Chicken Spagetti!

How do I go about telling the story of chicken spaghetti? I'll start with my Grandmother. 

Let me just say right off the top, my Grandparents; Katie and J.O. (aka Shorty) were involved with more crap as older retired people, than I have ever seen in all my life!!! Please do not even kid yourself thinking you know any other 2 people that were this involved! Good Grief! They belonged to everything! My poor mom was drug around as a young girl to nightly, weekly, monthly, and supreme special 5th day of something meetings. OK, let me get back on track. Meetings.

Meetings, I believe are just excuses for people to get together and eat. It's great fun, most of the time. You ask me how I know… Yes, They got a hold of me and I too have been a Worthy Grand Matron. I regress. Food.

Food has always been important to meals don't you think? We all seem to love to eat. We're obsessed with either buying cookbooks, making cookbooks, or watching people cook. Well, it was the same back in 1973. And on top of that, Grannie was a Home Ec teacher, so the woman could flat out cook and owned ever type of cookbook there was. 

I am not sure if all cooks do this, or if it's women, or if it's just the women in my family, but we collect recipes. All kinds of recipes! My family stores them inside of other cookbooks. They're stained from being too close to the action and are written on things from evening programs, to the inside cover of another cookbook, to slips of paper folded over in half.

When my Grannie passed, I got the cookbooks. 

Let me tell you how much fun my momma and I had sitting down and just going over those cookbook. Let me read what I have in front of me right now: 

• It's 2 pieces of paper, folded in half, not badly stained, with the recipes for Chicken Salad, Tuna Salad, Chicken Spaghetti, and something with salmon, gelatin and an aluminum mold. 
• Here's a list of things she picked up at the store; buttermilk, dark brown sugar, heavy cream and bourbon. 
• Here's one for stuffed cherry tomatoes, chicken spaghetti and a cheeses ball. Wait, here's another chicken spaghetti… 

Come find out, Grannie had a lot of chicken spaghetti recipes spread throughout cookbook kingdom. They varied by how many people it fed. She had to be prepared for all these meetings that were all about eating. 

Through this, I saw a few things about my Grannie that I hadn't paid much attention to when I was younger. Beside the fact that she liked chicken spaghetti, she was all about hospitality! These cookbook are full of party how-tos and they are more than directions, they were stretching the dollar as far as possible.

Every Christmas, Grannie would make an Italian Creamcake. I believe it is my most favorite cake, ever. I use to think it was German Chocolate, then Red Velvet, but now I gonna go with this Italian Creamcake. Anyway, after Grannie was gone, nobody made Italian Creamcake anymore. Come find out, it was cuz nobody had the recipe! So I slowly started going through some of the cookbooks that I've unpack. I picked up:

 Smart Ways to Cook & Entertain 

Our Favorite Recipes 

Sponsoned by: Desha Court No. 2 

Order of the Amaranth

1973 

I looked under the desserts, and was blown away when I found Italian Creamcake by Katie Marie Clark. Called Preacher man from the other room to tell him what I found, called momma to tell her I found it and was going to make it! I made my list, got everything together, and made that cake! Man that was a good cake!! Grannie would be proud! 

As I was closing the cookbook, I reached for something to mark that page and placed it in the book. It was another recipe for chicken spaghetti.

I smile, thinking about my Grannie. I don't guess you can ever have enough recipes for chicken spaghetti. 

Miss you Grannie!

Funk!

Do you ever get into a funk? Is that a crazy question or what? I'd like to put on my holy pants and say Why, no, I never get in a funk! That would be unchristlike, or something! Here's my question: Those 30 years that Jesus was growing up and learning, do you think he got in a funk? Do you think he ever wondered What the sam hill is going on and why do I have to make tables?

It's not that I've figured it all out, but I did come across something this morning that has cleared my way a little, and maybe it will shed some light on your place in the world.

Sorrow, under the power of divine grace, makes us move more slowly and considerately and examine our motives and attitudes. 

God never uses anyone to a great degree until He breaks the person completely. ~ Streams in the Desert

Now I find the first one pretty true. The second one, well, it wears me out! I think, no, God would never break me completely! Then I remember Joseph and how he suffered for years before God used him to save a nation. I think about Moses in the desert for 40 years, hanging out with sheep before he got to lead his people out of slavery. The Bible is full of the example, and if you look long enough, those people are in your life too.

So why would I think that sorrow would skip by me? Why do I feel as though I need to be doing something and checking it off the big list in the sky? Then I saw the word wrestle… to contend, as in a struggle for mastery; grapple: to wrestle with one's conscience. Great!

So I'm in a time of sorrow, and I'm wrestling, that's a sad fighter huh? But where I am is right where God needs me to be in order to hear what he has for me. I'm struggling with waiting, no job that gives a paycheck (cuz you know that's where worth comes from), cleaning the house, taking care of Preacher man, feeding the dog, and why we can't get this well water figured out! Everything, flat out everything is a struggle!

The cool thing, is now I knowing that. Now I can breath, cuz it's all gift from God! Now, I can stop and ask questions like Why do I always have to start over? I don't truly expect an answer, I expect an understanding. A knowing if you will. I understand who is after my light and my joy. I understand that God is teaching me a new thing even if it's not that new! Wrestling takes on a new look to me now and I'm not as sad about it. Now, I'm still in sorrow, but it's sorrow with a purpose. A God purpose, for me. The question then becomes, will I learn it?

This Little Light of mine!

Simply

I've been thinking about what it means to live simply or to simply live. They go hand in hand now that I've been thinking about it. So what does that look like? Have you ever thought about reducing your carbon foot print? Do you even care? 

Here's some things I've either done or I'm trying to work into our lives.

I'm hanging our clothes out to dry. I know there are people out there that don't like the feel of line dried towels on their soft supple skin, but I personally think there is nothing better than a thirsty towel. Not to mention, that I'm drying my clothes with the help of nature. They smell good, iron up awesome, and it just makes me feel good to do it. 

Something else is recycling our trash. The city helps with this by providing awesome yellow trash cans and picking our stuff up every other week. I enjoy the fact that I have more recycle than trash and feel they should pick up recycle more often than trash! One things has really opened my eye's while we've been doing this recycling, it's how much we package stuff that is just silly and wasteful. If producers would cut down on packaging, we wouldn't have so much recycle to deal with.

These are just some things we've been doing to live simply, which helped us to see how important it is to simply live. To slow down and tune off the world and just be. It's hard to do when you work for a church and live beside small children, but it's the kids that help me see it's all about running as fast as you can, finding that turtle, being pushed on a swing, and eating blackberries. It's sitting on the back porch, watching the birds at the feeder and the ones that are living in the cucumber plants. It's about making enough dinner to last for a few more meals so you just heat it up. It's simple, everyday stuff that I'm doing to help us live in The presence. 

It's all we really have and all we've been promised. Yesterday is gone and we pray we learned those lessons. Tomorrow might not ever get here, so what are you waiting on? 

We're heading out today for some R&R. Just want to sit around and watch birds and eat good food and talk a slow story. Don't want no drama, or excitement, or other peoples issues. Just wanna be in the moment and simply live into it with all I've got!