Time For Soup

SOMETHING IS JUST RIGHT ABOUT COMING HOME TO A HOT COOKED MEAL ON A LATE COLD AFTERNOON.  CROCKPOT ON and Chicken Vegetable Soup simmering.  I had made a food ministry run this afternoon to deliver some food to a family.  Earlier in the day I rummaged thru my pantry shelves grabbing some items to bag up that I knew we wouldn't miss.  I needed to thin out the 'best used by such an such date' getting close to expired items.  These items will help another family.  A head start on organizing our WINTER pantry.  One day closer to SPRING gets me through the WINTER.

Decorating, cleaning, organizing, thinking about what to do helps me get through the WINTER. 

I gathered cake mixes, boxed lasagna, bagged spaghetti, noodles, a couple small canned hams, uncooked rice, dried beans, corn bread mix, peanut butter, sugar cookie mix, oranges, prune juice, cranberry concentrate, pretzels, flour, ginger snaps, etc.  I made my run then drove over to the Cottage to do only one load of laundry.  Gathered up some Christmas boxes to bring over to Prairie Home later.  And while I was there I thinned out some other things.  A little here and a little there. 

Returning HOME driving slower than usual.  Raining and spitting snow.  Wet with slicker roads.  After a rain the oils on the roads surface making the roads slicker than normal.  Adds to the possibility of hydroplaning.  Didn't feel like flying through the air landing in a deep ditch lying sideways waiting for help.  

SO when I walked in the back door of our PRAIRIE HOME the aroma of Chicken Vegetable Soup was wonderful!  Crockpot goodness.  The weather has turned out wet with rain turning to ice pellets and now fluffy snow is falling as I sit in my HOME looking out the french doors.  HUGE fluffy flakes falling to the ground.  

Cold weather has sparked an impulse in me to do some cleaning.  The Office upstairs will get a hands on this week-end.  More shuffling for sure.  It will be helpful and satisfying to have an Office area where I can concentrate on all the paperwork needing to take place.  Sometimes I feel so geared up wanting things done and having to wait till it happens.  Vroom vroom.  So I will be a happy camper when this Office manifest itself in the Sunroom.  Tadaah.

This past week I did get some of my porcelain dolls relocated to the Living room where they are displayed in our antique secretary.  I have thinned out my dolls the last couple of years with occasionally buying a doll at the THRIFT STORE.  I've started moving the dolls around our house because I am getting more comfortable in our PRAIRIE HOME.  We have been here for a little over a year and a half.  Some of the places I lived early on were for a year and a half to two years and off we'd go to another community.  I'd get to where I would start thinking isn't it time to move after we had been in a location for two years.  Habit forming.  We had been in our ole rock house close to ten years.  The longest period of time for us during our marriage.

The need to stay put is on the back burner sort of speak.  As I continue to get better organized and thinned out, this is a lovely place to hang my hat.  

The snow continues to fall and is getting thicker as I type.  Perhaps we will receive 6 to 10 inches over night.  A very wet Winter.  Darkness is settling in as the grey skies turn to late afternoon early evening shades of pewter with night creeping in.

HOME LIFE is for me.  

I love it here.

Time for soup with croutons, 

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