Life Lately

Tasty Flat Bread Pizzas: 

Brush whole wheat pita with olive oil or your favorite pesto, layer torn baby spinach, sauteed onions, mushrooms and asparagus and top with diced tomatoes and feta. Broil at 500 until pita crisps a bit. You can switch up the toppings however you please :) 

Bacon wrapped baby asparagus:

Fry bacon for 5-7 min, until they begin to shrink but don't cook all the way. Wrap around 2" lengths of asparagus bundles. Try to make them all the same size. Broil at 450 until bacon cooks fully - when they start looking like they are close, roll them to make sure the other side gets cooked as well. 

Weekend Project: Deck Expansion

How was your weekend?

On Love and Renovations

Isn't this a powerful statement? 


Now, I know we've discussed love before, here and here. But I'd like to get your thoughts on this latest bit of wondering.

As little girls, we watched our Disney movies, and learned about love  from fairy tales. Princes, knights and handsome street urchins swept princesses off their feet. They fell in love with big eyes and adoring sighs.  


So we dreamed that we were princesses, and although not all of us wait for a prince, some of us are more of the rough and tumble, go out and find our own prince types, we went on a search for a crazy, all-consuming, passionate love.

Yet, the divorce rate for first marriages in the US is a staggering 41%.

 However, in India, where most marriages are arranged and falling in love is not a required component, the divorce rate in recent years has been as low as 1%. It has increased as much as 150% percent with the rise of the middle class. Western culture has crept into Indian society, provoking more love based marriages. 

Obviously, this indicates correlation and does not prove causation. But doesn't it make you stop to think?

I will be the first to say that a culture which promotes arranged marriage most definitely has its flaws. I could never allow someone to make that sort of a decision for me. 

However, when the expectation of marriage does not include the presence of a sappy feeling, but rather a commitment and an active love, and you have the freedom to choose to make that commitment with someone with whom you have fallen in love, it would seem that the marriage might stand a better chance. 

What do you think? 
(Sources for my statistics: 1, 2, 3)

On another and completely unrelated note...

We spent our weekend fixing up a house that Chris would like to sell. I think these new floors make a dramatic improvement. 

I'm impressed with how well it turned out. It definitely changes the feel of the room!