Stress Relief

I looked at the weather forecast last night and saw rain for today, so I wasn't surprised when I woke up to dark skies and a steady drizzle. After an entirely too stressful past week, I decided to decompress by turning my kitchen table into a bakery.  Baking was "once upon a time" a favorite activity and so it was my choice of therapy for today.

After a trip up town to drop off a few eggs to my Number 2 son, I started on the task of measuring flour and salt for pastries, and sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and flour for the apple filling. I've taken to bagging the dry ingredients in individual baggies so I don't have to start measuring all over again with each pie.

Once the bags of flour and sugar were set aside, I began the task of peeling and slicing, which was supposed to be easy with my handy-dandy apple peeler/corer/slicer, but the apples had a mind of their own and I ended up having to peel, slice, and core several portions by hand when the apples didn't cooperate.

I'd planned to assemble nine pies, but ran short on both time and apples. All was not lost though, because I baked two pies and put four into the freezer, and I think that's a pretty significant accomplishment. Somewhere along the way, the migraine I'd been fighting for three days evaporated, which is an incredible relief in and of itself, and I will sleep better tonight because of it.

We are still walking through some dark days, but the path is growing brighter. I am holding on to hope that God is doing great things.