you just gotta love it...

 ...or be miserable.  

Winter.  Fogging up my windows and freezing my piggy toes.   I decided to put my pretty spring wreath back up.

The snow covered branches, so lovely.

This young lady visited the back yard with several of her friends.  We've had a mild winter, she looks quite well fed and healthy, for a February doe.

The family went off to church this fine Sunday morning, I had to stay home because...TMI, tummy issues. I'm hoping it's not the start of the stomach virus that's been making the rounds, but in any case, I had to stay home.  

The girls had the audacity to beg me to make chicken pot pie, as they piled out the door.  I was supposed  to make it on Friday, but spent over four hours on those cabinet doors, sanding and painting. They all put in a good day's work too, on Friday, installing insulation in the cabins at church, Cam worked organizing the kitchen. They were so disappointed when they came home and NO POT PIE.   Then yesterday, I went with Paul to work on the house we are fixing up.  He's laying flooring, I'm painting cabinets, trim, and more trim.  We put in a good day's work.   Home, ahh home, the girls were off to a gathering, Sonja volunteered at the Special Olympics, so it was just the two of us.  I cooked up some bacon, then chopped up peppers and onions, sautéed with sliced breakfast sausage...removed from pan, scrambled some eggs, then dumped those peppers, onions, sausage, right on top...a yummy brekky-dinner.  

So, since I actually don't feel so awful, I washed up some dishes, put in a load of towels, got out the food processor, and made some pie dough.  That's chilling in the 'fridge, the pot of pot pie filling is cooling on the stove.  (It's actually so easy to make:  I had chicken breast frozen, cut in little pieces, salted and peppered and with lime or lemon juice, just browned that up, added chicken stock, then some chopped celery, and a bag of frozen mixed veggies.  Sometimes I dice up some potatoes, or use fresh carrot slices, but nope, not today.  I thickened it all up with a flour/cornstarch and cold water mixture.). For the crusts, I put 3 cups of flour and a dash of salt in the food processor, gave it a whirr, then added 2 and a half sticks of butter, pulsed it a few times until there were peas-sized butter chunks...dumped it into a mixing bowl, tossed some cold water in, stirring it with a fork, then formed two bigger disks for the pot pie, and one smaller one for my sugar-free pumpkin pie...:)(If you only want the one two-crusted pie, it would be 2 1/2 C flour, and 2 sticks butter)

(Sugar free pumpkin pie: 15 ounce can pumpkin, 2 eggs, 12 ounces evaporated milk, or a mixture of half and half, milk, heavy cream. 1 teas. cinnamon, 1 teas pumpkin pie spice, dash of ginger, half teas salt...it calls for 3/4 cup of sugar, I just added less than a half cup of granulated monk fruit sweetener.)(I am NOT saying this is healthy, but I enjoy it once in a while, carb-y crust and all)

I hope I'm not actually sick, and can go to the pool tomorrow.  It's helped me so much.  One of the ladies there has one artificial knee, and said that swimming helps so much, her replacement knee hurts more now than her other bad knee.  It's helped my hips and my knees.  It didn't fix them, but the movement helps blood flow, it's like magic how much it helps.  

Well,  the pot pie is in the oven, the pumpkin pie is in the oven, and Camille is making a strawberry layer cake.  She has made chocolate dipped strawberries, and is dipping pretzels in the leftover chocolate.  

It smells good in here....:)