I Caught a Cold For My Birthday But I'm Not Complaining

       I am sitting here in my big chair, a dog on my feet, a dog in my lap, sipping on some lemon & honey, and smelling of Vicks VaporRub.  Considering it is cold outside I am just fine where I am.  I'm not complaining but I am getting pretty tired of being sick though.  

    It is going to get colder. No snow yet but the high on Thursday is suppose to be 13 degrees & snow all week so I am glad I have a warm home and don't have to get out in the cold if I don't want to. I hate driving in ice and snow. So far that is one of the best things about retirement.  This is what Amarillo looked like LAST February .... we don't expect anything like this for the coming week.  I hope.

     Since I don't feel like doing anything but napping and blowing my nose I have been delighted to have a series of books to read.  If you haven't read the Dearest Dorothy books by Charlene Baumbich, and you like humorous, clean stories then see if your library has them.  Better yet, purchase them online, enjoy them,  then donate them to your library.  (sorry, 20 years as a librarian causes me to push library use to keep them in business)  There are six titles in the series.  The title of book one is Dearest Dorothy, Are We There Yet? The bad news is there is not a book seven.  The main character is Dorothy and she has been real good company for me this week. I picture her as a combination of Fannie Flagg and Erma Bombeck's grandmothers.  I am reading book 6 and don't want it to end.  I care about these characters and that is a sign of a good author (that can make you care).

        I like to play Farkle and Words With Friends but this week I discovered a new way to exercise my brain (and that's my story) at http://www.craniumcrunches.com/

      My daughter made me the most delicious thing.  Our local grocery store had boneless, skinless chicken breasts on sale recently so I bought a bunch and cooked them in the crockpot.  Once they were done I shredded the meat and frozen them in bags holding about 2 cups.  My daughter took a bag of frozen veggies, thawed (corn, peas, carrots, green beans), some canned chicken broth, a can of cream of chicken soup, a package of shredded chicken, some pepper, some sauteed celery and combined all that in a dutch oven with just enough water to the soup mixture and heated it up.  Then she took Pioneer Baking Mix and made dumplings to cook on top of the soup.  Oh my goodness, that was good!  It made a dutch oven full, and it was just to the two of us so even though we ate every one of the dumplings I still had a huge bowl of the soup left.  You know how the broth thickens up after you make dumplings?  Well, it was thick like that as you can sort of see in the photo, and even thicker after being in the fridge for 24 hours so the next night I ate the leftovers over biscuits.  Yum!