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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we are busy people

since my last post we have spent a week in florida with my parents, had lots of people over to our house, planted a little garden, bought a new tv, done lots of cleaning & yard work, had a broken water pipe, got the stomach flu again (yes, I know it's not really the flu), watched lots of basketball, and celebrated friends' birthdays & new jobs, wedding anniversaries (ours & my inlaws), and Easter.

I will do my best to highlight all of these events as quickly as possible.

An entire post on florida will be created once I get all the pictures transferred to my computer.

I do not have any pictures of our broken water pipe. are you disappointed? fortunately there really wasn't anything worthy of which to take a picture. it turned out to be a busted frozen pipe leading out to our outside spigot. it wasn't covered by our home warranty, but we were glad it was an easy fix and there was no damage to the house.

There are also no pictures from my second round of the stomach virus. I know you're not disappointed this time. just like a couple months ago, it was mostly a 24 hour situation. I had wanted to lose a couple pounds right before our florida trip, but this was not how I had planned to do so.

here is our little garden. the contents consist of tomatoes, parsley, cilantro, and several kinds of peppers.


















as far as yardwork, bobby has been planting more grass and I've purchased some flowers, but haven't planted them yet. we are also working on ripping out all the shrubs in front of our house. the ones that are here are way too big and ugly. today I worked on the side of our house. there were a bunch of bricks that at one time made a nice flower bed, I believe, but it looked awful. so I pulled them all out, along with the leaves and weeds, and leveled the ground. bobby planted some grass seed and I will put a big pot of flowers in the front soon. look better?

before:























after:























Friday I checked our bank account and saw that our federal tax money had been deposited, so we ran to Sam's and bought a new tv. This wasn't a complete impulse buy. we have wanted one ever since we moved here and we decided to wait til we got that big refund. in the meantime, I had done tons of research. We walked into the store and one hour later left with a much better tv than we had planned on buying for a couple hundred dollars less than we planned on paying. and we love it! (no, we did not steal it.) Here's a picture of our old set-up next to the new one. Can you say "upgrade?"



















This weekend was a very momentous one - not just because of the broken water pipe or the new tv, but we celebrated Bobby's parent's 34th wedding anniversary and the death & resurrection of Jesus. We began Friday with an AWESOME hymn sing / good friday service coordinated by Doug Serven, the RUF campus pastor at OU. and then Sunday, we had a nice service at church (singing Joy to the World!) followed by dinner at our house. my sister in law, mindy, & her husband were also here.

bobby and I in our Easter outfits. I planned mine for weeks, and when he threw on a navy suit that did not match my black outfit, I was not pleased.


















but I got over it quickly and grabbed paisley because she matched me. :)


















another funny story about these pictures - I had washed my hair the night before and sunday morning, I wanted to do something a little more special so I put it in hot rollers, then curled pieces all over. this picture was taken 15 minutes later. do you see all the lovely curls?!?!?!?! ugh.

happy anniversary to these two:


















bobby and caleb playing wii baseball:


















ok, I've got to go now, the men's ncaa basketball championship game is about to start! I have been a duke fan since elementary school, and they are in the finals. this past saturday night, they played *and defeated* west virginia. I was a bit torn, since we just spent the past two years there while bobby got his MA, as you can see in this picture:




















but duke won and now I am so excited to be cheering them on tonight! go BLUE DEVILS!!!

a day in the life of ME

for all the inquiring minds out there who wonder what in the world I do all day, here it is.

first, a little background info...

ever since bobby and I got married, my life has been anything but routine or ordinary. I figure most people get up and go to the same job everyday of their life. that's what most people I knew growing up did. that's what I did shortly after graduating from college. I had a pretty great job (at the beginning) just north of pittsburgh and I figured I would do that everyday til I started having kids, then maybe even after that with the help of daycare, or whatever. and I would marry someone that did that also. maybe we could even carpool. haha. but my "prince charming" wasn't in pittsburgh, he was in oklahoma. but he did have the 9 to 5 job. so would we get married and both work 9 to 5 jobs together? nope. we moved to st louis for him to go to seminary. for four years bobby worked at the same job, but it was ups, so the hours changed a few times, and classes filled his off hours. and as for me, I was never able to find that stable 9 to 5 job for very long... I worked as a nanny/personal assistant, an admin, sort of a project manager, and then a travel agent/sales consultant... the goal was to make money to pay rent & bills while bobby worked to pay for seminary. our life was not ordinary.

then he graduated seminary and entered another masters program and we moved to a farm in a very rural county in southwest pennsylvania. sound ordinary to you? definately not. bobby was enrolled full-time and then had an assistant-ship as an academic advisor which paid for tuition. we were able to live rent-free so my need to work wasn't imminent. plus, there were a lot of animals/pets on this farm so I helped out when I could. (if you've read my blog for awhile you have seen lots of pictures of said animals that we miss so dearly!) it seemed like a pretty good setup for awhile. then the need arose for some additional income (aka doctor bills) so I took a job at our church. oh yeah, I forgot to mention that bobby was also the assistant pastor at our church and in charge of the youth group. soon we were both working at the same place, and once a dweek we carpooled to work! my dream came true. ha.

fast-forward to august 2009, our time in pennsylvania came to an end and we moved to oklahoma where bobby accepted the call (sounds better than "took a job") to be assistant pastor at our church / church planter apprentice. once again, I was upheaved from my job, familiar surroundings, people I knew, etc. what to do now?

here's where I finally get to the point of this post!

as many of you know, the only job I want right now is to be a SAHM. since that hasn't happened yet, I struggle daily with "my calling." I really do love the flexibility & freedom of not having a full-time job, which is really great when your husband is a pastor and has very erratic working hours. it's also great when you move to a new city because I can take time to explore the area, establish roots (whatever that means), hang out with & get to know people, and mostly set up our house because this is the first time we've ever owned our own home. so, what does my typical day look like? lately, I have been getting up around 730, make coffee, and bobby & I catch up on our social media outlets, read the news, blogs, devotions. then he goes to work and I finish my coffee & reading. (drinking coffee is a new thing to me, so I'm really enjoying it) then typically I clean the kitchen & bathrooms, workout in some capacity, shower, talk to my mom on her lunch break, then decide how to best utilize my afternoon hours. I've been trying to do a lot of home projects, so I usually have HGTV on while I'm cleaning out & organizing closets and/or the garage, painting trim or furniture, of course I spend lots of quality time with my furry friends, decorating/redecorating rooms, writing & rewriting my to-do list (which is always a mile long), bills, errands, grocery shopping, laundry, and before I know it, bobby is home from the office and it's dinnertime. (I'm also newly involved in a bible study which meets weds mornings.) I realize that what I do during the day, most people accomplish in the morning before they go to work or in the evenings, but our evenings usually do not allow for such things. and we keep a pretty late schedule so I would not be getting up any earlier to do them either. (I know... I would if I had to...) most wednesday nights we go to OURUF which doesn't end until 11 pm. that's just one of the community events that bobby likes to participate in. he really loves being with people all the time (a new development) so we have people over to our house all the time (which is great) but that proves that I need to spend a huge chunk of my day cleaning (and bobby is really messy. ha!)

this is quite a timely post because last night at small group (which bobby leads, here at our house) we talked about work & callings, specifically what proverbs has to say about the subject. I feel convicted when I read about the the diligent vs the sluggard/slothful. because frankly, somedays I'm not very productive and I fear that God (and bobby) will judge me because I'm not working full-time, outside the home, and I also feel guilty for not providing financially for us and our future. So this is definately a struggle for me. I want to be the "do-everything proverbs 31 lady" but I don't know how. I want to make some extra money, but I don't want a job to ruin our current lifestyle. Plus, I don't even know what I would do. Do I just work & do whatever, like I did the past 6 years, or do I try to pursue a career? I want to have a baby, but unfortunately for us, that takes a lot of money. How about all those catch 22's?

I have more thoughts on this subject... maybe I'll do a part 2 someday.

go here to read other people's day-in-the-life-of posts.

house stuff - extreme & not so extreme

One of these days I will get back to (almost) daily blogging, but for now, I'm still doing catch-up. or is it catsup? nope, it's definately ketchup.

My parents got to come back - their third visit since we moved here at the end of august. they're troopers, I tell ya. Everyone asks why they keep coming here instead of me/us going there to visit. The first & main reason is because we just moved from pennsylvania, and oklahoma is still new to us (me) and we're still sorta getting settled, and my parents want to see our house. (I lived in their house for 18 or 22 years, depending on whether you count my college years or not.) So I know what it looks like. haha. And they've been helping us with projects everytime they come. More on that in a minute. But the second reason is that the weather is better here right now. We got the snow I wanted, so I don't have to go to PA and see the 42 inches there. I will want to get out of oklahoma and be in the northeast from may until september. So why leave now?

Bobby had to go to Dallas for a couple days so my parents and I mostly hung out here at the house, watched some tv shows I had dvr'd for them, and played wii winter olympics. Then on Saturday I suggested we drive about 30 miles south of norman to see where Extreme Makeover: Home Edition was building a house for a family. The weather was quite chilly, and you guessed it, windy. And the process took a lot longer than we expected. The road where the house was being built was closed to traffic, so we had to go to a nearby school and take a bus over. Then we were dropped off and didn't know when/if they were coming back for us. (and we had forgotten to eat lunch.) But we weren't alone. We were surrounded by hundreds of "volunteers" who were working on the house, a bunch of press people, tons of real workers, and a few celebrities. My goal of the day was not only to see the house & the entire production, but I really wanted to see Ty & Jillian from the Bachelor/ette. (she was there because she is an interior designer.) The whole town was such a buzz all week because they were spotted all over. Most of them stayed in Norman hotels, (right by my house!!) but I reserved my inner crazy stalker and didn't pursue it that far. Ideal Homes OK were the official builders of the house. I mostly kept up with the progress & happenings on their twitter site : here.

my parents in front of the house


















my dad & I in front of the house


















The house was one day away from being completed. The day after we were there, they were did the big reveal.

the endless line of vehicles - workers & production people - the line stretched further than I could see on this straight rural road. crazy!



















well... I didn't get to see ty or jillian, which is fine, except, they were there, on the property, within feet of me, but I kept missing them. I'd walk away and they'd come out of the house. I'd come back and they would be gone again. I literally kept missing them by seconds. oh well. I did have one celebrity encounter that will make my husband jealous for years and years. It was Wayne Coyne from the Flaming Lips. I actually called out his name and he walked over to where I was, introduced himself, and threw his arms around me for a picture. what a funny guy. hope he wasn't high. (I totally just said that because it rhymed!)

This is the most horriblest picture of me because the lady who took it for me (not my mom) zoomed WAY in, even though I asked her not to, and I was laughing because I was not expecting him to practically hug me in the picture. (he was laughing too.)










The show will air on March 14th on ABC. be sure to watch it!

So that was the extreme house stuff. The non-extreme house stuff involved our house. Super dad installed our new ceiling fan, which looks so awesome. And he also installed trim around our two bathroom mirrors. They were just big plain mirrors, and every home show I've watched, they always say that without trim, they just look unfinished, which is true. Now they look lovely and finished. Right now the trim is white and looks great. I may paint the trim in the master bath black if I pursue my goal of transforming the room into this, my inspiration.



















oh yeah, I almost forgot about the super bowl! we had a private little party of just the four of us here to watch it. not nearly as exciting as last year when the steelers won, but still a good game. I was rooting for the colts, but wasn't too upset when they lost. I was more concerned about the cookies anyway.

fastest recap ever

I am going to attempt to recap christmas, new years, & two blizzards in one little post. here goes!

December 24, 2009 - a blizzard comes sweeping into Oklahoma. Winds were gusting near 50 mph and snow was flying everywhere. I never saw snow fly in so many directions. It was hard to measure the amount of snowfall because of this. We had 2 inches in some places, and 15 in others. It came so fast, no one knew what hit us. For the first time ever, I witnessed how a little bit of snow can cripple a city, no, a STATE. within a few hours, every highway, school, church, business, you name it, was closed. (and remained closed for several days) People who had been out on the roads, just abandoned their cars and walked to safety. We were watching a map online of people that were stranded, and were about to walk over to the highway to bring people back to our warm house, but a church nearby opened up as a shelter, so we weren't needed. We were supposed to have christmas eve celebrations at bobby's grandma's house, but it was cancelled, so we stayed home. Here are some pictures from that crazy fun day:

here comes the snow! it was a pure white out... this pic of the street in front of our house was taken in late morning.


















ready to go out & play! so glad we brought some snow gear with us to oklahoma. too bad I gave my snow shovel to my parents...


















this picture best captures how much snow accumulated in a drift in our backyard


















Next day... Christmas! We had a fun little celebration planned at our house for bobby's immediate family, and we were so excited. We made a bunch of brunchy food - whole wheat banana nut waffles, monkey bread, bacon, cookies, and more. mmmm! Now keep in mind that the winter storm the day before ended as quickly as it began, so by christmas morning, it had not been snowing for about 12 hours. but no one had been out to clear the roads. I know, crazy, right?!?! So we feared that our christmas would be cancelled. however, since bobby's family has a truck, they thought they could make it. yippee! and they did, just four hours late... so our 10 am brunch began at 2pm. and they (my mother & father in law and sister & brother in law) left a little before 4 so they could get home before dark. we were all supposed to go to bobby's aunt's house for the extended family get-together, but you guessed it... cancelled! ugh. nothing would ever cancel christmas in pennsylvania!! but we made the best of it... enjoyed our little time with family, then spent the rest of the night playing mario & sonic at the winter olympic games on wii.

waiting for our guests to arrive...


















bobby's sister, mindy, & her husband, caleb


















bobby & his parents


















fast forward one week to new years. I have no pictures from nye or nyd. in fact, I can't remember what we did except go to a fun little party with some folks from church on nye. the weather was super cold and there was still snow on the ground (and roads) from the christmas eve snowfall.

enter 2010 and another snow storm! wooo hoooo! once again, on a thursday, the weathermen across the state threw fear into our heads that the world was coming to an end again because it was going to snow. omg, snow! in january!?! ha. so the day began with the dreaded winter mix - rain, sleet, then snow arrived, and it actually came down straight this time. no wind! it was awesome. and it just kept coming. we ended up with a really thick one inch of ice and then about 7 inches of snow on top of that. it was so pretty. we built a snowman. we went to walmart the next day. schools were cancelled for 4 days. church was also cancelled. but darnit, the movie theaters and cracker barrel were packed!

I took my kitty, paisley, out for a walk. normally she begs to go out, but she forgot that she is from pennsylvania, and now hates the snow. she is yelling at me in this picture.



















our sooner snowman!






































































so that's the end of my recap. I'm so happy it's over now so I can move on and catch up to real-time events. hope you enjoyed! :)