Who else was in absolute weather heaven this weekend? My energy level sky-rocketed, especially after nearly having a tea party with a monstrous garden spider. It didn’t even have clotted cream ready to serve, which is what really caused all the drama, but more on that later.

We had early breakfasts and back-to-back days of Spades-playing with family. It was relaxing, yet interactive. Plus, R was off a whole extra day and I do enjoy his silly company. Even truer now that we are entering the twilight phase of being alone together.

But before I get into all of that, let me share my latest “Why haven’t I been doing this all along?” experiment.

A friend posted on FB that she made some homemade chicken stock. I bullied her into writing about it, because God forbid I go a day without yelling at someone to do something for me.

She obliged and here’s her blog post on how to make chicken or beef stock from scratch. Sigh, she makes everything seem so easy, so I’ve put it off knowing it must be harder than it looked.

Then I found a great deal on whole chickens at the supermarket and resigned myself to try it.

So this is my teeny, tiny batch from it! And like I’d been thinking all along, it was really easy.

Next time I need to add more water, but for my first rodeo, I was pretty proud.

The fat was scraped off from the top leaving this jelly-like stock underneath.

And right into the freezer it went. Snuggling up next to the big batch of stew that’s ready to be defrosted for baby’s Birthing Day. You can feed stew to a newborn, right?

Settle. I know you can’t feed that until at least 3 months in.

Have a great shortened week!