Not really a blog-worthy recipe, but...

...I wanted to share it with you anyway.

I read all these amazing cooking related blogs and am so impressed. And while I will never even strive to be 10% the cooks that they/you all are, I still want to share a recipe every so often. I am sharing this one because of its pure simplicity.

As a lover of chicken pot pies, I am constantly searching for and trying out recipes that are both easy & good. And I finally found one.

Now, you cooking type people, don't laugh. I warned you that this was basic.

As with most online recipes, I found this one on allrecipes.com

Ingredients

• 1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie (I used great value, deep dish pie crusts)
  
• 2 cups frozen mixed vegetables
• 2 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, boiled
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/2 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of celery soup (I substituted cream of chicken)
  
• 1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of potato soup

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Line a 9 inch pie dish with pastry.
2. Blanch frozen mixed vegetables for 3 to 4 minutes. Drain.
3. Dice chicken and place in a large bowl. Add vegetables, thyme, celery soup and potato soup. Stir together.
4. Pour filling into pastry lined pie dish. Arrange top layer of pie crust, seal and flute the edges. Cut slits in the top of the crust to allow for steam to escape.
5. Place pie on cookie sheet. Put aluminum foil around the pie crust edges. Bake at 400 degrees F (200 degrees C) for 30 minutes. Remove foil and continue to bake for an additional 30 minutes until golden brown. Remove from oven and let stand for 5 minutes and then serve.

I wish I would have taken a picture. It was so yummy! The best part, besides the crust, was that the "inside" wasn't runny. I hate a watery, runny inside. haha

garage sale - round 2 - success?

After last week's weather failure, we decided to do the garage sale again. Remembering that last Friday we had 3 customers all day, I would say that one week makes a big difference because we had 3 customers within the first 15 minutes yesterday. And I made twice as much yesterday than I did all weekend of round 1. Sure, it was still only $67, but still... So what really made the difference? We decided to do a newspaper ad this time and the weather was absolutely perfect yesterday, which was much better compared to last Friday's torrential rain & frigid temperatures.

Today is Saturday and we have reached desperation levels. We want this stuff gone. You should see the deals I am making with people today. I'm a regular old Monty Hall!

Promises

In my attempt to become a better blogger, I realize I need to post more often. And so I'm just going to do it. I am not going to think so much about what might make a great blog post, I'm just going to type whatever I am doing at that moment, or whatever I am thinking about, etc. So here goes.

I started attending a new bible study today and the topic is Joshua. This is actually one of the few books of the bible I've read through many times because it is only the 6th book, and nearly every year I start a read-thru-the-bible reading program, and although I never make it very far, I always get through Joshua. But I've never done a study on it. Until now.

I wasn't sure I was going to participate in this study or not, so I didn't do my homework prior to today, which is a no-no. I'm kidding. Fortunately we have a really good teacher/facilitator and she doesn't slap our hands if we aren't prepared. It is really helpful when everyone is, so I promise I will next week. and you can keep me accountable.

Today, being the first day, was mostly an intro of the book. We delved into some background info beginning in Genesis with the call of Abram (12:1-7) and God's covenant with Abram (15:1-16), Exodus 3:7-8, and God's command to go in & take possession of the promised land in Deuteronomy 1:6-8. In all these verses and especially Deuteronomy 34:4, God is repeating over and over again, his promise of the land. Why does he repeat this over and over again? Because we are human. We need constant reminders in all areas of life (grocery lists, birthday parties, paying bills), but especially for the big stuff. And so hearing & reading the historical perspective of these events, reminds us of God's promises, and most importantly the fulfillment of them.

So I am excited to study Joshua to hear the story of God bringing his redeemed people into the land he promised to them. If you want to join in, we are using "Joshua: All God's Good Promises" by Kathleen Buswell Nielson.

One last thing, teacher Sandy asked us all to talk about how God has prepared us for where we are in life right now. whoa! thought-provoking, isn't it? Usually I am really dumbfounded to come up with a good answer, but today something came to me quickly. My marriage. I think that God has really prepared me/us well for this new venture of church planting by giving us a strong marriage. No, it hasn't always been super easy and fun, but we are really blessed to never have had any major (marital) problems. We just simply work well together. Yes, we have communication issues and little tiffs here and there, but we have never had a major fight or trust issues or anything big. And we know this is nothing other than a miracle, a gift from God, because left to ourselves, we would completely fail, and probably kill each other. I'm kidding! (about the killing part.) So I think God has prepared us for a lot of rough times we may face in life by giving our marriage a strong foundation. I mean, we've already been through some really hard times through infertility, and so far, our marriage has stayed very solid. I honestly believe that if it wasn't strong before we began this trial, it probably would have fallen apart. I thank God everyday for my husband.

Ok, so that had nothing to do with Joshua, but I wanted to throw it in there anyway!

Garage Sale

I attempted my first garage sale this past weekend. It was a failure.

I could just leave it at that, but I know you all want more. So I'll start at the beginning.

Eight months ago we moved to Norman, Oklahoma. We found out that we have a lot of stuff. Way too much stuff. So I began to purge. Our recliner came in a gigantic box, so I set that up in the garage and everything I decided we didn't need went in there. Soon, the box was overflowing. I began talking to some friends and we decided to have a joint sale. You know, so we could put "multi-family" in our advertisement. We picked May 14 & 15 to be the dates and began sorting & pricing. Our garage was the dumping zone, and the plan was to start really early Friday morning to pull it all out into the garage and set it up. Well... it stormed all during the night Thursday into Friday. and it never stopped raining until Friday evening. We had to keep everything in the garage, so to say that it was crowded is an understatement. and our three customers did not have much room to walk around.

Did I mention that we only had THREE customers? All day.

We had fun though and laughed about it, hoping Saturday would be MUCH better. well, it doesn't take much to improve on three customers. but it still wasn't great. It didn't rain, but it was cold & cloudy. some friends from church came, so it looked like we had customers. and a couple of our neighbors came over, so that was really great to meet/get to know them!

I did the final calculations Saturday evening and after the permit, cost of signs, etc, I officially made $31. pathetic. My one friend make $32. and the third friend made -$10. yes, negative ten dollars! We have no idea how this happened. She didn't really buy much from us (maybe $2 or $3 worth) and she paid for part of the permit ($3), but I saw her sell some stuff. So where did the money go?!?! no one will ever know... haha!!

Here are a couple pics of our junk, I mean, wares:



















I wasn't kidding when I said we were crowded.





































And a pic of two of the saleswomen. I am in garage sale clothes & lack of make-up, and Liz is all dressed up because she was on her way to graduate from OU! Our third friend, Janna, kept running from the camera.



















I think we may try again this weekend. If so, wish us luck. we need it!

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starting to make some changes to my blog. hoping I don't lose all previous content.