lion!

the night was finally here. after chatting about it at work, nathan and i decided that we would spend this evening downloading and test driving the new OS for our macbook pro. we have both been looking forward to it, and when we saw it came out a little while ago, we looked forward to checking it out in the comfort of our own home on our own computer. ok so its true, in case you didn't know, we are both pretty big tech-nerds. we like to watch apple's press conferences together (well, each at our respective offices, chatting, while following typically the engadget liveblog coverage of the events). we send each other news stories about whatever new is going on (mostly with apple) and geek out in the apple store. in addition to our macbook, nathan's had an iphone, we've had several ipods between the two of us, and we've had both ipads (we had the 1st one, then sold it to buy the new 2nd one). so yeah, we're tech-nerds. i guess apple fanatics is a better term. but still.

while i was waiting for nathan to get home from work so we could apple-out together, i decided to make us a little homemade pizza, tex-mex style. let me just say, i'm a legit pizza maker. i mean, for-reals. from scratch is the only way i roll (ok, not true, sometimes we eat frozen or mellow mushroom), so i got out the yeast & the cookbook and started kneading. i meant to take pictures of the process, but before i knew it, i was kneading and there sat my camera next to me, no pictures taken. pretty much, i just follow the recipe in my better homes cookbook, using the whole wheat recipe. 

for tonight's enjoyment, i went tex-mex on it. after baking the dough for about 10 minutes, i brushed on some olive oil, covered it in slightly smashed black beans, then topped it with some spicy, drained rotel (on nathan's side) and a can of diced jalapeños (on both sides). to that, i added some freshly sautéed chicken, peppers, and onion- yum! and finally, topped it all with a bunch of mexican-style cheese mix. i popped that baby in the oven for about 10 minutes, and then we were ready to feast! after slicing, i added some sour cream to nathan's half.

with our bellies full, it was time to move on to the good stuff- lion had finished downloading! it was time to install!

its blurry, but the cute little lion tracked our progress, and made us more and more anxious for it to be complete!

the whole download & install process took us, well, right about an hour. not too bad. we have pretty fast internet, which allowed the download to be complete in around 15 minutes, and then a few minutes to restart, followed by about 35 minutes to install. pretty simple stuff.

and oh by the way, did you know that lion was offered as an app in the new macbook appstore? as in, we didn't have to go to the store, order anything, or track any shipments (which i not-so-secretly love to do!). we just clicked on the appstore, clicked on lion, and were on our way.

after getting it all ready, it was time to explore. oh look, new start screen-

and that wasn't the only new thing. here's some screen shots for ya:

new scrolling took some getting use to, but i almost have the hang of it. i still go the opposite direction every time at first, but it is more natural 

new launchpad feature- accessed by either clicking the icon in the dock or hitting the hot corner, this mimics an iphone/itouch/ipad screen. all your applications show up as apps, and you click on them just as you would a phone. pretty nifty. i like the blur effect on your background- kind of reminds you that you are not on your desktop

i appreciate that it tells me my name now. not real sure why, but it does. after clicking on it, i realized it was the user location- so, if there were any other users on this computer, they would show up in the drop down menu

mission control they call it- a great way to swim through the clutter and find the page/app/whatev you need to get to without having to click everything (inevitably twice)

more mission control

so what's my take on it?
all in all, i like it so far. mission control & launchpad are pretty sweet. the scrolling is also pretty fantastic, although it will take some getting used to.  maybe my favorite feature? full screen apps. meaning, no file bars or anything like that- just corner to corner pixaly-goodness. pretty sweet. everything looks a little cleaner & sharper, and i like that too.
down sides? biggest one, and honestly kind of frustrating, is that, apparently, i was running some old school microsoft office suite, and as soon as the restart finished after installing lion, a nice little pop-up came up saying that the office software was no longer compatible. boo. so now i have no word or office.  other than that, can't complain! we really like it, and we enjoyed geekaly-exploring it together.
check it out- if you've got a macbook, its definitely worth $30- much cheaper than any previous OS updates. i recommend it.
now, if only that iphone 5 would come out.....

unreached: the bedouin levantine in lebanon

alrighty ladies & gents, it's tuesday, and time to kick off this brand new feature!

to kick it off, i have selected a people group from one of my favorite countries- lebanon. i'll post later sometime about my experience in lebanon, but today i want to talk about the bedoiun levantine people who reside there currently.

the bedouin people live throughout lebanon, having migrated into the country from egypt by way of israel. these folks speak both arabic and eastern egyptian bedawi. there are approximately 46,000 bedouin calling lebanon home, and of these, less than 5% are known believers. in fact, the most of them consider themselves to be sunni muslims. the bedouins typically spend their lives as either nomads or farmers, both living mainly in desert areas.

while there is an arabic translation of the bible, there is no translation (that i could find) in bedawi. additionally, it can be hard to reach these people, since they live as nomads without the presence of many western conveniences like cell phones, the internet, or even a home address.

so what can we do? pray!

pray that the Lord of the harvest would send laborers to these people

pray that God would protect, encourage, and guide the few believers among these people, and that His light would shine through them

pray for someone(s) to be willing to translate the bible for them, or maybe even be willing to make a recording on an mp3 player to spread the love & message of christ among them, in their language

god, we ask that even now, you would raise up believers to send to lebanon. even if it is us, we ask you to reveal, convict, and lead people to minister to the bedouin in lebanon. prepare their hearts, and begin to draw them to yourself. you are the Father to the fatherless, and have prepared an eternal home for even the homeless. Lord, we do ask that you be with the believers that are sleeping even now among the bedouin. thank you for how your Word never returns void, and even these few have devoted their lives to serving you! give them strength, fill them with your love, and use them from within to reach this people group. please keep the bedouin on our hearts and minds this week, that we might pray for the harvest on the other side of the world.

as always, all the info & pictures in this special feature comes from the joshua project, unless noted elsewhere

in the morning, i'm making waffles...

this past saturday morning, nathan and i had no where to be early, so after sleeping in, i had a hankerin' for some waffles. we love lazy saturday mornings with homemade waffles, and it had been too long since we had last made them. so, i whipped out my handy dandy cookbook and got to work.

now don't get me wrong, i love a good eggo with peanut butter, but if i'm getting out the waffle iron, the only way i roll is homemade!

the recipe i use is a loose interpretation of the better homes & garden's new cookbook one.

yes, i write in my cookbooks and leave future me notes. its a good thing too, because everytime i see them i'm like, 'o, yeah!'

of course, its pink

you know me, all about some le creuset. this piece was a christmas present from my aunt...everyone needs a good batter bowl!!

so here we go. first, i mix about 7/8 cup of whole wheat flour with 1 tablespoon demerara sugar (or brown sugar), 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, and a pinch of salt. to that, this time, i added 1 tbsp flax seed

and about 1/4 bag of walnuts

in a separate bowl, i mixed 1 egg with 7/8 cup milk, 1/4 cup of oil and a big splash of vanilla. 

then, i make a little well in the center of the dry mix and pour the wet stuff in all at once.

and stir, preferably with a big pink spatula :)

finally, into the waffle iron it goes.

and thats it! these were super hearty and kept us full for quite a while! also, this recipe only made 4, but i think you could think it out to get 6. the original recipe is for 12, and i half it, but i think its too thick. perfect for us though!

while i was making waffles, nathan ran out to starbucks to get us some drinks to go with. we chose to have some quad shots, 1 pump sugar free vanilla, whole milk lattes.yum!

this was my waffle...i like them with just a sprinkle of powdered sugar and some whipped cream

after such a yummy breakfast, we headed out to piedmont park to hit up the local green market and enjoy some sunshine. 

check out this shot of the city- isn't it beautiful? i love this view

nathan's sister sarah gave us a call and happened to be in the area, so she came over and met us and her and nathan joined a pick up game of ultimate frisbee. i lounged under a tree (it was HOT) and snapped some pics.

its days like this one that make me love the city and love living here.