Mediterranean Chicken

Discovered another great recipe!!! It's way healthy too. Blake and I both really loved it and deemed it "company worthy".

Mediterranean Chicken

Frozen Chicken (3-4 big pieces)
1 can diced tomatoes (add with juice)
half a jar of green olives (no juice)
bag of frozen artichoke hearts, or 1 can of artichoke hearts, drained

-Dump all together in a crockpot and cook on low for 6-8 hours or high for 4-6 hours.
-serve over rice or noodles
-you can also cook this in the oven at 375 for 30-45 minutes

House Hunting

It's official. Blake and I are house-hunting! I can't believe it's even a possibility let alone us actually looking and being ready to make an offer on a house. We got pre-approved this week and things have just been rolling. Every night this week we've been driving up and down streets in Yukon, OK looking for "For Sale" signs. It's a little scary and we can't buy a big expensive house or anything, but it's looking like we'll probably end up with a 1,400-1,700 SF home in the Yukon, OK area. Our current neighborhood has just gotten too dangerous. I didn't realize until I actually counted that we've had 3 break in incidents on our car and home in just a year and a half at our current rent house. Our neighbor has had 2 breakins in just the past 2 months. So, it's time to leave.

So far we don't have any really viable options. We found this one house that was built in 1983 that is 1922 SF! The really cool thing is that it has an outdoor atrium/courtyard in the middle of the house. I've never seen that before! It's probably a 10x10 space that is completely open to the outside (like a doughnut). Blake and I have discovered we get depressed in a house without light pretty easily. In our current house it has SO many big windows and that has been a big blessing. So, having an outdoor atrium in the middle of the house would be wonderful. I love everything about the house except for that it's on a 1/3 acre of land (who's gonna mow that?), the master bath is open to the masterbedroom (like the sinks are on the side of the bedroom and you enter a little door for the toilet and shower), and that it's a smoker's house. Do you think a new coat of paint and new carpet would take care of that?

Then we got all excited about a house in our favorite neighborhood, but then found out it was under contract. So, it's very up and down emotions-wise. So we'll just wait and hope and pray the right house comes along :)

Country Singing

My mom shared this with me. It's beautiful. Even though he's not technically correct or even on pitch the whole time he sings, it's masterful and what we as musicians strive to achieve each time we sing: sincerity with talent and heart, capable of changing the people who listen

Good Books

I love reading. Here are some of my favorite reads lately:


The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls

Plainsong, Kent Haruf

Across the Nightingale Floor, Gillian Rubinstein (AKA Lian Hearn)

The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini

Looking For Alaska, John Green

The Other Boleyn Girl, Philippa Gregory

Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen

Sickened, Julie Gregory

Ethnicity

While attending church this past Sunday I had a funny thing happen. Blake and I met a new couple and as we were talking to them, the husband interrupted and said, "I'm sorry, I can't figure it out. What ethnicity are you?" I said, I dunno, white? And he said, "Girl, you've been lied to!"

I thought that was so funny.

Craigslist

I've been procrastinating posting a new entry because all my pictures I want to post are still on my camera. Our computer is on the fritz again but we have a friend looking at it tonight. Hopefully he can get it working again.

Things lately I've been into have been Craigslist and home decor blogs. I really love having a smaller house (thanks to this particular site) and have been wanting to make it even more inviting and put together. But I don't have any money. So that is where Craigslist comes in. Not that I've actually bought anything yet (other than a small file cabinet for our ever expanding concert paperwork). I'm on the hunt for a new couch and loveseat. Ours are so old (and kinda smelly) and one of the legs on the couch is actually a brick now. I think at one point in their past they were comfortable, but now they are sinking in. I'm not desparate yet, but getting there. I also have been cleaning up our guest room, trying to make it easy to be a guest in. I got a small night stand off Craigslist that I actually sent Blake to go get. Now, the last time I sent him to go get something from someone on Craigslist, I instructed him, if it looks in poor condition, don't buy it! He ended up coming home with a lift-top coffee table I picked out that the owner said was in good shape. I guess it was in decent shape, just missing some screws and a roller. So, forgetting that episode, I sent Blake to go retrieve this night stand. I told him, if it's taller than 24 inches, I don't want it. Well, it's definitely not taller than 24 inches. It's miniscule. I think maybe it's 18 inches tall, blonde wood. And the top has water damage (which of course wasn't shown in the picture advertised.) So, I am resolved now, no matter how tempting it is to send the husband after it, I need to go with him. I actually kept the night stand because it really is pretty cute, and I have to admit...it doesn't take up much space.

And, because I'm so in love with my new church right now, here is a recent picture from a picnic last night with our church family!!

Pastor Tim has asked me to maintain the church website and I'm super excited. I love doing that stuff. I don't know much, but I usually can figure out simple stuff. Here is my church: http://christfamilyokc.com/ I think the designer is still working out glitches, but I get to maintain the news and prayer lists and pictures I think whenever they give me the info.

July 4th weekend

Us driving around sometime in June I think

We had such a wonderful holiday weekend. Blake got back from Nashville Thursday around lunch time and was trying to cram a lunch in with a Pastor, allergy shots, and then an eye doctor appt. all in the rest of the day. Needless to say he arrived home from his TN trip totally exhausted. He had dark bags under his eyes from lack of sleep. He had to drive there after his evening concert in Moore 2 weekends ago. Here is that church (with our trailer):


And here is the morning church he sang at in Kingfisher. Itsy bitsy! But a wonderful time. It was a Church of God so they were so enthusiastic and outwardly expressive of their enjoyment. We love going to all denominations, and feel that is our calling, but there are definitely some denominations that are more outwardly fun....but I totally understand it's just a difference of personalities, not a measure of how much they truly enjoy the concert if some people worship inwardly rather than outwardly (and at full volume) ;)


Oh, so anyway. We went to Blake's eye doctor appointment Thursday after I got off work and we got him a new prescription since the one he'd been using never seemed to click right for him. So then he was all happy and we decided to check out the frames they had at the store next door. Blake's glasses, poor things, were barely hanging on for dear life. They're all bent and the lenses popped out frequently. And the lenses had developed an irreversible fog to them, we couldn't get them clean! They were all scratched and just permanently foggy. So he tried on a bunch of frames and we found some that look awesome! They're a little more "pop" than he's used to, but I definitely think they look so great. Handsome hubby. Changing glasses takes a lot of guts, you know? The pictures don't do him justice :) Gotta see them in person.


I had Friday off work, so we went to two movies back to back in the morning! That was fun and then we came home and practiced for our concert at FBC Moore on Sunday. We'd kind of forgotten (or procrastinated) that it was a patriotic weekend...so we were trying to find some good patriotic songs to sing. After not being able to find any good medley's that the audience could sing along with, we decided just to do a classic. He did an awesome song by The Booth Brothers called "Under God", then he sang the Prayer Force One theme song and told the funny story of how he made a music video for them...(he'll kill me for posting that link but I think it's great. When you watch it just know it's not up to Blake's standards of how he likes things.) And then...dun dun dun, he sang "God Bless the USA". Can I just say that this was a "bring the house down hit" last night! We had about 700 people attend the concert last night because the church included a free chicken dinner and concert together. FBC Moore always loves Blake and he goes often to sing there. It was packed! But in typical banquet style, people have a great time but also talk a lot while the entertainment's going. But Blake did a great job and kept on singing and really did a Class A job. He always does. It was so cute, they broke up his singing set into two sections, a larger one that lasted about 30 min, then a second 15 min set or so. In between, the Pastor got up to talk a little and during that, Blake was swarmed for autographs. Ha ha! He was a little embarassed but thought it was fun. I ran sound and it was a little difficult because I was positioned under a low overhang while the audience sat out in the open with extrememly high ceilings. So I had to keep stepping out from under the overhang to make sure the sound was good since it was so different for me where I was standing (it gets muffled when the ceiling height changes and is hard to have an accurate idea of what the audience is really hearing). But I think I did a good job. Here are some pics of the night and a quick video of God Bless the USA..my camera on my phone only takes 43 sec. films...so sorry!

Stage set, waiting for the "go ahead"

Blake singing pretty

Crowd shots on one end of the room

More crowd...eating chicken

Small clip of Blake singing
"God Bless the USA"