Books That Changed My Outlook

Lately I have been reading a lot, but have been only finding books that are decent, if not engaging. Nothing riveting lately.

I came across an interesting post on Facebook on a book feed that asked the question, "If you could name 5 books that changed your outlook on life, what would they be?" I thought about that for a little bit and appreciate these books for different reasons (in no order):

1. The Shack
This is not necessarily a great book, but it had great paradigm challenges. I found the writing hard to swallow and the story really corny, but I did take away a life changing view of God...the idea that instead of Western culture's thinking of where everything is a hierarchy, to view God with more the Eastern thought of centrality. So, instead of thinking that everything has priorities and that God should always be #1 (a confusing concept, especially when involving love) think of God as the center of your life and everything that you do and think comes out of that center. So your choices, decisions, and life direction you take stem from that basic Christ center. I like that outlook a lot better, it makes more sense to me.

2. How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (Dale Carnegie)
I read this book during a particularly trying time one summer. I should really read it again, but it helped me change my cognitive pattern to focus on solutions and positive thinking and shift my focus from my feelings. It isn't "new age" or dismissive of Christ, just a positive, practical book for getting out of negative thinking.

3. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
This book, cloaked in a fiction story, is really a thesis for Capitalism. I highly enjoyed it and found the ideas to be challenging and inspiring.

4. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
I read this a long time ago and just remember that after reading it I had a greatly more sensitized heart for the elderly.

5. This Present Darkness (Frank Peretti)
This book opened my eyes to spiritual warfare and its infusion and reality in every day life.

Allergy Attack and House Pics

So this weekend I was plagued with allergy attacks. Last week I had a killer sore throat from allergies and drainage, then I had a fever on Friday. That fever turned into a wonderful weekend, actually. I canceled my plans for Saturday (sorry Sony) and stayed home to a glorious weekend by myself. I got a lot done and unpacked more boxes and tried to decorate a little bit. Here are the house pictures I got to take!

Ashford house November 09

Blake actually had a concert in Woodward, OK this Sunday, and because I was still feeling bad (and Blake's parents offered to pinch-hit for me) I stayed home while Blake went to do the concert--I think that's happened only one other time! I even went once when I had the flu (shh don't tell).

Now, the allergies have erupted and I'm itchy and my digital thermometer is dead. So I can't tell if I have a fever anymore. Off to the doctor today! I bet she'll just tell me it's allergies and to deal with it, which is good news, but slightly anticlimactic for how awful (itchy) I feel today.

Cream Cheese Chicken - made by Blake

Blake cooked in the crockpot for me yesterday! He was around the house so it worked out to try this recipe. I've been wanting to try it for a while, but it calls for cream cheese right at the last 30 min and chicken doesn't really turn out well in the crockpot after 8-9 hours at work...so I try to do chicken dishes only when Blake's available to turn them on 4-6 hours ahead of time. :)

Cream Cheese Chicken

--1 can cream of mushroom soup

--frozen chicken--enough to feed four adults

--2 T Italian seasoning (I thought this was a bit strong but Blake liked it)

--1/2 tsp celery seed

--1 T onion powder

--1 T sugar

--1/4 tsp black pepper

--1 tsp kosher salt

--2 cloves minced garlic

--block of cream cheese (to add later)

The Directions.

-Put everything except for the cream cheese into the crockpot.

-Cook on low for 6 hours (or high for 4 hours) or until the chicken is cooked through and begins to shred.

-Shred the chicken with two large forks, and mix in the block of cream cheese.

-Switch the crock to high (if it was originally on low) and cook for another 30 minutes, or until the cream cheese is fully melted.

--Serve over pasta.

Verdict: Blake gives it a 5/5 stars. I give it 4/5 stars and intend to decrease the Italian seasoning amount next time. A bit strong and it made my house smell >:(


This new house is making me want to cook all the time!! I made a 2 week meal plan for us:
Tues-Shepherd's Pie
Wed-Hot dogs
Thurs-Spaghetti
Fri-Cheesy Crockpot Chicken
(gone on weekend)
Mon-homemade pizza
Tues-Brown Sugar Chicken (crockpot)
Wed-Broccoli Beef
Thurs-Breakfast for dinner
Fri-Chicken Tortilla Soup

We'll see if I stick to it! Sometimes I change my mind. Well, I change my mind a lot. Unless I only buy ingredients that fit these meals. Which, after a month of no groceries, I have some stocking up to do...

I can't wait for Thanksgiving. I have so many recipes I want to try! And, I intend to try to make a turkey breast in the crockpot. I think it's going to be delicious.

Potato and Bean Soup

I made this soup last week and it hit the spot!

Potato and Bean Soup

-5 to 6 Idaho potatoes, cubed (I had 2 big ones and about 4 little bitty ones)
-4 cups vegetable or beef stock (I used beef)
-1 can navy beans (or white), rinsed
-1 can garbanzo beans, rinsed
-1 can pinto beans, rinsed
-1 tsp parsley
-1 tsp salt
-1/2 tsp black pepper (or up it to 1 tsp for extra kick)
-1 tsp minced garlic (or 2 garlic cloves)
-1 T of onion flakes (or dice 1 real onion)

-pour beef stock into stockpot on stove, add potatoes. Boil until soft.
-for the navy beans and pinto beans, after you rinse them, mash them in the can a little bit to thicken the soup more
-add beans & spices (you can use 3 cans of any kinds of beans, just whatever you have!) (you can also add chili flakes for extra kick)
-simmer until heated through and flavor is distributed (about 10 min?)

Mine did not look like this ;)

This weekend Blake and I had a couple friends over for lunch! I made Salsa Chicken. It was so fun and we had a good time catching up with them. Then we had our last "double concert" Sunday for the year--woo hoo!! Both concerts went well and we are excited to get to play in our house this week. We went couch shopping on Saturday, just to look really. Who knows when we'll get something, but that is what we're really wanting!

Pictureless

We're in the new house :) I am so excited. Because of our hard work the house looks awesome (with still a lot to do but oh well) and so things are really starting to look homey. I title this post "Pictureless" because my camera is somewhere in the new house. Somewhere. So I don't have pictures yet. Blake's dad came up Monday night to help us move, and what a super-man!! He and Blake got the whole house moved yesterday! I even took a day off work to help and it went really smoothly. We still have some odds and ends at the old house, but we will take care of those today and give the house a good cleaning. After only a week of advertising the house is for rent, we have new tenants taking over our lease!! No double payments, such a blessing.

We were concerned about our fridge fitting. The space where it is supposed to go is a cut out surrounded by cabinets, and then the wall...which the previous owners had cut into to get their fridge to fit. So yes, there is a gaping hole in the drywall by the fridge space. But, thankfully....the fridge fits!!! Just barely. I can't believe it.

We also moved Sticker over last night. We were a little anxious over moving her since it's a big change. We have been told to keep her indoors for 2 weeks to aclimate her to the new location. I shut her in the bathroom last night with a litter box and blanket and she adjusted beautifully! She even used the litter box, I was amazed--I don't know if she's ever used one. I'm hoping she will get used to things soon. She settled down pretty quickly though and seems to like the bathroom, so that is all good news!!

House Update Day....12 yikes

Yep, it really is about Day 12 of workdays that we've been trying to do on the house - maybe less. We've not been in town on Fridays-Sundays so that's put us behind a little. But we're making such good headway! My mom really got us going and helped clean and paint. I'm horrible at cleaning, I just get frustrated and then call my halfway attempt "good". But Mom got in there and got my bathrooms clean for us!

These are our accomplishments to date:
-Painted Master Bedroom, Master Bath, Office, Laundry Room and Kitchen walls
-Painted Kitchen cabinets (inside and out), and trim for Master area, Kitchen and hallway
-Put on new hardware for Kitchen cabinets
-Put on new silver door knobs with locks for the guest bathroom doors
-Cleaned closets, carpet, bathrooms, attic

The Kitchen!
The walls are actually like a daffodil-tan sort of color. That is also what I'm painting most of the bedrooms and hallway and living room.

To do before we move in (realistically)
-paint woodwork and trim in Office and Practice Room
-Paint Practice Room (another bedroom) and Guest Room
-sweep out garage and throw away all the leftover stuff (boxes) the previous owner didn't take with them

After that, we just have to paint the living room and hallway. I think we can handle that after we move in - I can't wait to move in! I'm going to have to figure out a good way to get to my work though since we live off a toll road now. I think I can take some free backroads but it will add about 10 minutes to my drive. But, one way just to my work is $1, so that is $2 a day times 25 days...that adds up. So I'm going to try to save in that department. Blake also has to use the toll road to get to his work and I don't think he has much option there. We live out in a more rural area so some of the big free roads don't connect up to where we live yet. We found that out the hard way one day when we wanted to see if there was another easier route to get to our house other than the toll road or the very long road with hundreds of stoplights. Nope.

This weekend Blake and I are participating in a friend's wedding and then we head out Saturday night to Wichita Falls for a Sunday morning concert, then back to OKC for an evening concert. Then we start moving in next week! Our official move in day is the 31st but hopefully we'll have everything in but the big stuff by then. :)

House Work Day ??

I forget what day this is. My mom has been working like an animal! Most of the interior is caulked now and all the windows sealed. She scrubbed and cleaned the master bath and it's all white now! The toilet was really grodey and the shower was okay, but still had dirty pink scum all on it. She painted the master bed's woodwork and window sills white (it's beautiful!). She painted our laundry cabinets white (inside and out) and cleaned the water spigots that hook up to the washer (they were all green and crusty). She painted the second coat of blue on the laundry walls and affixed a piece of cardboard over the hole the plumber made while replacing the spigots. I think today she's starting the kitchen cabinets - there are a lot of them! I am so appreciative and we could not have done this or gotten near this far without her help. Thanks Mommy!

We got the kitchen walls painted. They're no longer a pinky-brown. They're now a soft yellow/tan. I'm hoping that color works for the living room and rest of the bedrooms. I'll find out at lunch today. We had the carpets cleaned, and all the stains mostly came out. I'm anxious to see how clean they look. Mom and Blake say they look pretty good. I didn't go out to the new house last night because I decided to stay and clean up our rental and get organized since everything was piling up. I packed away several breakable decorations and I'm excited that we can actually start moving our stuff over now! Blake will move all the photos and pictures and wall hangings over on Friday I believe.

Last night was also a bittersweet night, I gave away George.

Ever since he attacked Lenny (something I should have forseen considering their namesake) I've had them in two separate cages. It got kinda annoying to clean 2 all the time and George wasn't as fun to hold as Lenny. So! I posted him on Craigslist and I got 4 calls in 2 hours--and a guy came to pick George up for his 3 kids at 10pm last night. So I hope his kids like George!!

Tonight we'll go to the new house and perhaps paint the Master Bed ceiling, prime the master bath and prime the next bedroom.