is her father's favorite restaurant, and in 2010 Sandra (we're on a first-name basis now) took him and many of their friends here for Father's Day.

celebrity birthday treatment? why not?

After the owner heard it was our first time at the restaurant, he brought us each a small cup of their gumbo before our waitress had time to bring us drinks. The roux was dark and made it deep and delicious.

We order stuffed mushrooms and fried green tomatoes for appetizers, then split the dinner sampler entree which came with a crisp Greek salad.

(this dish was supposed to have the shrimp and remoulade on top, but we separated it since I'm allergic)

Their famous steak with Greek sauce, grilled chicken, and red snapper.

Surprisingly the chicken was our least favorite, but we had so many more options we didn't mind.

We were so stuffed we had to order our desserts to go. I mean, it was my birthday.. I had to have dessert! Jesse ordered their famous Lemon Box Pie, and I ordered Baklava Cheesecake. We debated on the bread pudding, but decided against it. Our waitress surprised us with a complementary sample though, and it was warm and gooey and amazing, without being soggy or too sweet. I mean, she pretty much forced me to eat it. (Just kidding... you guys know it doesn't take much.)

We were really impressed with the Bright Star. We really enjoyed our meal and appreciated the genuine friendliness of the staff. It is a little bit more expensive than our normal eating out, but I would recommend it for a special occasion. 

The next day we ate our desserts. Jesse's lemon pie was light and fluffy, topped with whipped cream, and was also not as sweet as you would expect, letting the lemon shine through. And my Baklava Cheesecake... oh my! A creamy cheesecake-like center rolled in baklava and drizzled with honey - it was magical.  And I'm pretty sure we ate 4 times off of one dessert!