We had an impromptu birthday party here last weekend (happy birthday, Babe!). We thought about getting together for pizza and pitchers at Brewvies. At one point, the ancient Japanese art of karaoke was also considered. In the end, just meeting here seemed like the best option. Now, I’m not sure when it happened–fairly recently, I think–but I have weird hangups about having people over: my home is my sanctuary, control issues, yadda yadda yadda. Despite that, It ended up being fun for me and probably something I need to get used to anyway.

I made these cupcakes!

There was food. There was drink. There were games, live music, canned music, a dance party, and an idyllic midnight walk through the neighborhood in the falling snow, which quickly devolved into a snowball/whitewash fight until everyone was freezing and ready to go inside. I think I can safely say that fun was had by all.

I think pretty much everyone had *several* cupcakes 😉

What we didn’t realize during that party was that someone harbored and shared the cold germs that would make us all sick a few days later. We didn’t realize everyone else was sick too, until we learned that the Christmasslashbirthdayslashbirthday party that was scheduled for this weekend had been cancelled because every.single.person who had been at our party the weekend before was also sick with a cold.

So, yeah. Enter soups and stews.

At Thanksgiving, Dad sent us home with fresh onions from the farm.

Since getting sick, we’ve been surviving on lamb stew, lentil soup, Vicks Vapo Rub and just generally trying to recover from the plague of all-night mouth breathing, headaches, and swollen sinuses. I have about one more day’s worth of school work left before I can officially let down. After that, I’m hoping to take at least week’s vacation from thinking about work.

And until then, there might be more soups, broths, and stews on the horizon.

Mushrooms for the lamb stew!