Best Ever PB&J

I know this is kind of a silly thing, but the other day I was making myself a PB&J sandwich for lunch and I realized that I am very particular about how I make it. Then, I realized that I've had whole conversations with others about the best way to make said sandwich. It's strange, but it seems like everyone has an opinion when it comes to this delightfully simple recipe. And this is just my 2 cents.


What you'll need:

2 slices of Whole Grain bread - You know, the more expensive kind that comes in the shape of a rectangle, not a square - there's more to enjoy this way...

“You know that Pepperidge Farm bread, that stuff is fancy. That stuff is wrapped twice. You open it, and then still ain't open. That's why I don't buy it, I don't need another step between me and toast.” - Mitch Hedberg

Unlike Mr. Hedberg, I think this bread is worth the extra effort.
1 jar of CRUNCHY Peanut Butter - I'm not even going to dignify the opposing, "Creamy Peanut Butter" argument with a debate here - Crunchy is definitely where it's at. End. Of. Story.
1 jar of Jam - Personally, I'm a fan of Strawberry but the flavor is up to you. The only real requirement is that you use jam, and NOT jam's under-achieving, texture-less, watered-down cousin (jelly).
1 Butter Knife - I'll address the "cross-contamination" issue later, but I've heard the 2-knife argument and there is just no need for that ridiculousness.


Instructions:

Start with the jam. For oh-so-many reasons, this is the absolute only acceptable order. First reason: if you start with jam and you scrape the knife on the sides of the jar before moving onto the PB, you can avoid almost all of the contamination risks! Second, even if you do end up with some contamination (I, for one, welcome it!), having a little jam in your PB is the right way to go! PB in the jam, however, is just gross! And, if someone in your family has a peanut allergy, and you always make your sandwich in this order, you don't have to worry about mistakenly sending them into an allergic reaction when they go for their toast w/ jam at breakfast!

I like to spread about 2 "globs" of jam on to the bread. I'd give you this amount in Tablespoons, but c'mon, like you're going to get your measuring spoons out to make a sandwich. Spread the jam out to make a nice even layer across the bread. I like to leave a little room from the edge of the bread so that when the sandwich starts "squishing", the jam doesn't drip off the edges. This is especially important if you are, despite my expert advice, going ahead with using jelly.

Now add your peanut butter. I shoot for about a 60/40 ratio between the PB/Jam. However, I have had hankerings some days for more of a peanut-buttery, 70/30 ratio. I find that those sandwiches are still excellent, just make sure you have a tall glass of milk handy.

Now, assemble your creation and prepare to be amazed. Enjoy! I'd love to hear your comments/arguments on this topic!

House: Ready to Throw in the Towel!

Remember when I excitedly posted about the great house we found? Well, after an agonizing two-month wait, we finally just heard back from the seller's bank, and we did not get it. Apparently, they won't approve anything unless the sellers cover the remaining balance on the mortgage, i.e. "we're forcing this one to go into foreclosure". Bummer.

I am just so very ready to finally settle down in a place, that is ours. And plant a real vegetable garden. And play music without the worry that the guy living below us will be annoyed that I'm playing the same 3 songs on repeat for 8 hours. And mow the lawn. And paint rooms. And give my dog the leash-less freedoms that come with a fenced in yard! And meet our neighbors. And finally unpack, for real this time.

Ok, whining over. Resting in El Shaddai, "the all-sufficient One", and moving on.

We're seeing more places on Saturday. And we've got 3 more months left on our apartment lease, so there's still time. (And, we could go month-to-month on our lease after that, if we need to....)

Australia, Part II

I told Aaron before we got to Australia that if we came back with nothing else, the only tangible thing I wanted to get on this trip was a picture of me holding a koala. After our diving adventure, we went in search of a koala to hold. We found one at the zoo in Cairns. To be more specific, we went to "Night Zoo" where they bring out all the nocturnal animals.

Here's the little fella I got to cuddle:

His name is Kai, and he was super cute and sleepy.

At the zoo, we also saw crocodiles and kangaroos!

After we got back to the city, we turned on the news and heard about the earthquake in Christchurch. We watched the coverage on the devastation, both to the city itself and the people. So many lives lost and missing. We watched with heavy hearts. Then we realized that we had a lot to be thankful for.

When we were planning this trip way back in August, we were polling our friends and family on what we should do - either go to the Great Barrier Reef or visit the south island of New Zealand. We decided to do the GBR, obviously. But, had we decided to do the south island, we most likely would have flown into Christchurch and still been in the city when the quake hit. Scary stuff.

Australia, Part I

Aaron and I just got back from our trip last night, and we are tired! A full day of flying along with a 19-hour time change is a lot to get through.

But, our trip was amazing. I had the absolute best time of my life. I am so glad we did this.

I'm slowly uploading pictures and writing blog posts (as well as getting back into the swing of things at work and home), so this is just the first part of our trip recap.

We were only in Australia for 3 days, but it feels like we packed a lot in. We spent 2 of those 3 days on a boat in the Pacific, floating right on the Great Barrier Reef. We did a 2-day "liveaboard" diving trip, where you actually spend a night on the boat so you can save time by not having to head back to shore. We did 6 dives in total, including one dive AT NIGHT!

It was like an underwater playground. So much to see and explore, I loved it. Each dive was no longer than 45 minutes, and they all ended far too quickly. We saw countless beautiful fish, fantastic coral formations, bright-colored giant clams, plants that danced and moved, bioluminescent algae, etc etc! The best part, by far, were the sea turtles. I've ooh'd and ahh'd about this on facebook already, but I thought I would share the actual story here.

By the last dive of our trip, many of the other folks on our boat had seen various super cool animals: turtles, sharks, sting rays. But Aaron and I had not seen any of these! (not completely true - we had seen 2 turtles on our night dive, but they were sleeping and we couldn't really get close to them) We were definitely on a mission to see something really cool before we headed back to shore. We were at the end of said last dive and I had just signaled to Aaron that I was almost out of air and we should head toward the surface. We slowly made our ascent, just checking out what was going on at the very top of the reef we were on.

We were only at a depth of about 3 meters, just about to surface, when I saw the large sea turtle swimming a circle around the top of the reef. He had just gone behind a rock, and I was trying to point him out to Aaron (the camera man), who was still ascending. Now, trying to get someone's attention when you're diving (and they're not within arm's reach) can be pretty difficult because you're not usually looking at each other and your peripherals are limited by your mask. I basically just flailed my arms, screamed into my regulator, and started knocking on my tank. It worked and I just started pointing at the rock he was behind and frantically gave Aaron the underwater sign for "turtle". Eventually, he came back out from his hiding place, and we actually got to swim with him for a bit & snap a few pictures.

It was amazing. I just felt so lucky to have that experience with nature, however brief.

Adventures in Investing

It's been about a year since Toyota starting having problems with claims that their vehicles were unsafe. Shortly after these claims surfaced (and their stock's value dropped considerably), we decided to buy a handful of shares. Luckily, we happened to buy at just about the perfect time:

Other buys we've made have not worked out quite so well. Our first joint ventures into the market (S&P index funds) were bought in September 2008 and then again in February 2009. Both of these investments were swiftly followed by large drops in the market:

Oh well, these are supposed to be long-term investments anyway. And, hindsight is always 20/20 :)

New Zealand: 1 Week!

In 8 days, we are getting on a plane that will take us to Australia.

Two days after that, we will be boarding a boat that will drop us off in the Great Barrier reef, where we will descend to a depth of 40-60ft below the surface and encounter many animals we have never seen before. Some beautiful, some terrifying.

About 8 days after that, we will be getting on another, much smaller plane that will take us 14,000ft above New Zealand, push us out the door, and watch us free-fall back to Earth.

That is the plan anyway.

I am thoroughly terrified by both of these ideas.

I'm afraid I'm going to encounter a really dangerous animal in the reef.
I'm afraid of being that deep below the surface.
I'm afraid of my equipment malfunctioning.
I'm afraid that I won't know what I'm doing when I'm diving.

I'm afraid there will be a parachute failure during my skydive.
I'm afraid of looking down from 14,000ft.
I'm afraid that we'll have a hard landing.
I'm afraid that my tandem partner won't know what they're doing.

Before we went to Alaska, I had these same kind of fears about camping in Denali. I had nightmares most nights leading up to our trip that we would see and/or be mauled by a bear in the wild. I had read all the statistics on fatal Grizzly Bear attacks (notice there are none in Denali...), reviewed the park's information about Bear & Wildlife Safety, and studied the Human-Bear Conflict Management guides. Despite the underwhelming number of incidents and the endless resources for survival, I was still ridden with fear before we embarked on our wilderness camping experience.

Once we were actually out there, in the wild, I was able to put my fears aside by focusing on the one thing that never fails to motivate me: our kids. Ok, so we don't have kids yet, I am aware of that. But, I always think about being able to tell our kids someday about all the cool stuff we have done. Climbing a mountain. Being chased by a moose. Camping in the wild with wolves and bears, oh my!

So these days when I have nightmares about being attacked by a shark, or falling to my death, I just stop and think about how glad I am that I didn't let the paralyzing effect of fear get in the way of my experience in Alaska.

New Zealand: 2 Weeks!

In case you're wondering... Are we excited about our trip?...

YES!

New Zealand: 3 Weeks!

I have an app on my phone called "Countdown" that has all the important and/or exciting dates we have coming up, and it is probably my most frequently used app on my phone! I check this app every morning when I first wake up (I know, that's ridiculous). I have a countdown (or three!) for our upcoming trip to New Zealand, and I love it every morning when I check the time left to our big trip and there's so little time left!

We still have so much to decide on, plan, and book! So far, we have our plane tickets and a reservation to go diving in the reef. And yep, that's it. We're planning to leave a fair number of days wide open in case our plans change slightly and we decide to stay in a city for an extra day or anything like that. But still, we have a lot of work left to do! We still need to at least find hotels, a rental car, and some more activities to fill up our 2 weeks there, even if we don't make the reservations beforehand.

This trip is the second part of the travel plans on our "Baby Bucket List" (Alaska was the first part). This list is different than the Bucket List on this blog, it's a more concise, travel-centric list of places we want to visit before we settle down and start our family! We feel that getting these experiences out of the way now while we have the time and money is important for us and feeling "ready".

And the coolest part is that we're going to get to tell our kids about all these cool experiences we've had! (Crossing our fingers that they will think they're as cool as we do!)

House...?

If you've known us for very long, then you know that we very much would like to buy a house. And you may know that we've been trying to buy a house (or various houses) for almost 2 years now. It has been a journey, and we have learned a lot throughout this whole process, including the fact that God's timing is perfect :)

When we first attempted to buy a house, we were determined to make it happen (and quickly). Nothing was going to come between us and a house. Oh how naive we were! Our several attempts at buying a home failed because of one reason or another: the seller's bank took forever and then decided they needed $10,000 more, or our bank wouldn't secure a loan for the house because it was in a partially commercial building, or the house just plain sold to someone else. As hard as we tried to buy a house, God tried harder to stop us. It took a while for us to actually slow down and hear Him saying "not yet".

These days, we are still trying to buy a home, but we go about it very differently. We find a house we like, and then we pray "Lord, if this is the home You want us to live in, if this is Your will, please make it clear". Then, if we put an offer in and it doesn't work out, we say "Praise God for answering our prayer!" Ok, maybe it's not quite like that. There may or may not be a little moping that happens first, but eventually, we are thankful that He is in control because we know whatever He has in store for us is going to be awesome!

So recently, we found a house we like. And we put an offer in. And we prayed. And so far, we have an accepted offer! The home is a short sale, so we still need to get the offer approved by the seller's bank (which could take weeks or even months). But for now, we are rejoicing :)

Our 2011 Goals

Hello, New Year!

This past year has been a really great year for the Wimmers, but we are SO pumped about 2011! Amongst other things, we will be going on a dream vacation to New Zealand and (hopefully) buying our first home! Yeah!

Since it is a brand new year, we decided to set some brand new goals. Aaron and I have always been fairly goal-oriented, but it didn't really "click" for me until I read Dave Ramsey's book, "More than Enough". In it, he first quotes Proverbs 29:18, "Where there is no vision, the people perish." Then, he goes on to say:

Perish as in die? Yes. When we surrender vision, we surrender our dreams, our hopes, and reach a despair or, worse yet, a level of apathy as thick as syrup.

When I read the rest of this chapter, I was totally inspired. I was traveling for work and reading this book on the plane, and when I got to my hotel that night, I called Aaron right away and we started brainstorming some goals. One of the things Dave recommends is to set a big goal first, like a really crazy and wild one, and then set smaller goals or baby steps that lead to it. For us, this goal started out something like "Have the freedom to do whatever we want". Very generic. In the book, Dave states that any good goal must:

1) Be YOUR goals, not someone else's idea or suggestion. You must own the goal.
2) Be measurable. Convert your goal into a number so it's measurable. Measurability in money is alright if money isn't your only motivator. Try to measure your vision in something other than dollars.
3) Be written down. There is something powerful that God does for you when you force your thoughts onto paper.
4) Have a time limit. Monthly, weekly, daily, or even yearly is fine but there needs to be a finish line.

Love this! Ok so our goal evolved into something like "Be salary-independent by the time we are 40, so we can spend more quality time with our family and travel the world". Which we then broke down into smaller, more imminent goals around budgeting expenses (and sticking to them!), saving for a healthy down payment on a house, contributing to a college fund, and building passive income. And some of these goals we reached in 2010! Hence, why we're coming up with new ones for 2011!

And, we haven't just created financial goals, we've also talked about personal and spiritual ones too. Like "Grow spritually" (I don't like to translate this goal into something number-related, I like to just leave it open like that and then decide at the end of the year whether I did this or not). However, I did write down some more measurable sub-goals or action items like "join a Bible study or small group". And, my personal goal for this year is to "get more organized!" I'm currently going through all of the super messy areas in our apartment and organizing them as part of the 21 Days to Getting Organized Challenge at A Bowl Full of Lemons. More on that later...