Mmmm...gnocchi!

Last night after work I made homemade potato gnocchi.

I have always loved it, but the best I have made at home was plopped out of a plastic package purchased at Wal-Mart.

Not wanting to pay a couple of bucks per package, I decided to find a recipe on Pinterest, and I finally tried it last night.

It wasn't too difficult, although it took a while just because it had drying and cooling time built in.

I popped a couple of potatoes in the oven while I was finishing up work. After they had cooled and I was off the clock, I  peeled them and grated them. Then I mixed the puree with an egg, 1.5 cups of flour, salt and pepper and rolled in into a dough. The dough was separated into eight pieces and rolled into a long rope. I cut the ropes into little pieces, rolled them on the tines of a fork and then put them on a cookie sheet to dry.

From there, they dried for a couple hours and took three minutes to cook in boiling water. I topped them with a venison ragu.

Nate loved them! And I had enough to freeze for a second meal. Nate said that gnocchi is his favorite kind of pasta - if you call it pasta. I don't know. I'm not Italian, even though I have been told I look it!

When I was in the process of making it, Nate said that I could have bought it. That I have to figure in my time in how much that was saving us in money.

However, when I saw that he liked my cooking and that I was successful in trying something new, I told him it was worth it. When you cook something straight from a package, you don't have the feeling of success that I had! It is so worth a little work when you make other people, and yourself, happy and fulfilled.

I told Nate I think if I had an Italian grandmother, she would have been proud. :)

Growing a garden!

Mmmm...

The mud room smells like herbs tonight --- oregano, basil, mint.

I spent a couple hours after work planting my first garden, and Nate went to the store while I was finishing up work to get me a tomato plant and he brought back some herbs to grow as well. I used to have a basil plant, but Novie ate it this winter when it was sitting on the floor to get some light by the sliding glass door.

I love to have some herbs to grab when I'm cooking, and I'm excited to be able to go outside and grab fresh veggies from the garden too.

I haven't grown much before, so I'm not sure how it will turn out, but I have to say I did enjoy planting it! It was fun getting dirt underneath my fingernails and to have all the hopes of what can grow by my own hand. I didn't even have the radio playing or the Internet streaming, it was just nice to be outdoors in the beautiful weather.

I'm excited for summer weather and to see what happens as the greens start to sprout in the black soil! I like being a homeowner :)

God wants thank you notes too

After our wedding last September, we had lots of presents and cards to open. We were excited about all the gifts, the gift cards and the cash.

Of course, along with that came the thank you notes.

After any kind of party where you receive gifts, the first thing you have to do afterward (well, after cleaning up, that is) is write thank-you notes. Everyone expects them, and it's courteous to show your gratefulness for what you've been given.

Often, when people are very generous in blessing you with something, you want to give part of that back. It probably isn't in the thank you note, but you will often bless them even more the next time you give them a gift.

Everyday though, we receive gifts from God. Yet, how often does he get a gift back or even a thank you?

Just like in our lives on Earth, our spiritual lives should utilize thank you notes much more. The moment you get your pay check, you should thank God for that blessing. When you get a birthday gift, you should thank God as well as the giver. When you get a bonus or win a prize, God should get a thank you first.

Then we should give back to God what he has blessed us with. The Bible calls for God's people to give back 10 percent. What we have was given to us by God, and he has greatly blessed us, so we should also want to give back to God by blessing others that are doing his work.

I often fall into the pattern of thinking that I should tithe because otherwise I won't be blessed. However, that shouldn't be our attitude at all. We should be so filled with gratefulness and love for God that we want to do something for him.

I love to buy things for Nate and surprise him, even if it's just with fruit snacks or Mountain Dew from the grocery store. Even though we physically can't shower God with gifts, even little gifts, we can still shower the church and missionaries who are doing his work with our gifts, which is the same as giving it straight to God.

So next time you see the offering plate being passed, don't just watch it go by. Say thank you to God for all that you have by giving back to him.

Have you laughed today?

Source: The Chive

Not just part of life

God isn't supposed to be part of our lives, he is supposed to be our lives.

I heard this on Christian radio today.

The speaker said that God is not like a friend on Facebook, just someone we add. When we become Christians, our entire lives are supposed to revolve around our faith.

Francis Chan was talking on the radio the other day about when he took a trip to China, the people in the underground church there were laughing hysterically about how we treat our faith. We switch churches when we don't get along. We don't appreciate that we do have a church on every corner. We go for an hour a week.

I think we have it so good in America that we don't appreciate our faith as well. The American pastor that is in jail in Iran right now - how many of us would be able to survive that? We haven't been pressured enough to appreciate all that God has given us. Most of us haven't completely given our lives over to God, because we don't have to. It's comfortable to be a Christian, with that as much a part of your life as soccer, your job or dance. It's not supposed to be part of your life - it's supposed to be your life.

I honestly am not even sure what it means to give my whole life to God. I don't even know where to start, I guess, except to talk to God more and read his Word more and just see where it leads - and be open to where it leads.

It's just something to keep in mind that when the choice arises, it's God or nothing. Not a part, but a whole.

I once was lost...

My sister-in-law told me a story today that I really wanted to share.

When she and her husband got married, they stopped going to church, although they didn't really tell anyone they did. They weren't sure if they were going to be an active religious family or if they were just going to teach their children the "right" way to live.

They both had grown up in the Catholic faith and were married in the Catholic church. They both had attended Catholic school as well.

I have to admit that I didn't know where their faith stood after they got married. It wasn't a subject we had really broached, and I have to confess I should have been praying about it when I wasn't sure where they were at.

But no matter - God hadn't forgotten them.

They have a 1-year-old, and when the family moved to Florida, they realized that doing things the right way wasn't enough and they needed to find God again. They found a local church and planned to go to confession before mass. They missed the confession time and weren't going to take communion, and then during the service the priest said that he had run out of time and would hold another confession afterward.

If that wasn't enough to say that God was watching, the next part was.

When the priest gave his homily, it was on lost sheep. He started out by saying that he had heard a story in the news about a dog in Fairbanks, Alaska. (My sister-in-law and her family had just moved to Florida from a town just outside Fairbanks). The story was about a blind dog that got lost in a snow storm, and although it lasted three days the dog still found his way home.

The priest said that sometimes people also get lost, but God will always help his children find their way home in the storm.

I like the way my sister-in-law put it — "It still makes me a little teary-eyed when I think about it," she said. "That homily was meant for us and God really did guide us back home."

She said she was embarrassed to talk about it before, because she didn't want to tell me that she was questioning God. However, we both think it's something that a lot of people, especially our age, go through.

Sometimes when you're raised with a set of beliefs, you're not sure if they're your own or if they're your parents'. Although it's sad that sometimes we get lost when we step out to find our own way, it's so encouraging to hear a first-hand story that God is right there the entire time. He never leaves us or forsakes us. It's never him that moves away, it's us that sometimes take steps off the path and end up having to find our ways back when we get lost.

I love the fact that the story my sister-in-law heard was about Fairbanks, Alaska. It's obvious that God really was talking right to them, and it gives me goosebumps to think about. God is so big, and we are so small, but he obviously cares about us.

I'm so happy that my in-laws have strengthened faith now and that their daughter is going to be raised in the fear of the Lord. What a great God we have. He never gives up.

Just keep running

Last week, Nate and I went for a run at a local park.

Well, for one, he is a lot better runner than I am. If I run a mile without walking, I consider that success. He used to run cross country. He is just built like a runner and it comes a lot easier to him than it does to me.

We had gone about halfway around the park when my lack of activity for the last six months caught up with me. My throat felt raw, and my lungs were tight as a I tried to breathe. I stopped and walked for a few steps before Nate looked back at me.

"You can make it to the car," he said.

He told me I wasn't going to get any better if I just gave up. So I sucked it up and continued running with him.

I am 100 percent sure that if he hadn't been there, I would have walked the rest of the time. I was tired and it was hard, and I was not going to keep going.

Today, I was listening to a sermon on the radio that talked about running the race and how we should push through. That if the beginning is hard, we have to run even harder to the finish line.

In order to do that though, we have to have help. Alone, we'll give up when running gets too hard. I need support from Nate to not only get through running but to keep running the race in life as well.