It's winter!

I'm nearly giddy with a mixture of unbelief and awe. It's really winter...the kind I can look out my window and see!! Oh Mrs. Willie....you are so right, I did miss it. I missed *seeing* winter ( I still don't think I miss feeling it though).

We woke up this morning to ice falling out of the sky. The pines are so much prettier dressed in tiny crystal sleeves on each little needle....it makes the green so much more vivid and it glitters even in the cloudy mucky January sky. Who would ever have guessed (besides Mrs. Willie who knows me too well) that I would miss seeing winter! I have always hated and dreaded winter with it's drab sky and plain colors and tired days that are too short to accomplish much of anything at all. I guess after two years without it maybe it just becomes a tiny bit more tolerable. It helps too just knowing that it won't last for months and that it isn't going to be severe like it gets back home with power lines down and roads closed and all the horrible winter fun that goes on in the midwest. If you don't know what I mean google some of the newspapers for Missouri and Iowa and Nebraska and Kansas, and even Oklahoma ....those people have every reason to hate winter right now.

The little dab of icicly beauty even inspired me to do some real work in the kitchen today. I have pumpkins baking to be processed for future pies and cakes and breads and muffins. I have bread dough rising and plans for a big pot of soup for supper. The kids are doing schoolwork together and are enjoying their little bit of winter too.

When I started on all of that this morning it hit me that my family hasn't been eating nearly healthy enough lately. Maybe that's why I keep getting sick and staying that way for such long periods of time. We used to eat ZERO processed and packaged foods....my kids didn't even have store bought milk until 2001! Everything we ate was made from scratch with 100% real food, not the processed and mass marketed version that you get in the stores. I miss grinding my own flour and making my own butter from REAL milk....I miss the way REAL food tastes and how healthy my family used to be. I have to get busy and get my family's health back!!

Well, I have to get busy working in my happy winter kitchen. I hope you all enjoy your beautiful happy winter day!