I was away from home for 5 days last week. After I got home, got everything unpacked, washed and put away and gave hugs and kisses and got caught up on what I missed from Open House and Meet the Teacher, I started feeling ICKY. I was tired and feeling BLAH! (Aren’t these great medical diagnosis?)

When I don’t feel well, whether it be an actual medical ailment or some psycological depression, I revert to what fixed every childhood sickness - SOUP AND SALTINE CRACKERS. When I was growing up, Mom would make homemade potato soup and bring me 7up or Sprite and saltine crackers. Whatever was wrong with me, that combination seemed to fix me right up. I can’t even remember ever taking medicine (though I am sure I did at some point), but I remember that meal cured everything.

I hate to admit this, but I had no Homemade Gourmet Potato Soup in my house. Somehow, taco, tortilla or chicken enchilada (my beloved pantry staples) didn’t seem like “sick” food to me. I did have some Mom’s Chicken and Rice. (I bought like 20 last year when they became a seasonal item, because at the time I didn’t know it was going to be a seasonal item, I thought it was going away forever!) I put the mix, the can of cream of chicken soup, a half of bag of frozen mixed veggies (I was sick, I needed LOTS of veggies to make be feel better.) and a little over 2 quarts of water in a big pot. It ended up a thicker soup that I had first envisioned, but my family LOVED it! (Before I get any questions, NO, I did not put any chicken in the soup. Believe it or not, after all those 4 Meals in 4 Minutes recipes I have experimented with and tried since August of 2004, I don’t really care for chicken.) My 8-year old had four bowls of MY “I don’t feel good soup” and my husband had three bowls. Needless to say, I have a new soup I like to make.

Do you have a favorite soup you make with Homemade Gourmet? It doesn’t have to be a “sick” soup, anything you and your family love!

Oh, I feel much better, thank you for asking!

Cindy

Recently, we have gone over all of the new mixes available for the Fall and Holiday season during Monday Night Live and then again on the Podcast. Of course, if you were at Family Reunion, you actually tasted everything!

During the conference call, I commented that we were only going over the “new” products and not the returning favorites because there were 29 and we would be on the phone for hours and hours if we did that. Actually, for a whole lot of distributors, all 29 are “new” products. We had over 1000 new distributors join Homemade Gourmet this summer. For those 1000, everything is NEW!

Old-timers (that probably wasn’t a nice way to put it, was it???) if you could help out here, I would really appreciate it. - OK time out - I have olive oil all over my keypad - from the roasted potatoes I just put in the oven. It will come off, right??? See, that’s the problem with my job - cook, type, cook, type, cook, type . . . you get the picture.

Back to our discussion and my plea, for those distributors who were around last holiday season, please share with our newest distributors what your biggest sellers were and what are your personal favorites???

I’ll write again soon . . . if I can get the olive oil off my fingers and the keypad.

Cindy

Where has the year gone?  Don’t you find it amusing that when you are young, time seems to creep along; but as you get older, you turn around and another year has passed?  OK, well maybe it isn’t as amusing as it is disturbing . . . I think I am getting old.  Next thing I’ll be telling my kids the music is too loud and going to bed at 8pm (oops, I do that sometimes already).

 My kids are really excited that school will start soon.  We have about 3 weeks before it begins.  I remember as a Distributor that customers would be hectic this time of year.  Too busy for a homeshow, too busy to make meals, too busy to even talk.  YOU KNOW THESE PEOPLE ATE, they weren’t too busy for that.  When you are going ninety to nothing, that is when you really NEED our meal solutions.  If any of those “too busy” people had filled their freezer with our 4 Meals in 4 Minutes meals, they still would have had time to enjoy a home cooked meal with their family every night.  A great time to re-connect and slow down, if only for 15 minutes.

Here is my question for you . . . are you an example that your customers can learn from?  Is your freezer filled with meals?