What's for supper - soup edition

I’m on a quest to make soup once a week through this fall/winter. Ambitious? Probably. But my kids love soup, any kind it seems. It feels good to pack a whole bunch of healthy yummy goodness in there that I know they will eat without complaint (humble brag they are actually pretty good eaters). But any homemade meal they devour and ask for more of is a good one in my opinion!

Last week I made turkey soup for the first time - broth and all. Matt made his first turkey for thanksgiving at his parents place and turkey-fest ensued. For the rest of the week we had leftover turkey dinner, turkey sandwiches, and the turkey soup.

I prepared the broth using the turkey carcass on Tuesday and made the soup on Wednesday. Threw in some onions, carrots, celery, thyme - whatever we had on hand, and some shredded turkey of course. Added some tri-coloured animal shaped pasta just for fun and it was a hit. I didn’t take any pictures while I cooked, except for the final product.

It dawned on me on the drive home from a trip to the apple orchard on Sunday that we’d planned our meals for the week and bought the groceries but didn’t plan for a soup. I was failing my challenge already! I thought about the groceries we had and remembered one I made last fall, curried carrot and apple. With plenty of apples in the trunk and a bag of carrots and chicken broth (leftover and unused from thanksgiving) in the pantry at home, I knew I’d be able to prepare this one without an extra trip to the store. So curried carrot and apple soup will accompany the buddha bowls we are eating tonight.  

Daunted by the thought of making homemade soup? Don’t be - it’s so easy. It requires a little forethought so you have time to allow the soup to simmer, that’s the only time-consuming aspect. Once it’s on the stove you’re handsfree! If you’re pressed for time when making dinner, prepare your soup on the weekend or an evening and save it in the fridge for a couple days or freeze it for later.  You won’t regret it!

Let’s see how well I do on my weekly soup challenge!

Update

Welcome to my new website! I’m building something more current, more clean and more my own. I’m switching from wordpress to my own site using SquareSpace. Construction is slow as I am learning to build this website as I go but I hope with a little perseverance everything will be in its place in no time, and I’ll soon be smoothly up and running with a functional website and lots of current content. 

I am still plugging away at bringing over all my past blog posts from the old blog site (https://heatherfegan.wordpress.com/). I had no idea how many posts I wrote in two years! Often two a week for many months until I slowed down in the spring of 2015 and then stopped altogether in the summer of 2015. Probably around the time I went into early labour 11 weeks before Rosie was due (held on 9 more weeks before she made her debut!). And from there life raced on. Be sure to scroll down for all the posts from the early days. I still can't believe I started posting content four years ago! 

I’ll continue to bring the posts over until everything is here. I don’t want any of my work to go to waste. Lots of the blog posts are timeless and relevant and I can share those fun “from the archives” posts on social media! I'm sad past comments and discussions will be lost but looking forward to the future and where this website takes me. Of course, my portfolio section of the site is up-to-date with all my freelance work, if you want to check out my articles and book reviews (with more coming very soon!). At the same time, I’ll be adding new, regular posts and updates as I rev this website back to life.

Thanks for dropping by and come back soon! 

A tale of time, part 2

I came across this meme the other day and it really spoke to me. Because it is SO true.

What did I do with all of my time pre-kids? No, seriously. I should have been accomplishing a lot of really grand and really great things. I was working a lot more I suppose. Volunteering. Fundraising. Television-watching. Drinking. Well, I still do the television and drinking things (less TV, more drinking).  

But this saying also goes to pre-two-kids me. Based on my last, oh-so-long-ago post, I thought I was so busy with one kid and an older dog and baking cupcakes and party planning and writing. ‘Oh, I have NO time’ was my complaint. But when I look at life now, and the speed it’s been hurtling the last two years, and compare it to back then, I had SO much time.

Or so I think now. Perspective is a funny thing. I thought I had no time at all and yet I’ve added so much more to my plate. While what I want to say is “ok, now I really have no time…”  Guess what. No more “no time” excuses. It’s become clear to me that I will make time for what I want to make time for. Things will shift, space will expand and shrink to naturally make room for what we need or want (or don’t need or want) to accomplish. In a couple years I bet I will take stock of what I’m doing, look back and think, “Why did I think I was so busy? I had TONS of time back then!” And so it goes.

My commitment now is to make productive use of what time I do have. And to make an effort to make time for all I want to achieve, and I have few things up my sleeves. The fact it’s been two years since my last post is terrifying, but to be fair, I have been very busy! I’ll give myself credit for that.  But I do feel like I’m coming out of the other side of a very busy season of my life. A hands-on, don’t-have-time-to-sit-down-and-can’t-get-away kind of busy. Now it’s time to refocus and accomplish some goals. Hope you’ll join me for the ride!

Life update! Since my last post we... 

• -had another baby!
• -staged our home & put it on the market
• -moved out for three months
• -sold our house and bought a new one
• -moved to the new house 
• -embarked on a complete kitchen reno and installed a second bathroom
• -traveled to California, Italy, Toronto (twice!), Florida, NYC (twice!), North Conway, Ottawa, Quebec City
• -endured 3 (!) week-long hospital admissions (not counting the c-section for baby #2)
• -the epic summer of 2017
• -got a new puppy

A tale of time

Once upon a time I started a blog and I was very excited about all of the things I could write about. I have a list of many ideas, topics, and anecdotes. There have been trips and projects and problems and opportunities but the problem is that when all of these things are happening, I’m too busy with them happening to find time to sit down and write about it! I often think back and wish I’d found the time. Made the time. Whatever. I just wish I’d done it!

I don’t sit around beating myself up for it, that would be silly. There are no consequences when the blog doesn’t happen. Apart from you know, a dream and vision not coming to fruition. The upside is that I know there is still time for that to happen down the road. And it’s not like I’m sitting around with my feet up relaxing instead of working away at it.

Baby Fegan 2.0 due October 2015.

For instance. Last week I was planning and prepping for Bear’s second birthday party on Saturday (hosted 20 guests all afternoon and evening). On Monday we hosted 20 more for a family dinner. I baked and decorated two dozen sugar cookies from scratch. I made two dozen cupcakes (not from scratch but I decorated them). I made a 4-layer purple ombre birthday cake. I had a magazine deadline. I’m home full-time with a toddler. And I’m 26 weeks pregnant! (SURPRISE! Yet another life event not featured on the blog). So I’ve been busy and tired and yes, if I added up all the minutes I spend scrolling the facebook-instagram-twitter circuit I’d have lots of minutes for blogging. But it would be hard to blog in three-minute intervals!

So the point of all this is to say that there’s no day like today! There is always tomorrow! Try, try, again! Don’t give up! While my posts may be few and far between, I am here. Things are happening. And eventually I will write about them.