On the way home today, I stopped to grab a couple of things so I could make a pot pie tonight for dinner. If you know me, you know I am perfectly content to let Sam do the cooking in our family. I do like to bake, but am not great at cooking meals. But pot pie is my favorite thing to make. Every time I make it, it turns out amazing. And tonight was no exception.

I usually make everything from scratch. This recipe uses a couple of short cuts to save time. It was really good regardless and now I’m not sure I’d go back to doing everything from scratch!

Total prep time is about 15 minutes!

Here are the ingredients:

• Pillsbury double pie crust
• Canned mixed veggies
• Leftover Turkey
• 1/3 cup butter
• 1/3 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 1 3/4 chicken broth or Turkey stock
• 2/3 cup milk

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Melt butter and stir in flour. Cook, stirring constantly until bubbling. Remove from heat, add salt & pepper, broth and milk. Heat to boiling and stir 1 minute or so until thickened. Remove from heat. Stir in Turkey and veggies.

Take one pie crust and lay in the bottom of your pie dish (I use a 2 qt. casserole dish) scrape filing into pie crust. Unroll the top crust and use a small cookie cutter to cut into the top. Carefully lay top crust on top of filled dish. Fold over edges and pinch together. Place cut outs on top.

Place in oven and cook for 40 minutes. Remove from oven and let sit for 5 minutes before serving.

Let me know if you try this recipe. It really is so good! Hoping there will be leftovers for my lunch tomorrow.

(Obviously, Turkey can be switched out for chicken…and it will be just as delicious!)

This is the first year I have put up both my trees and decorated them before Thanksgiving break is over! I’ve been working hard the past two days! The lights always take me forever. Probably because I just hate putting them on. We bought both these trees about 3 years ago. The rainbow tree was prelit. This year when I put it together there were so many lights out, I just decided it was easier to take them all off and add my own lights. So of course, once we got them off, we (me and Jasmin) had to make a trip to the store to get more. We found what we needed at Hobby Lobby.

So I got that one up first and then started working on the big tree that is in the living room. My kids helped some, but not as much as I wish they would. I wish decorating for Christmas was more of a family activity. But I’m pretty much a Lone Ranger when it comes to this job.

My favorite part of decorating the tree is,of course, hanging the ornaments. We have so many fun ones and several have good memories tied to them. I love the homemade ones and some that we picked up to commemorate special events through your lives. But I’m also a big fan of the vintage ornaments and I have so many unique ones that I love.

As you can see, I also added tinsel this year. I will probably regret it, but I had to try it just once. Good memories from my childhood.

And this is my Shiny Brite tree. 100 percent filled with authentic vintage (and a few reproduction) Shiny Brites. Also added in the Alpine Village. I love those little houses and they look so cool with the lights shining in them! The tree skirt I found at Hobby Lobby several years ago – it’s perfect for the vintage tree! The rainbow tree is just fun. I used to have a white one for my Shiny Brites, but this one really makes a statement.

I’m sure I will post more of my decor as I get it done. But I feel good that I got this much accomplished today.

Eleven years ago, yesterday, was my last post on my blog. I’ve been wanting to start this back up…for a while now. I think it will be much more convenient using the app on my phone. I have no idea if anyone will ever read it, because people just don’t read blogs much anymore with everyone having Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. But I’m gonna put it out there anyway because I have a lot of fans (of my art) and maybe they might enjoy reading about my life!

I am participating in the Creative Christmas Show at Essa Arts, a local gallery, gift shop and studio. I contributed five of my paintings, some letter tiles (to add to what’s already there) and some ornaments. My large painting of the Christmas tree cakes sold right away and I’m super excited about that! It was such a nice atmosphere with live music, drinks and yummy snacks (including Christmas Tree Cakes!) I of course had to buy a few things from my favorite Christmas crafter, the Attic Rescue League (my friend Rene). She creates the most amazing pieces from vintage Christmas items. I have so many of her creations decorating my house for the Holidays!

I’m so looking forward to celebrating Thanksgiving this week with family and friends – and also kicking off the Holidays with some decorating for Christmas. Do you know what I’m gonna try this year? Tinsel! It’s probably going to be the biggest headache ever, but I sooooo love the vintage look. So I’m gonna try it this year, just this once, to see if it’s worth it. I remember when I was a kid we always had tinsel on the tree. And get this, we saved it and reused it year after year (even though it probably only cost around $.75). When we took it down after Christmas we had to perfectly lay each strand in a sheet of foil that would get folded up and tucked safely away in the box of decorations to use for next year. It is so funny to me, now, that my used to save the tinsel. But when I was a kid, I thought that was the only way to do it! So we will see how much I love the tinsel next weekend when we put up the Christmas tree.

We actually have two trees. Im so into vintage Christmas, so my second tree is filled with authentically vintage Shiny Brite ornaments! I love them so much and the tree always looks amazing! Here’s a pic from last year – or maybe two years ago, lol