What Does Your Prayer Life Say About You?

One of our campus pastors recently spoke about what our prayer life says about us. I (along with many of us I'm sure) struggle to have a consistant and meaningful prayer life. I'm the kind of person that has God in my thoughts all day and I'm constantly giving shoutouts and I think that is wonderful... but I don't sit down for a long period of time and petition on behalf of unbelievers (although I do reserve my blowdry time for praying), or request that God do amazing things in my life in order to bring him glory. I give thanks and recognition throughout the day, but that's about the extent of my regular prayer routine. The pastor challenged me to question what my prayer-life says about myself. He said a lacking prayer life usually points to two things: pride and unbelief. Does my prayer life show that I think I can do all of this without God? Does it show that I don't believe he'll do amazing works in my life? Does it show that I don't think he desires to bless me and provide for me? Does it show that I think I can do all of this better and know what's best for myself? Does it also show that I don't think I have a role in petitioning him on behalf of those he created to know and love him? For the past few mornings I have been getting up at 7am, reading my daily bible verses, then writing in a prayer journal. I've stayed as close as possible to the format of rhte Lord's prayer. It feels good! Except for my writing hand, it hurts. I don't know how I used to hold a pen and write all the time. Praise God for keyboards.

Au Gratin Potatoes
6 russet potatoes, sliced 1/4 inch thick
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
2 cups milk
1/2 tsp nutmeg
black pepper to taste
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

The box kind takes forever to cook anyway, so why not just make it yourself? Besides, have you seen the dehydrated "potatoes" that come in that thing?? Preheat the oven to 375. If it's worth it to you to dirty up one more small saucepan in order to make sure that your cheese sauce is not lumpy, then I definitely recommend putting the 2 cups of milk in the smallest saucepan you can on low. You just need to bring it to room temperature because the cold milk will make the butter/flour mix clump up. Melt the butter over med-low heat, add the flour and whisk until well blended and pasty. Take a measuring cup of any size and scoop in a little of the milk at a time. Whisk it until it is well blended and no longer lumpy. Once you can add a scoop of milk and the mixture does not lump, it's safe to pour the rest in all at once. Once that is warmed through, added the shredded cheese about 1 cup at a time. You can grate your own cheese for this, but you're already making so much of this from scratch, I say take a little help from the store and buy a pouch of already-shredded cheese. Add the nutmeg and pepper. Let the cheese sauce simmer for 2 minutes, stirring frequently, then turn the heat off but you can leave it on the burner. I like to pour in a thin layer of sauce, then add a layer of potatoes, and repeat until I'm done. Bake covered for 45 minutes, uncovered for 10. You can also thin slice an onion and layer it: cheese, potato, onion, repeat. I left the onion out tonight because I'm making this for a work potluck and it's hard to know what people will like.

Every New Beginning Comes From Some Other Beginning's End

I found out that I will be jobless in two weeks. On December 1, Equity Residential hand the keys of Lenox over to the Connor Group and the Connor Group has decided not to keep any of the current staff. We all suspected this was coming, but today we got the official word. I'm so full of emotion about it, but I'm not freaked out. I'm sad to walk out of that property and not go back. I'm sad for my residents who are going to lose every familiar face, every person that they trust and with whom they have rapport. Sigh. I just can't believe that we will go in to work that Tuesday, pack up everything that is marked with Equity's logo, put notices on all the resident's doors notifying them of the change in management, and then leave... then we just leave.

I'm looking forward to seeing what is in store for me. March would have been 5 years with Equity and May would have been 6 years in the industry. I'd really love this as an opportunity to "try" something new, but I will definitely keep my eye out for openings in property management. It would be foolish not to. Maybe God has something completely unexpected that he'll put in my path. I definitely want to be receptive to whatever that might be.

Marinated Chicken Tenderloins

6 boneless skinless chicken tenderloins

(or 2 breasts cut into strips)

1/3 cup italian dressing

2 tbsp honey

1 tbsp lime juice

Put a skillet on medium heat. On my stove, just under 6 is perfect for this recipe, just over 6 is too much. Too much heat will cause the honey to caramelize too quickly and burn (bad!) before the chicken is cooked through, so just be careful and keep an eye on it. 4 minutes on the first side, 3-4 minutes on the second. We had this with green beans and roasted red skin potatoes. Nothing fancy :)

I Love Sundays

Guess what Matt and I did tonight?! We made 4 lbs of candied jalapenos! What fun :) Unfortunately they are WAY too hot for me to feel like we can actually give them out for gifts so we (sigh) tossed all but 6 little 4 oz jars of them and we're going to try again - removing 90% of the seeds this time.

Matt and I have been in much discussion lately about what it means to honor the sabbath. For the most part, I enjoy my Sundays best when I am running errands and bring productive around the home in order to get things straight for the upcoming week. Scripture teaches however, that we are not supposed to pursue our own interests on the sabbath day, and that we are supposed to labor and do all of our work the six other days. For me, honoring the sabbath isn't my first problem, it's working hard enough on the other six days. If I really filled my waking hours with productivity six days a week then I could rest and focus my energy whatever it is that God would have me do to bring the kingdom of heaven here on earth. Matt and I would be free to open our home to anyone and everyone who wanted to stop by. We would be free to volunteer our time in the community, all day if we wanted. We would be free to spend time with friends after church on a whim with no worries about what is at home that is not getting done. For at least one day a week, our goal should be to be as free as possible to go where God directs us on a whim without the distraction of work, or errands, or chores. I don't believe that keeping busy on every sabbath is necessary. Matt and I walked part of the tobacco trail today and just enjoyed the beauty around us as well as the people we passed by. The point is that we were not furthering our own selfish pursuits. We were appreciating our Lord.

Exodus 20:8-10 "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates."
Isaiah 58:13-14 "If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly; then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken."

Welcome to Joes!

You know when you walk in to Moe's all of the employees holler, "Welcome to Moe's!" ? Well for some reason I holler, "ah na na Moe's!" really fast... it sounds almost the same, I promise. Matt and I were in Trader Joes (stop for a second, I have to tell you, we are in love with Trader Joes). It's become a weekend ritual to just walk through and see if we can find something new that we've never tried before. Today I found boursin cheese that is $3.49 when it's $6.99 at Kroger! That's amazing. Matt gets his expensive organic cereal at Trader Joes for the same price as Kroger but the box is about 10 oz bigger. They have these wonderful dried apricots, but they've been out of them the past few times we've looked. Today however, they had them! I ran down the aisle ahead of Matt to check for them. When I found them I stood up, looked down the crowded aisle until I made eye contact with him, and then lifted the back up in the air triumphantly. A lady right in front of me smiled, laughed, and said, "yay!" haha, she knows what it is like to find something awesome at Trader Joes. We also got mini mint chocolate chip ice cream sandwiches. We were so excited about these that we split one in the car on the way home. I'm telling you, we're uncontrollable. And we have Trader Joes to blame for it.

I made a mess (again!), but at least it was yummy

It's never worth it to use a pot/skillet/bowl, etc that's smaller than what you need. For some unknown reason, I did that exact thing three times while cooking just one meal. I think I did it thinking that the smaller things would be so much easier to clean in the sink. Instead, I ended up making more of a mess than if I would have had if I had used the bigger things. First, my skillet was too small so the sausage/pepper mixture that I was stirring kept flying out over the edges... greasy sausage landing on the stovetop. Next, I mixed the sausage mixture with the breadcrumb mixture in a bowl that was too small... making a mess on the countertop. Last, and probably the worst, I cooked the orzo in a pot that was too small. Pasta likes a lot of extra water to move around in, that's why pasta pots are so big. But orzo is so small! Surly it won't matter if I cook it in a 3 qt saucepan instead. I then spent 10 minutes blowing down the bubbles every 30-45 seconds so that it would not boil over. Needless to say, I was a mess in the kitchen tonight.

Sausage Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms (This is an awesome Emeril recipe, by the way, simplified a bit)

3 portobello caps, remove the stems and rub in olive oil

12 oz of sausage (tubes come in 16 oz, save 1/4 of it for breakfast burritos later in the week)

1/4 cup of green pepper, diced

1/4 cup onion, diced

1/4 cup celery, chopped

1 clove minced garlic

2/3 cup breadcrumbs (I always use the plain, unseasoned ones)

2/3 cup parmesan cheese (please get a block and have a strong guy grate it and keep it in tupperware... it lasts forever and is sooo much better than the green shaker guy)

2 tsp olive oil

2 tsp essence, recipe follows, and yes, it's worth it to make a batch... it's so good and I use it on everything

1 egg, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 400. Cook the sausage until browned, about 4 minutes. Add the onion, bell pepper, celery and cook another 3 minutes. Add the garlic and cook another 30 seconds. Remove from heat. In a separate bowl combine 1/3 c bread crumbs, 1/3 c parmesan, essence, and olive oil. Mix well. Add the egg and stir again until well combined. Divide the filling among the mushroom caps. Combine the remaining bread crumbs and parm and top the mushroom caps. Bake until golden brown on top, about 15-18 minutes.

I like to serve this with orzo tossed with cherry tomatoes that have been halved.

Essence

2 1/2 tbsp paprika

2 tbsp salt

2 tbsp garlic powder

1 tbsp black pepper

1 tbsp onion powder

1 tbsp cayenne pepper

1 tbsp dried oregano

1 tbsp dried thyme

This makes 2/3 cup.