Rainy Sunday

Instead of waking up to the wonderful pitter patter of rain on the roof, I woke up to Samuel crying because he was sick. Not good!  He started throwing up just before seven and kept on until after eleven.  My poor baby!  He is so pitiful when he's sick.  So he and I stayed home from church this rainy morning.  He does seem to feel a little better now,  I'm happy to report.  Thank you for the prayers for him in church this morning.

Well, since we have a sick one amongst us, I thought I'd make some homemade chicken noodle soup.  This recipe is one I found in my grandmother's recipe box and we love it.  Micah doesn't even like soup and he likes this one a lot!   Not sure how my mother ended up with my mama's recipe box when she died.  Mother was not really "into" cooking so much...maybe that's why she needed the recipe box.  lol! I thought I'd share this recipe with you.  It's easy to make.  Hope you'll try it sometime.  It puts the canned chicken noodle soups to shame!

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

4 cups cooked chicken, diced
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup butter or margarine
12 cups water
1 cup diced carrots
4-7 chicken flavored instant bouillon cubes(depending on how strong you want it)
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon pepper
6 oz. wide egg noodles

In a large Dutch oven, cook celery and onion in butter until tender; add remaining ingredients except noodles.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat; simmer covered 30 minutes.  Add noodles. Cook 10 minutes longer or until noodles are tender, stirring occasionally.  Makes about 4 quarts.

Hope you enjoy it too!

One last thing for today....I mentioned yesterday about all the people we know having difficulties.  It seems like everywhere you turn people are hurting and struggling.  I was really down the other day because it was a difficult week for us.  Micah and I started talking about the hard times so many folks are going through right now, ourselves included.  My frustration was at a high.  It seems like Christians, in particular, seem to be under attack.  People we know who have dedicated their life to serving God and ministering to those in need are going through the most horrible trials.  It just didn't seem "fair".   As we talked through some scriptures and I got alone with God and talked to Him, a peace came over me.  The reality is that we are under attack by a terrible enemy, Satan.  The Bible tells us that he wants to destroy us.   Micah found Psalm 73 for me and we read through it together.  It discusses this very topic...that the evil seem to thrive while the Christians struggle.  However, if you read to the end of the chapter, you will see how the story ends.  I encourage you to read this chapter too if you are going through difficulty and struggling with the "whys?" of it all.  One last verse to leave you with...


"These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. "
John 16:33

Hope this will help you too. Thanks for reading!
God bless...

HOMEMADE DISHWASHING POWDER

For my first post on my new blog I thought I'd share a little about why I decided to create a blog.  My husband, Micah, and I have been discussing how we can become more self sufficient.  There has never been a time in my life that I have known more people out of work, more people struggling to make ends meet, more people who are finding it difficult to sustain a good quality of life.  The Bible tells us that as Christians we should not only be good stewards of the resources the Lord has entrusted us with, but to also be aware of the times we live in.  We feel like it's just a matter of time before some crisis happens to our country, whether it be man made or natural, and we are not prepared to survive.  Our grandparents lived through the depression and knew how to make do with less.  They knew how to grow their own food, fix their own clothes, make their own things.  Most young families today have no clue how to do any of these things.  Micah and I found ourselves in that same category.  I don't know if this prompting to become more self sufficient was the Lord laying it on our hearts or not, but this year we have started trying to learn what we need to do to be able to take care of our family if the need arises.  The Lord will always help those who call on Him, but He also gives us common sense to do what we can to be prepared.  We are also striving to be better stewards which is why we're teaching ourselves how to make our dollars stretch.

My blog is entitled "Odds & Ends" because I plan on putting a little bit of everything on here.  As I said, we are new to all of this prepping/homesteading stuff so we are still learning.  As we try out new things, my hope is to post about it and let you know what our findings are. My memory is not what it used to be(not that it's ever been great), so I'm hoping having it all in one place will help me too.  I hope to not only post recipes for homemade items, like washing powder, dishwashing powder, soap, fabric softener and many other items we use in our homes, but also food recipes that we've tried and like, natural medicinal things and our gardening adventures.  I say adventures because we had our first garden this year and we learned a lot.  Next year, we are hoping to expand it greatly.  I tried my hand at canning this year too.  I'm hoping to do much more of that next year with our expanded garden.

I also hope to share other tidbits of information as the Lord lays it on my heart.  We have been through a lot in our forty something years.  I feel like God has allowed these things in our life so that we may help others who are going through similar situations.   He promises us that all things work together for our good.  It doesn't always mean what we are going through is good, but that God can work it for our good. 

A little about me now...Micah and I have two wonderful sons, Zachary, 17, and Samuel, 4.  Micah and I have been in the ministry for 18 of the 21 years that we've been married.  About 17 years ago, Micah was bitten by a tick and developed Lyme's Disease as a result.  This has been something that has been a struggle for us because of the seizures and pain that Lyme's causes.  There may be days that I write about the things we've learned from this journey we've been on.

Basically, I want this blog to be a help and a type of daily journal of all that we are learning.  I pray that it will honor my heavenly Father above.  I don't know yet what it may develop into, but at this point these are the ideas that I'm hoping to share on this site.  But, of course, I reserve the right to put any other random thoughts I may have here too(scary, I know!)

Thanks for checking out my blog!  God bless!

Carrie

HOMEMADE DISHWASHING POWDER

1 cup borax
1 cup washing powder(looks like a big baking soda box, in the cleaning supplies of your store)
1/2 cup citric acid(found this in the canning supplies at walmart)
1/2 cup Kosher salt
*2 T. phosphorus(we added this too.  many of the recipes we found for homemade do not have this)*

Mix these together thoroughly.  You'll need to stir this every time you think about it for the first couple of days or else it will form a solid block.  After that, it didn't do it anymore.

Use 1 T. of the mixture and also put 1 T. of regular distilled vinegar in the rinse compartment(this will keep your glasses from getting cloudy.

 *A note about the phosphorus...Micah said that phosphorus used to be in all of our cleaning supplies and the government took it out because of the ecofriendly laws that had been passed.  The problem was that the cleaners did a much poorer job of cleaning without it in there.  Feel free to research the phosphorus issue and decide if you want to add it to yours.  We like the results.  It can be added to your washing powder for clothes too.  :-)

This is so much cheaper than the brand name dishwashing powders and does a good job cleaning the dishes.  I think you'll be very pleased with the results.