Apologies, Apologies . . . And A Winner!

I promised to announce first thing this morning the winner of the two Linda McCartney cook books I recently offered as a giveaway. Well, this was one of those days that started before I was ready and totally got away from me.

An 8 o'clock appointment this morning came before I had my full wits about me, and I never did catch up. A few errands on my way home from the appointment then I spent a little time with my very sick daughter.

Then on to work on the homestead that needed tending to. We've never moved the two freezers into my new pantry because it's been full of remodeling materials. My pantry! I finally have a pantry, I've had a pantry for a couple of months now but I've not yet been able to use it! (Can you tell I'm frustrated about this? Sorry about the outburst. Back to the facts now.)

Well, we knew the freezers needed to be moved from the garage into the pantry before we got snow on the ground. The only way to get them in was out the attached garage, all the way around the house, up onto the front deck, into and through the house to the pantry. (Pant, pant.) So snow and ice on the ground would only have complicated the move.

Getting both the large freezer and small freezer moved meant I had to unload them, defrost each of them while they were empty, get them into the pantry and, of course, put everything back into the freezers.

That done (oof and ugh) we spent several hours going over the basic plans with our carpenter friend, B, on the finishing of what will be our living room. This includes building a new stairway up into Papa Pea's office and one down into our basement. Hubby and I had the electrical plan in good shape but wanted to run it by B who came up with several good suggestions and changes. Then we moved on to everything else including wall, ceiling and floor materials, sound-proofing for the ceiling, construction of a pocket door at the bottom of the stairway up to the office area, installation of the wood burning stove in the living room, fireproof materials for in back of and under the stove, etc., etc. How can talking, planning and making decisions be so exhausting?

Anyway, it was a very full day with a simple dinner of eggs and toast, and I haven't had a chance to do the drawing for the cook books until just now. So without any further ado or folderolling around . . .

I will put the nine names of you readers who are interested in the books in this little red pot, and draw out one who will be the winner.

And that slip of paper says . . . Peggy! In her comment, Peggy said that if she should win, she would give the books to her eldest daughter who is a vegetarian. What a nice mommy! Peggy, if you would go over to my "Contact" button on my right hand side bar and send me your mailing address, I'll get the books off to you as soon as I can. Thanks to all of you who have shown an interest in the various cook books I've been cleaning off my shelves. More to come!