Catching Up

I've been out of the loop for a bit now. I'm still not over this evil cold/flu experience - going on two weeks now. Husband is now sick with it. Oh my dear lord, he snored like a freight train last night with the congestion and night time cold medicine. Now that daughter is back at university, he has agreed to sleep in her room tonight so that I can actually get some sleep, too.

We celebrated son's nineteenth birthday. Husband was all hopped up on cold meds and came to the restaurant with us, ate food, and after we came home, he fell asleep on the couch after cake. Good times. We took daughter back to 'the city' on Sunday and she is now feeling cruddy with a soar throat and clogged up ears. I'm waiting for her to also lose her sense of taste and smell, which happened to me with this, too.

Anyway, at some point, Christmas was packed up. My sweet family carried the boxes down from the 'rubbermaid' room upstairs and I disassembled displays and put things in boxes, disregarding the labels I have Sharpie markered on the outsides. Yup, threw caution to the wind and put snowmen in the box that said 'Santa collection'. Chaos will ensue next Christmas! They then carried the boxes back up to the store room and assembled the jigsaw trying to get everything to fit back in there again.

To back it up even further, my big gathering on Boxing Day went off without a hitch. We fit everyone in the kitchen, there were enough plates, and more than enough food. I think everyone had a good time and the weather behaved itself.

And now here is January. Absolutely NO New Year's resolutions were made. In fact, New Year's Eve was a sad little event with me being sick and we cancelled on friends, but I'm sure we will get together with them some other time. They are actually going to be first time grandparents quite soon. I can't even imagine!!

The wind today blew from the east, bringing in nasty weather including freezing rain. I'm glad none of us had to be out driving at that time (around supper time). I've been enjoying reading bloggers posts about epiphany and wassailing, and various other celebrations. I love finding out about those kinds of traditions.

I did get an Instantpot (fancy pressure cooker which also doubles as a slow cooker) for Christmas and the only thing I've made in it so far was split pea and ham soup (using up some of the ham from Christmas). If I had made this soup from scratch using dried split peas and did it on the stove it would have take me a couple of hours to make sure that the peas were soft enough. If I did it in a crockpot, it would be simmering away all day. When I made it from scratch, using dried split peas, with my Instantpot (pressure cooker feature), after it had come up to pressure (which takes only a few minutes), it cooked in 18 minutes. It was good. The vegetables (carrots, split peas, celery) were soft enough and the soup was good. It made a lot, and I even took some today for work for my lunch. My verdict so far with the Instantpot is a thumbs up. I haven't tried a roast or anything like that, but when I do, I will post about it and let you know.

Right, time to throw away some Kleenex and do a final tidy up in the kitchen. Hope you had a good Monday everyone.