My wife has never been an avid fan of my cooking. I make a chicken and potatoes dish that she loves, but that's about all. For a few years, she has been very reluctant to let me fire up the grill. I have, on occasion, hosted barbeques and received compliments on my grilling ability, but she is still concerned that I will overcook the food (she likes it blood).

Monday afternoon, we started walking. We drove to town and parked in the armory parking lot. We walked up West College to Marshall; Marshall to West Marvin; West Marvin to South Wood. Then we turned around and took West Marvin back to South Main; South Main to West College; West College back to the armory. Our forty-five minute walk was very refreshing and we decided we would commit to doing it every afternoon (if possible).

Monday, as we were coming down West College on the home stretch, we smelled someone grilling. It was a wonderful smell - as though spring were making its debut. Since we already had ham and beans in the crock pot at home, we decided we wouldn't change the meal plan but we would lay out some pork steaks to grill on Tuesday.

After our walk on Tuesday, we decided to drive the route we had been walking to see just how far we were actually going. My wife thought we may have walked 1.3 miles; I told her it was probably more like 1.5. Don't trust us to judge distances! When we pulled back into the armory parking lot, we had gone exactly 2.3 miles. Wow . . . were we impressed - but not nearly as impressed as Jessica was with my grilled pork steaks! And she made some awesome smashed potatoes to go with them!

Yesterday was our third day to walk and my second day to grill. After school, I went to Wal-Mart to pick up some pictures, and while I was there I bought a bag of Sweet Tart jelly beans. On the way home, I stopped at Sonic to pick up our daily Route 44 lemon slushes. By the time Jessica and Ella were home, I had my candy and slush in hand and I was ready to walk!

Halfway through our walk, Jessica flipped out because I was eating candy, so she grabbed the whole bag and dumped it in someone's flowerbed. I was so angry - she wasted $1.66 worth of candy! Her argument was that as long as I was eating it, I was wasting my time walking. My argument was that if I ate it while I was walking, it wouldn't be as harmful as eating it while sitting. It made perfect sense to me! Anyway, since she had wasted my candy, she decided to run by Wal-Mart to replace it.

In our Life Plan, we identified trips to Wal-Mart as an area of weakness, so we addressed it in our financial covenant. We decided that, besides our monthly shopping trip, we would limit additional trips to emergency situations only. I broke the rule first by going after school and spending over $20 on pictures, a frame, and candy. Then she broke the rule second (and worse) when she went back after walking. You see, the second part of our Wal-Mart weakness is that we spend more when we're together; I usually spend less by myself because I only get what I went for. So instead of letting me go in to get the candy (or instead of her going in by herself, since I smelled like sweat and didn't want to be seen in public), she made us all go in.

Our mission: replace the candy and get hamburger buns. However, as we continued to aimlessly wander the aisles of the store, we found more and more things we could buy. It didn't help that I was hungry and thinking about what I could grill. I started with shrimp. On Tuesday, I had had the ribs and shrimp combo at Logan's Roadhouse, and I decided that I wanted to try grilling shrimp. We got a bag of large shrimp, an onion, a pepper, and grape tomatoes. We also got lettuce, tomatoes and cheese for our hamburgers and for Life Group. Candy and hamburger buns could have been carried out in one hand, but the items we ended up with took two bags. Mission accomplished, and then some!

Jessica made a butter, cavenders and garlic salt glaze for the shrimp; I also put it on the burgers. With half a lemon squeezed over the skewers, the meal was complete! Between the two of us, we had over forty shrimp, two burgers, and the leftover potatoes from pork night. It was amazing! And I definitely scored some points with the wife!

I think my next grilling project will be ribs. We watched Emeril on Tuesday night. He showed an easy way to tenderize ribs and a glaze that looked awesome. I can't wait to try them. I think I'll grill some shrimp to go with them . . . maybe just half the bag this time!