Upgrades are coming! :)

Life is all about upgrades and in the past year my life has been full of them. Change can be scary, but I've learned to embrace everything that has come my way!
I've always been someone who is independent and self sufficient, but over the past year I've learned to rely and lean on my husband. This was not an easy thing for me because, and I KNOW this is a surprise, but I'm a bit of a control freak.

This weekend Mike and I lounged around the house a bit, neither of us are feeling 100% right now, so it was nice to just be at home for a while. Yesterday we did a bit of running around, ran down to Ikea to get a few more spice jars to complete my spice rack as well as a few other little things. We stopped in Bellevue to see if we could find anything to spend money on, but the for the most part, our shopping trip was a bust. We've been looking for new pots and pans since my Cuisinart ones that are non-stick are starting to chip on the inside. I've been wanting to upgrade to stainless steel for quite a while, and I have my eye on a nice set of All-clad, but even if I had all the money in the world I would NOT drop 1300 bucks on a set of pots and pans.

So today we ran to the outlets in Tulalip after Mike's morning meeting and stopped in at the Calphalon store. I saw a great 13 piece set there that I liked. So we had lunch in Everett, and stopped at Target since we were near there, and I saw a vacuum cleaner that I liked. The one we have is not doing it's job and with the dogs we need a good one. Well of course that Target didn't have it in stock, so we drove to Best Buy and then went to Bed Bath & Beyond and neither had it. But we did see the Calphalon pots and pans at BB&B for the same price but we could get 20% off and a 50 dollar gift card...so guess where we are going tomorrow! LOL

Well we ended up driving to Lake Stevens for this vacuum cleaner. I honestly couldn't wait to get home and give it a test drive! Okay...is it me or is it pathetic that a new vacuum is EXCITING to me!?! Oy! Who am I? The REAL Housewife of Snohomish County! That's who! ;-) But yea, I got home and started getting things ready to make chicken pot pies (Ina's recipe, and OMG are they DELICIOUS!) and used my new vacuum. Omg! Our carpet was so gross! I emptied it so many times, but I couldn't believe the job it did! So YAY!!!

So, back to the Ina Garten's Chicken Pot Pies. I made these before and I couldn't wait to do it again...here are some pics...

Nothing smells better than onions sauteeing in butter. Well, Bacon would smell better! ha ha

Yummy Filling!!! Chicken, Peas, Carrots, Pearl Onions! Oh! And my homemade Chicken Stock!

Who's ready for a yummy crust on top?!

See you in an hour my little pot pie cuties!!!

Golden brown on top, and the filling is bubbling on the inside!!

I could NOT get enough!!!

Okay, let me tell you, this is a GREAT recipe!! I thought about adding potatoes this time, but I decided to stick to the basics. This recipe made four LARGE pot pies (it's sitting on a dinner plate lol) so we each have one for lunch tomorrow! Can't wait!!

So as my life continues to change, and upgrades keep coming...I look forward to everything. My life has improved so much in the last year from Mike coming into my life, moving to Mukilteo, the dogs joining us and the improvements in my overall well being and happiness. Change can be scary, but what's worse is stopping years later and wondering what would have happened if I'd a made that change back then? I'm not willing to be in that position...so I say...BRING IT ON!!!