Tag Archives: fall

The Joy of Soup

While working like a maniac yesterday, I did manage to find time to make a little soup. What a fabulous way to celebrate fall! My household has just two members, my husband and I, so I don’t always have access to bones from which to make a tasty broth. But at the recent church potluck I asked if anybody was going to take home the turkey bones. Nobody claimed them, so I took them home and I spun that hay into turkey soup gold.

There are few things in the world that smell quite as awesome as homemade turkey soup bubbling away on the stove. Homemade soups are healthy and delicious! They often have a small amount of meat, a whole lot of vegetables, and you get to choose just how much salt to put in there. (Many commercial soups are extremely high in sodium, so buyer beware!) Also, if you like, you can separate out your broth from the other ingredients and refrigerate after cooking. Once cooled, you can scrape the fat layer off the top if you like your soups a little less oily. Or leave it in. It’s your soup, so make it just how you like!

But one of the things I really love about soup, is that I think you can taste the love in there. Seriously! Soup is one of the original slow foods, and the anticipation and the bubbling and the stirring and the steam and the aroma fills your heart as well as your tummy!

So, in this time of crazy holiday schedules and stress, I suggest that you set aside just a little time, get out your biggest pot, grab some veggies and an onion and some garlic and make some soup.

Love,

The Fat Chick

Snuggle

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Fall is my absolute favorite time of year. It brings blessed relief from the hot yucky weather of summer. The leaves put on a fabulously seasonal fashion show. It’s time for the fireplace and some hot tea and snuggling.

Now I am a firm believer in SAES (Snuggle At Every Size), but I also believe that each of us should publicly claim our special talents. False modesty aside, I am warm, and soft and cuddly. And frankly, if there was a James Bond Girl/Super Friends Action Heroine of Snuggling, well that would be me. I love it, and I am GOOD at it.

In order to be a great snuggler, you need a few tools of the trade. You need tea. You need soft blankies. You need warm, fuzzy, jammies. And you need to understand the Zen art of hunkering down and staying quite still for a while. Some people need a good book or a good movie to stay still. More advanced student snugglers can get away with candlelight and music. But the real, professional-level snugglers need only cool weather, a jug of wine and thou. (Well, the thou is optional.)

My very, very favorite snuggling though is Saturday, back to sleep, sandwich snuggling. That’s when I get done teaching my class and I decide to take the rest of the day off. I take a bath and get back into my jammies. Then I crawl back into bed with my handsome husband and my big fluffy dog and cuddle in for some serious shut-eye. (What is it about back-to-sleep sleep that is sooooo delicious?)

Oh dear, the power of suggestion is overwhelming. I think I’ll–*yawn* take a bath and see you lat—-zzzzzzz.

(love The Fat Chick).

Filling the Barns

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We had the house tented for termites this past weekend. This is a rite of passage that nearly all Southern California folks go through at some point in their lives, and it is a big pain in the tuckus. We had to be out of the house for several days and we had to spend many hours prepping the house for the process. Frankly we were dreading the whole thing. We had researched some hotels in town that could accommodate us and our dog and we were frankly less than thrilled with the options.

Then my awesome husband came up with a brilliant idea. “Let’s go camping!” he said. I was skeptical. I was waiting to hear back from a show producer. I had piles and piles of work to do and I knew the campground didn’t have wi-fi. How could I realistically take the weekend off? I also wasn’t sure that prepping to live in a tent while we were prepping to tent the house seemed like such a good idea, but I agreed. And getting ready for the trip was kind of tough with everything else going on, but boy am I ever glad we did.

We finally had just a breath of fall. It was so nice to don a light jacket at night and to live without the whirr of the AC for a few days. The weather was frankly, perfect. Warm, sunny, clear and gorgeous. We spent a lot of time doing nothing. We walked. We talked. We looked at trees. We tasted apple cider. We played with the dog.

This was definitely a lemons to lemonade situation here. I had been wanting to take some time off, but just felt that I couldn’t. I was clearly tense, frustrated and completely out of energy. But somehow I felt I needed to keep slogging. I was trying to keep the farm running and the livestock fed with an empty barn.

It was just a reminder that sometimes you have to stop and fill the barn. Sometimes you have to quit waving the pitchfork around and you need to go get some hay. Sometimes you’ve got to refuel.

Sure, I took almost a whole weekend off. (I still took a producer call on Friday night and taught class Saturday morning.) And you know what? The world kept on turning. I remembered that I have a family who loves me. And I am ready to face that huge pile of stuff to do again with renewed energy and purpose.

I’m remembering again that I am one very lucky fat chick!

Love,

The Fat Chick