Monday, September 5, 2011

Chicken Noodles For The Soul

Oh man, what an amazingly wonderful day here...weatherwise, anyway! I have to chuckle because yesterday was one of THE WORST days I've had in a long time. It was one of those go back to sleep and wake up tomorrow kind of days. But today...*big inhale and exhale*...today is fine Fall day here in Ohio. It's cool and overcast, and you can just taste the apples hanging in the nearby orchards. Today is the kind of day you want to pull on some comfy socks, a floppy sweatshirt and make comfort foods with lots of butter in them. Mmmm...butter.

So that's what I'm doing. I decided to go on ahead and make up some homemade egg noodles. I've never done this before but I've seen my mom do it a few times and I know my hubby's grandma could do it. She's actually given us gallon sized Ziploc bags of her homemade noodles and man, they were tasty. So here's the egg noodle recipe I use and instructions.

2 Eggs
2 Cups of Flour
2 Pinches of Salt
A splash of milk

Beat the two eggs with a splash of milk and combine with the flour and salt. Knead the dough until it's fully combined. Let the dough rest for 15 minutes (it's pretty hard at first.) Roll the dough out on a floured surface until it's quite thing (remember, the dough will plump when cooked). Use a knife, noodle cutter or pizza cutter to cut the dough into strips (as skinny or wide as you'd prefer). Dust both sides of the noodles lightly with flour and air dry them (I really don't know how long, just until they are dry or you REALLY need to cook them. LOL)

I'm not a die-hard homemade noodle fan, but my hubby is and he even said as I was making them today "if you can make super yummy homemade noodles, I'll be yours forever." Ha ha ha, silly boy, I had you at "I could do your laundry."

So I hope you're having something soul-filling and yummy tonight, whatever it may be chili, chicken noodles or something warm, gooey and baked at 350!!?

Happy Fall/Autumn!

I think if we polled the church, a big chunk of us (myself included right now), would say we don't spend an ample amount of time with God. That's a first big step in a relationship. When we realize that spending time with God, actually in His presence, feeling Him exchange His love with us as we confess His wonderfulness in our lives and beseech Him his power in our lives...then the DESIRE, the appetite wakes up inside to spend MORE time with Him.

I use to wonder...how can ANYONE spend an hour, let alone hours, praying? I wander off after ten minutes! But when it stops being a list/something you NEED to do and becomes an affair that you are stealing chunks of time away from this life to relish Him, to drink in His pure, intoxicating measure of unadulterated love...He opens up something inside of us, opens our eyes more clearly to His words to His intentions in our lives, it opens the communication wider. Then is becomes less of something you NEED to do and more of what you WANT to do.

It's quite like any other relationship in our lives...if we didn't talk to our child or our spouse all day, but we thought about them and had good intentions of talking to them or spending time with them, the relationship grows cold. It's the interaction, making the relationship a priority, getting in there and feeling the soft skin of your child's face, taking time to hear the twinkle in his/her voice, listening to the knock-knock joke the 50th time and really laughing at it...spending time with a person allows you to understand who they are. God's no different. Don't allow the pastor on Sunday to be your only experience of God bc that's not YOUR experience! God has a dance card with only your name on it.

Spending time with Him (whatever that looks like in your life - it's different than mine) is going to allow you to hear Him and give him the opportunities to wipe away corrupted teachings and replace it with His pure words of adoration, admonition and truest love.