Actually I never thought of making my own pasta until one night I walked into the mission base kitchen (years ago) and found one of the college summer staff girls making ravioli!  What???  You can MAKE that???

Since then I’ve made it a handful of times.  It’s surprisingly easy to do and hard to mess up.  It IS slightly time-consuming though.

We made it a fun activity with the girls—kind of like playing playdough and making dinner all at once!

The dough is made from 2 cups flour with 2 whole eggs and 2 egg yolks, beaten. Roll it out as thin as possible. This is the time consuming part

My big helper.

I've done different things for the filling. This is carrots, onions and zucchini that I processed in the food processor then cooked in a little butter until tender. Then I added a bunch of grated mozzerella cheese. Cut the rolled out dough in small squares and add a TINY bit of filling right in the center.

For tortellini, fold and match two corners...

Then roll and stick a finger there to wrap the other corners around to form a ring.

There it is. Not perfect but it will work

After I did a few, I let the girls have at it. They made a lot of different shapes The key is just to make sure there isn't too much filling. I went behind them and pinched and sealed off all the gaps so the filling wouldn't fall out

I had a big pot of boiling water ready and dropped them in one batch of 8 or so at a time for about 3 minutes. Then I dumped them in this bowl with butter so they wouldn't stick together.

After we made a variety of shapes, I think we decided that these ravioli shaped ones were the yummiest. And by far, the easiest to make! Just use two squares and pinch them together to seal.

Goofy girls. One important suggestion---use white flour. These were quite heavy because I used whole wheat. We ate them but they would have been so much better with white flour

Here's the finished product with some tomato cream sauce. Yum.

For an easy and delicious pasta sauce chop an onion and a few garlic cloves super fine and saute in butter for a few minutes. Add some tomato sauce and salt. Let cook for a minute or two then add some cream then let it heat up and serve. So easy and so delicious!! We do this often for a quick meal. The sauce---not the ravioli!!

Chris and Dave and a local friend working on a well.

This friend has been such a blessing. He also has a well drilling business in another town and has been a HUGE help to the guys while they learn more about the whole process and the machine.

I'll need to get some more interesting photos. This is the easy part when the machine is doing the work!

This well that they're working on happens to be at the mission base where we used to live!

It was fun for the kids to run around and play!

Gloria on the deadly teeter totter.

Junior, the dog. What a good boy he is. He was always so protective of our kids when we lived there.

I think he was happy to see us

I’m back to give an update on life.  Here are some pics of what we’ve been up to…

All my BIG girls in their uniforms, ready for school! Jenna is in preschool, Molly in kindergarten and Lauryn in first grade!

Gloria is SUCH a good little mommy.

Jenna too!

This house is FULL of little mommies!!

Our little neighbor girl visits everyday. Molly is so sweet with her--I think she just fell down.

First grade is no joke around here! These are all her text books and notebooks and supplies...that we spent hours covering with paper and then plastic...that was SO much FUN I almost couldn't STAND IT!!!

This girl is learning how to read and write and is doing such an awesome job. We are so proud of her! (this pic is from her first week)

And here they all are---true to each individual personality. Lauryn--being goofy, Molly--being huggy, Jenna--with no clothes on, and Gloria--grumpy I love these girls!

We plopped the girls on the futon and went to bed.  I had to force myself to sleep and not think about the mountain of work I had before me in order to make our home livable.

The next morning, feeling anything but refreshed, I did my walk-through of the house and assessed the damage.

Fuzzy mold on walls—-blasted it with bleach.

Dusty smell of furniture and rug—super-soaked it with febreeze.

Mouse poop on beds—stripped beds and began the never ending laundry routine a mountain behind schedule.

Killed about 12 spiders in the first two days.

Prayed I wouldn’t find mouse poop in the girls’ dresser drawers.  Then prayed that I wouldn’t find mouse poop in EVERY dresser drawer.  Then brought the laundry basket in the room and emptied every single drawer.

The next night I was EXHAUSTED to say the least.  I went to bed feeling like I had taken about two steps on a 1,000 mile walking journey that would be my life for the foreseeable future.

THEN our landlord knocks on our door at about 10pm and informs us that the river is rising and that we should send the girls upstairs to sleep at our neighbor’s apartment while we put all of our belongings up high because there’s a very good chance our house will flood.

It turned out okay—we only had a little water come in and only a few houses in town were severely flooded.

Having to face everything that was under every couch, bed, shelf…everything was a bit frightening but actually ended up being somewhat of a blessing in the end.

The next day was spent cleaning every corner of our house and facing every scary place that I would normally want to avoid after being away for a while.  I never know what creatures may have found a home here while it’s been vacant.

It was spiritually healing in a sense, to face EVERY dark place in our home and overcome it.  As I’ve mention to many before, I believe there is a real paralell between the state of my home and my spiritual/mental/emotional health.

I am now slowly getting a handle on things.  My attitude is improving and I am jumping back into the flow of life here.

This is a very real aspect of life on the mission field and I just thought I’d share.  I’m not trying to complain or show you how tough I am.  I am not.  I am hanging on by a thin thread.  This is life at the moment but Praise God that He is lovingly strengthening that thin thread for me and will pull me up out of my puddle of self-pity and despair.  Okay, that sounds super dramatic…my point is that I have choices to make every day (we all do) and that’s when He pulls me up.  Basically I have to choose to LET him hoist me up out of this!  I’m learning and growing….slowly at times but I am choosing to persevere!

Playing in the yard in Idaho this summer.

Sometimes I get WAY too focused on the externals.  I want the front room to be tidy and homey and comfortable.  I feel like crumbs on the floor and shoes scattered everywhere and crooked couch blankets just alter the orderly, peaceful atmosphere that I would like to have.

What I miss is that in my OBSESSING over the physical look of the house I am adding stress to the atmosphere.

I love to put the kids down to bed, walk out and take a deep breath in a nice tidy,  peaceful living room.

This leads to me sometimes acting like a psycho running around barking orders at the girls to hurry up and pick up their junk.  I’m often sweating and out of breath by the time I go tuck the girls in.

I hate turning into such a crazy person just for a little order.  It’s not worth it.  That’s what I decided tonight.  I have GOT to chill out.

So here was my break-through—ready?  I didn’t let the time pressure me!!  I usually want them in bed at 7pm on the DOT.  This evening I just relaxed as they put away their things and I straightened things up a bit.  Then while they were finishing their dinner, I even got to mop the front room floor.

They were in their beds by 7:20.  And everything was FINE!  The world didn’t end.  And why haven’t I figured this out before???

It just feels so good to let go of this contraint and pressure and urgency of the clock in order to keep connected to the hearts of my children.

I saw this amazingly cute idea on a fun blog I read called Peace, Love and Applesauce.  So I tried to copy it

These aren't nearly as amazing as the one on the blog link but the girls are so excited to give them to their teachers. Both of their teachers are pretty into wild makeup and nail polish....I realize those woudn't be typical items in a Teacher's Day gift

When you flip over the containers, you find another compartment here with some sticky notes and a marshmellow rose.

On a completely different subject--WHILE I was writing my last post about the flowers, Molly was coloring her little heart out during rest time. As soon as I finished she ran up to me (of course having no clue about any of the flower vision or anything) and handed me this picture!!! AH! It touched me.

It was great getting to meet other ladies living similar lives as well as just to get out of the house, enjoy some quiet time with the Lord and relax some too.

I feel like I got so filled up and got so much clarity in different areas of life but got one especially awesome vision I want to share.

I so desperately want to love my family well and be content in my calling.  I asked the Lord for some insight in that area and I am just THRILLED with what He showed me.

First of all–

My children are flowers.

Aaahh!!!!  I just love it.  It speaks to me so much!  How do you care for flowers?  You can’t be harsh with them, you can’t force them to grow–you have to provide a favorable environment and lots of tender loving care and encouragement.

Sunlight—which I take to mean the light of the Lord in their lives.  Opening up heaven for them so they can bask in His love and warmth.

Water—I just think of quenching their thirst…for knowledge, acceptance, love, whatever else.  This one is not super clear to me yet.

Fertilizer—Food!  This one is helpful to me as I spend hours a day between planning meals, shopping for food, making meals and cleaning up after meals.  Sure I could give them packaged, fast, easy food but they wouldn’t grow up as healthy, hearty and beautiful.

Soil—I think this is prayer.  I just want to cover them (their roots, I guess:) with prayer.  Giving them some solid ground to be rooted to.  A good, strong foundation.

As if that all wasn’t cool enough, He then proceeded to give me a picture of my house as a garden to tend to.  Wow…how much more pleasant a thought is that?!!!
Gardens need weeding, pruning, tilling, bug plucking, etc.  However, it’s not usually viewed as a great chore for those who are into gardening because it’s so worth the effort!!!  That is how I am to view my home.  It takes a little work but it is to be a beautiful, restful place of peace to ENJOY!

I picture myself flitting through my garden, putting away a thing here, wiping a counter there, gently caressing the petals of a sweet little flower face, pouring into them water and nourishment while dancing through my beautiful garden, enjoying the peaceful atmosphere.

More and more insight keeps coming from this illustration from others who I have told this too.

At first I was pretty embarrassed about this—it seemed so cheesey and silly.  However, I felt like I should share it at the testimony time on the last day of the retreat and many women ended up coming to me afterwards because they could relate or because they even had more to add to it!!

One woman told me that she thought pinching off little pests was spiritual warfare—squashing any strongholds that try to latch onto our children. Another mentioned that sometimes the outside petals get a little roughed up through hard times in childhood but when they are opened up as mature flowers, those outside petals are on the very bottom and are not even visible.

One mentioned that it spoke to her in that flowers are easily bruised and wilted with harsh treatment.  Another thing that came to me as I was thinking about times I’ve been too harsh, towering over them and shaking my finger….I pictured myself standing over a flower and blocking its sunlight.  Like I’m taking it upon myself to bring about repentance when the Lord is already there–sometimes I just need to get out of the way.

Another woman mentioned that flowers are beautiful when they’re young and tender but that the older, more mature ones smell better!!!  You can try and draw your own conclusions.  I took that to mean that maybe with maturity, there’s more depth or character

Anyway, you can see that there are so many layers to this and I am so grateful for the picture!

It was such a blessing to me and to a few at the retreat, I just thought I would share it with anyone here in case it may be a benefit to you as well!

The other sweet part of this was that He gave me a specific flower as a representation for each of my girls.  As I was telling this to Chris—he knew each flower or had a picture of each flower for each girl in his head!  So awesome.  I’m now studying a bit about each flower and how to care for it and receiving even more insight into the care of each of my childrens’ souls.

I can’t explain my joy and excitement over how much the Lord cares about our measly little lives   He is so willing to be involved and speak to us!

]]> http://erin.520life.org/2010/05/retreat-thoughts-part-one/feed/ 6 http://erin.520life.org/2010/04/confession/ http://erin.520life.org/2010/04/confession/#comments Wed, 28 Apr 2010 12:02:36 +0000 Erin http://erin.520life.org/?p=698 I’m really on a role here.  Not sure why but I just feel like spewing all my problems on the internet so there’s no way for me to go back to pretending everything is fine.  Hopefully it works.

There are so many ways to deal with stress in our lives and I’ve noticed something in mine recently.

I think the Lord has given me this crazy perspective on my own life in recent weeks where it feels as if I’m looking at myself from outside.

When things get tough, I tend to run away and pretend that there are no problems.  I’ve watched myself, over and over again use the computer as an escape from the stress of my days.

It’s pretty predictable at this point.  As soon as the crying starts or the whining about not wanting to pick up toys…as soon as I face any obstacle in training my children or tackling a big cleaning job I sit down at my computer “just to check”.  I am rarely at my computer for long periods of time but it’s in those moments that I am drawn away from my children.

I emotionally withdraw from them while I take a peek at email and that ONLY makes the whole situation worst….let me tell ya.

This is a huge confesssion here:  I look at my children lately and can tell that they are lacking attention.  They are misbehaving and acting like children who don’t have an attentive, loving mother.  It breaks my heart that MY own children are appearing to be in such a state.  How they must feel when I turn to facebook to escape from them.

I love my children so much it hurts and I can’t stand what I’m seeing lately.  I can’t stand it.  How could I have let this happened?  My own children?  My life calling is THEM.  How could I be so bent on avoiding them when all I ever KNEW I wanted to do in life was be a wife and mother?

When they are falling apart emotionally is the greatest opportunity for me to demonstrate the Father’s love and compassion.  They need me to guide them through these times….not run away because of my own fear of….I don’t know what…conflict?

It has become a bit of a habit and is probably going to be quite the task to overcome but I am so ready.

This confession is for the purpose of starting my day off right.  I want to take advantage of every opportunity to connect with the hearts of my kids, not shut off from them when they are emotionally frazzled.

I want to change this today.  I am vowing….Oh, I hope I’m ready for this…to stay off of facebook and email and blog-reading during the day when the kids are awake.  I am going to allow myself, for now, to be on the computer during rest time in the afternoons but will try to hold that losely and see if I can handle it.

God’s grace is sufficient.