My beautiful, wonderful freezer

No more cooking for me for quite a while because I'm DUH-UN.  (that's done with an emphasis, ok?)

My freezer is stocked.  It's beautiful.  Here, take a look...

Meals, meals, meals !  Soups, chili, casseroles.  The bottom pull-out drawer is all home made applesauce and berries we froze from summertime picking.   In the door is what's left of our freezer jam, frozen pumpkin breads (yum!), and of course - my Perry's Pumpkin Pie ice cream.   What did you expect ???  It's limited edition, so I have to stock up on my favorite flavor while it's in stores :)  

It's so beautiful it's almost a shame to start removing meals from it thus diminishing the stockpile.  But I'll get over that pretty quickly.  You know there are few things I like more than pulling a ready-to-go homemade dinner out of my freezer.  If my estimations are correct I won't be doing much cooking until mid to late  February. (we do planned leftovers.)    That was how far we got last winter before I had to cook up a second round.  Last year's second round conveniently came a few weeks before the birth of our fourth baby.  I was nesting in high gear and was able to channel all that prenatal hyper-energy into my cooking.  I actually made three months worth of meals in about 5 minutes.  Sadly, this year I may not approach the second round with the same gusto.  

So, what will I do with all of my new-found late afternoon/early evening spare time?  Stop. Right. There.  Let's not kid ourselves - just because I don't have to make dinner doesn't mean I suddenly have "spare time."  

Unfortunately, I'm afraid that I'm in a place in my life where even if a few hours were actually added on to the end of every day, I still wouldn't feel the effects of "spare time."  There is always more to be done.  However, it is my hope (and part of the plan) that in those last few hours of each afternoon I will not feel the stress and distraction that comes with preparing a hot and healthy meal while supervising (and sometimes entertaining) four littles.  I hope we'll be able to complete more craft projects, finish more puzzles, paint more pictures, read more stories, build more marble tracks, construct more forts, go on more excursions.  What a gift to my family (and to myself!) to be able to say, "Sure, we can do that.  Dinner's already made!"