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Life In The Slow Lane

Well Darlings, we survived! The Winter "Break" that is! ;)

You Mamas will absolutely know what I mean. 

Not only did we have my father visiting for a few days, but I was down with the flu the whole time he was here. I did call my Dad to tell him a few days before he was due to drive down, but he decided to make the trip anyway. I was so grateful I had the foresight to prep some baked goods before his arrival. Not sure I would have made it otherwise. Sadly, Dad fell ill upon his return home, which meant he got to spend New Year's Eve all by himself in his log cabin in the woods. And yet, he was glad he had come anyway, even though the flu "knocked him on his ass" (His words, I swear! LOL!). 



The rest of the break was spent generally loafing around, hanging out with my little Fambam, eating, resting, and catching up on chores. 

I wonder, do anyone else's kids need to sleep in every day of the week, but once the weekend or holidays arrive, they're up at the crack of dawn? It can't be just our kids who do this, right? LOL! 

Anyway, I wish I had a whole post filled with photos of the winter wonderland outside our windows, but I'll be honest here, I'm not a huge fan of winter. So instead, I thought I'd share a few shots of items I've been working on. 




I've been working on a few new items to list in my Etsy shop, and since my second favourite holiday is coming up, I thought I'd fill my inventory with some pretty little crochet hearts. 

Just so ya'll know, this is pretty. much how work gets done around here. If he's not ON me, he's tripping me up by hanging out at my feet. (I'm not kidding, the amount of times I've hip checked this kid in the head is outstanding.)

Some finished, some still needing their ends woven in. 

As I mentioned above, I did a little bit of baking before Dad's arrival, because I didn't want to be spending his whole visit in the kitchen, either prepping, cooking, or cleaning. Though I still did do a whole lot of the latter ;)
What you see above, are all the herbs and spices I needed to make a batch of tourtière, following my Great Grandmother's recipe. Incidentally, our Didi's teachers were hosting an international week, and one of the assignments was for the students to bring food from their family's culture for their classmates to taste. Which is why I decided this was a great time to make a huge batch of tourtière for Dad. So I set off to make three dozen mini meat pies for her classroom, thinking the teachers would prefer to hand out individual servings, rather than having to dole out from a big pie. Turns out I was right, especially since we were later informed that we would have to not only serve the food ourselves, but make a wee presentation as well! Ha! Ha! Ha! Oh well, it was fun. And most of the kids ate them. 
Now, knowing full well that not everyone would want to eat them, or not even like them (tourtière can be a bit savoury for some. My husband and I love the dish, but our kids will only have a very small portion.), I let the teacher know that I would also be bringing a little something sweet to class for the kids to try. I picked another recipe from my Great Grandmother's cookbook, and made almost 7 dozen mini tartelettes. Yes, you read that right, SEVEN. DOZEN! Thank goodness I didn't have to pick and prep the cherries for the filling, LOL! I was smart and got that from good old Bulk Barn

We're still in the process of finishing our basement renovations, which will include our brand new kitchen, but for now, I'll have to make due with showing you process photos from our existing 1970's special. 
I made the dough from scratch, and let it sit in the refrigerator overnight. 



Oh man, if I told you how many times I wanted to lick the spoon. Or how many times I had to tell Didi that no, she COULDN'T lick the spoon! LOL!!


They're quite time consuming to prepare, but also took me a looooong time to bake, since we're down to using a small countertop convection oven after our oven died last summer. Ask me how excited I am for our new kitchen to be finished. Go ahead, ask me! 
Oh, I can't even tell you how nice it's going to be to be able to roast a whole roast or turkey in a full-sized oven again! 
Now see, I don't hate winter entirely. I don't like to hang out in the snow too much, because the cold hurts my bones, but I do like the way it looks ;)

And I also let the kids have the opportunity to play out in it to their hearts' content. However, I'll fully admit to loving the fact that I can let them loose in our back walkout, while I stay inside, and watch them play as I sip on a hot coffee... 




Also, December sunsets aren't too shabby. 

TTFN Dolls!