.my current food love affair.

I get on kicks a lot. it's a part of my "all or nothing" personality.  I fixate on things...if I find something I love, I obsess over it. a bit extreme? sure. 

so my current kick, obsessions, love affair...whatever you want to call it, is: arugula and parmesan reggiano.  yep. love em'.

I love these individually, or collectively.  I love them raw, sautéed, as a garnish, as a main, on sandwiches, in salads, with eggs... I'm literally trying to work these two ingredients into everything I eat. I'm crazed.

so today for lunch, I had an arugula salad with raw pecans, a fresh pear (cubed), and shaved parmesan reggiano.  I made a dressing with the juice of 1/2 a lemon, 1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar and fresh ground pepper.  yum.

well, lunch wasn't enough to satisfy my craving so for dinner tonight I had an open faced runny egg sandwich on multi grain toast with (you guessed it) arugula and parmesan reggiano... all topped with fresh ground pepper.  not only was this a super tasty dinner, it only had 365 calories and that includes the half of banana i had for dessert! 

anyone who says eating healthy is difficult because healthy food is bland and unflavorful...I'd beg to differ!  Since I started being conscious of what I put into my body over the last 3 years, I have had better food and more enjoyable flavors than ever before.  I'm so thankful for food that is not only good for you, but tastes amazing as well!  cheers to flavor and health! :)

.st. patrick's day recap.

I hope everyone enjoyed St. Patrick's Day and that it was filled with good friends, good food, and good luck!  Over here at the Hamlet house, we had an absolutely wonderful day!

I spent most of the day getting ready for the party, running errands, making crafts... here's me on the way to the store in my oh so comfy Ireland sweatshirt from my wonderful in-laws!  I got this official, authentic sweatshirt in the mail a couple days ago to celebrate this glorious holiday! This is straight from Ireland, as Casper's parents went on vacation there last summer... my mother in law continues to surprise us with Ireland souvenirs and I'm loving it!  Thank you so much! :)

The day flew past as I was party prepping, and dealing with a very sick Charlotte (who is at the vet today getting all checked out)... so before I knew it, our wonderful friends were arriving and we had such a fun time celebrating old traditions and making new ones with the people we are blessed to do life with!  Enjoy the photo montage below of the our first annual St. Patrick's Day Party!

I made large clovers out of magazine cutouts and decorative paper that had a lot of green color to them. Then I scattered them all of the house as if a little Leprechaun had visited our home.

just in case someone forgot to wear green, I make clover pins for people to wear to add to the festiveness! I also have a 2nd degree burn on my thumb due to a hot glue situation as I was making these!  :( Oh, I have to give Martha Stewart.com credit for these pins!

notice the bells of Ireland in the vase.  Not only a very appropriate choice for St. Patty's, but also a nostalgic choice because we used them in our wedding center pieces.

This beet salad was so good! Recipes to follow soon.

YUMMY Irish Stout Stew. Very Rustic with the various sized potatoes and baby peas. This was my first time making stew, and I really enjoyed it.  Recipe for this to come soon as well! :)

Irish Soda Bread made by the best cook/baker I know and also a very Irish man, Tyler Murphy! Thank you so much for the contribution! I'm glad the left-overs are at my house, I've already had 2 slices today! Great with Jam as well! (so glad my mother in law makes the best homemade strawberry jam... it was a hit Kelley!)

I LOVE dolling up in my green attire! (I changed my clothes 4 times yesterday... I really love green.)

beautiful friends that we have! I love you Shannon.

Michael read us an Irish folk tale about St. Patrick! Thank you for sharing with us Michael! :)

This is Tyler Murphy. Very Irish. So Irish that he brought actual dirt from Ireland where his ancestors are buried. 

PATRICK! Obviously a great name for such a day! He wins for best outfit.  Full GREEN suit. and yes, on the inside of that jacket there are men playing polo! love it.

Oh Alex!  love the pose! and we discovered that Alex has many hidden talents that could be useful to put on a resume.

Al and Cherilyn. i love them. and I am sorry Cherilyn that we didn't watch the Leprechaun movie... maybe next year?!? :)

Michael and Bethany. Could they be any cuter? and i love the hat! Oh, and they win because their sister in law is from Ireland... they even went there for the wedding! :)

my love, the one and only Shannon LeMasters. (but maiden name is Millen, which could have been McMillen, which probably makes her Irish!)

there we are! the hamlets... a little classier than last year... and Char still hates getting dressed up!

HILARIOUS! her bow tie was all glitter this year... and she wanted to eat it! 

We matched! :)  and I always love an excuse to wear these ballet flats because they are the ones I wore under my wedding dress! :)

HAPPY ST. PATRICKS DAY TO ALL!

.kiss someone irish (i know i'm gonna).

Happy St. Patrick's Day! (how creepy is that picture?!?!)

I love today!  Green everywhere... people celebrating... an excuse to have a party! Which, we are doing just that... tonight!  Every year Casper and I have celebrated together by making a special meal and dressing Charlotte up in something absurd... so as we will continue our current traditions, we also thought it would be wonderful to have some friends over to join the festivities of Irish-ness. I am running out to the store in a just a few to get all the groceries to make Irish Stout Stew, Beet Salad, and other green/Irish treats.  A couple friends are bringing Irish fare as well so it's cooking up to be a great day ahead!  Also, I will be making decor for the house today so stay tuned for tomorrow's post to see all the green festivities that will unfold!

Oh, and before I go... make sure you kiss someone Irish today!  I kiss someone Irish everyday, but today he may just a get a few extra! :)

.spring hasn't sprung, but it started springing.

Hooray for 55 degrees!  who knew 55 could feel like 80 degrees after a long winter! (I know I just got back from 100 degrees in Africa... but it's still so good to see the sunshine in Indiana).

To celebrate this beautiful day... Charlotte and I went on our first run of the season!  She loved her life so much... but we did find that she is a bit out of shape... she couldn't keep up with her mom!

Also, she decided it was a good idea to go swimming in the pond on campus... without asking me first if she could go in!  but once I saw how happy she was swimming around in the nasty smelly water, I couldn't really be mad at her.

So if you haven't been outside yet... get out there!  Don't waste the sunshine or take it for granted... it's so nice to feel the warmth on your face, and squint your eyes from the bright glow that almost seems foreign after all these months... enjoy it and soak it up because I'm not sure that spring has officially sprung. For now though, I'll take what I can get!

.st. patty's inspired wish list.

With one of my very favorite holidays coming upon us, I've found myself drawn to all things green!  St. Patrick's Day has always been one of my favorite holidays, solely for the reason that I could wear as much green at one time as I wanted and not be out of line or absurd!  Ok, maybe I still look absurd and ridiculous, but at least I have an explanation to fall back on.  Then, almost 3 lovely years ago the most amazing thing happened to me... yea, I married Casper, but what that means is I married into a full blown, loud and proud Irish family! JACK POT!  Now I'm surrounded with a whole group of people who share my affection for the greenest day all year (and actually, they love it even more than I do and have only inspired me to be more ridiculous).  So with that said, I put together this little wish list to kick off a week of celebrating the Irish... they are sassy, determined, green loving, good food eating, guinness drinking people that I happen to love!

I'm ordering these pretties from Etsy! here!

this cookbook would be a perfect kick off to
spring! find it here at anthropologie.

 

I'm in love with this herb mill by Microplane! It would be so handy!
Find it here at Williams-Sonoma.

these are just absurd... but i love them!
Find them from Marc Jacobs here. 

I've always wanted one of these tea kettles from Chantal. find it here.

Finally, what I like to call the Holy Grail of purses, this work of art is from the Spring Cole Haan collection and I am head over heels.  It's huge, green, and Cole Haan... what more could I want? Except I unfortunately wince every time I look at the price tag.  This is why it is on a WISH list. a girl can dream, right?!? find it here. 

.across the world and back.

As most of you know, Casper and I are just returning from a two and a half week trip that took us all over the country of Mali in Western Africa, and then a 4 day stint in Paris on our way back to the states.  The entire time we were gone, I was itching to blog.  So many things were happening, and my eyes were being opened to a new world of people, places, culture, customs, fashion and so much more... I couldn't contain myself in the midst of all the new inspiration... the blog ideas started to pile up in my head!

Now, I'm home.  and although there is so much I want to share, I'm having hard time figuring out how I want to share it.  I feel changed; different in so many ways.  I've seen, heard, tasted, and touched things I didn't even know existed prior to the last 3 weeks of my life.  So how do I begin to process and unpack all of this? I'm not quite sure.  I'm such an external processor, yet I want so badly to communicate in the best way possible so I can utilize my blog as a way to give all of you a window into what Casper and I were privileged to experience. 

I ask that you please be patient with me as I discern how to share all that the Lord allowed me to see!  But get excited for beautiful stories, people, and of course culture and fashion! More to come soon, but here are a few pictures to highlight our trip! :) (photos courtesy of my oh so talented husband!)

and Paris photos coming soon... :)

.africa bound.

local Malian women. i love the colors.

yes. you read that title correctly... as of tomorrow morning, Casper and I are Africa bound!  (it's still crazy to say that out loud... I can't believe we will be in Africa a couple days from now).

see it up there in the yellow... the top half of the country is part of the Sahara desert.

We have the amazing opportunity to travel to Mali, Africa, on the north-western side of the continent, for a two week trip that will take us all over the country.  Casper and I are going with Christian and Missionary Alliance , which is the denomination I work for... and they happen to be a group that is passionate about and committed to bringing the truth and love of the Gospel all over the world.  We will arrive in Bamako, Mali (the capital) on Friday evening and then hit the ground running for the next 2 weeks.  We are going with a group of 7 people, some of them are pastors as well, and our primary task is to cultivate relationships with missionaries and locals all over the country and the various ministries they are leading and participating in.  Casper and I have a more specific agenda which is to combine our love for writing and photography to capture stories in Mali, both through word and image.  We will be documenting the trip, the people, and the places by taking photographs and interviewing people so we can bring this information home with us and create a book about Mali.  This book will be a means for people, and churches to connect with the heart of Mali and hopefully provide insight so people will jump on board with the needs in this region. It's an overwhelming task, but we couldn't be more thrilled or honored for the opportunity to do this.  

the Niger river, which runs through the country.  

Mali is one of the poorest countries in the world... bordering the Sahara Desert on the North side, causing the population to be densely located in the lower half of the country.  We will be traveling throughout various cities and villages... interacting with several tribes and multiple languages (there is not  one main language for the country, as most tribes have stayed committed to their individual language). It will be around 100 degrees the entire time we are there, and it is a very very DRY heat (hense the Sahara Desert).  We will visit missionary families, tribes and villages, a women's and children's hospital, and orphanages while we are there.  The vast array of people and places we will encounter is a bit overwhelming and hard to wrap my mind around.  In some ways 2 weeks seems like a long time to be away from home, but such a short time to get a window into the lives of Malians.  

We also will visit a couple "landscape musts" while we are there... swimming in waterfalls, and taking a boat ride down the Niger river!  (PRAYING that I don't have to see a crocodile... I may throw up if I do)!

an actual picture of the boat rides on the Niger River... we will be in a boat like this most likely.

So, how are we feeling?  Well, we are excited, anxious, overwhelmed, thrilled... we're lots of things right now.  This trip is hands down going to change our lives... and that truth is heavy and hard to digest but at the same time it's so exhilarating to get to experience this adventure.  

How can you be praying?  Honestly, please pray first and foremost for the hearts of the people we will meet.  Pray that they are open to us as people, and as Christians.  Pray that the language barrier and cultural differences would bare no weight on the depth of relationships we can develop while we're there.  Practically speaking... pray for the culture shock we will experience.  I am having a harder time with this than Casper... but I'm honestly petrified of what it will be like when we arrive concerning food, cleanliness, bathrooms, sleeping, cultural view of women, especially a woman pastor.  I am afraid of getting sick, or not sleeping, or not eating...I'm kind of looking forward to not washing my hair or wearing make up for a change... but all of this to say, there are a lot of trivial things that could distract me from why we are there... so pray that those things seem silly and meaningless compared to what God is doing through our team.  Speaking of our team, pray that we are unified in heart and purpose... I really expect that God is going to bind us together and build us into a family.  I'm excited to build these new life-long relationships. Pray for our camera equipment and our luggage... theft is common and lost bags are even more common.  Pray for the flights, details, traveling around the country... all the logistics.  AND finally, pray for God's agenda to be accomplished in the lives of the Malians, the missionaries, and in our lives. I trust His plan.

FINALLY (sorry this post is so long, but I'll be gone for 3 weeks people, I have to get it all out)... but lastly, on a lighter note since this blog so often serves as an avenue for me to communicate about my view and love of fashion, I thought I'd share this next part, just in case you were wondering what will I be wearing in Mali?!?!?! :)  Well, I'm quite excited about the opportunity to change up my typical style.  There are obviously cultural differences in what women are allowed in wear, so long skirts and loose tops will be my staples for two weeks... but I have found creative ways to style it up... I still need to feel like me, even if I'm half way across the world! :)  Here are some examples of my outfits (oh, and how perfect is it that Anthropologie is on a Safari kick... perfect timing and perfect inspiration):

this is my INSPIRATION.

I bought both of these skirts, as well as various printed skirts from goodwill! :)

t-shirts and button ups... both COTTON since it's 100 stinkin' degrees!

  

lots of scarves, because in some villages, I may need a covering.

lots and lots of belts.

So, I'm a bundle of emotions, covering every stage and extreme on the spectrum... but I'm most of all feeling so blessed to get this experience... and to share it with my sweet Caspy!  Thanks for your support, prayers, and love!  WE WILL MISS ALL OF YOU SO MUCH! 

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