Leftover potatoes soup, and a sick week

Sickness is part of the Edmundson household this week. I overdid it last weekend w/my lovely girls, and sadly had to pay the price...pretty much all week. On superbowl Sunday while everyone was having parties, I was cuddled up w/my butch feeling miserable (I got up fairly early, then went back to sleep until 1) The next day I got up to get ready for work and once again was in bad bad shapes. I went back to bed, and this time slept until 3! and I only woke up then b/c hubs called me! yikes. I made myself get up and work for the rest of the week, but felt increasingly bad as the week went on. One of my docs checked me out and said it didn't look like an infection, actually "for you, your throat and nose look really good!" so I guess it is just stupid CFS/Fibro stuff. I'm kinda bummed b/c it's been a while since I've been "out of commission" for that reason alone. Lately I've tended to have that plus a sinus infection or stomach virus. I thought maybe my symptoms were improving, but nope.

Also, kitty is in bad health. He is a fighter, and came home last Saturday night with another cat's claw tangled up in his forehead fur! Also there are cuts and scabs and just messes all over him. The next day, he started to sneeze...a LOT. It's kinda weird. Then on Tuesday I got up and he was drooling...tons of drool just pouring out of his mouth, and his little eyes were runny. He was a sick little one. So I called the vet from my work and got him an appointment for that evening. They checked him out, gave us some antibiotics and decongestant as well as some more worm medicine (that cat gets tape worms all the time!) Well...have you ever tried to give a cat a pill? Normally he does well w/his pills. We just stick a pill in one of those greenies pill pockets and he eats it right up. I guess since he's sick, his appetite is down and he's extra finicky, and none of my tricks work! As a result, my fingers and arms are full of scratches and bites from where he has tried to kill me for giving him pills. Last night I got hubs to hold him (wrapped up like a burrito in a thick bath towel) while I tried to shove some pills down his throat. We got them in, squirted some water in there and then held his mouth shut and blew in his nose (supposed to help him swallow). Well, he was angry and ran and hid...by the time that I found him he had spit out both of the pills. boo! Finally I gave in, crushed the antibiotic and mixed it with a bit of cream cheese and smeared it on his upper lip. Today he seems to finally be feeling better and has eaten some of his normal food and treats for the first time in a week! Still sneezing a bit, but hopefully on the mend. Butch, on the other hand, (while still healthy) is extrememly jealous of all the attention that her kitty has been getting. I've got to remember to give her some extra cuddles.

Oh yeah, and when I took kitty to the vet, it started snowing really badly again and my tires are awful so I was slipping and sliding all over the place! When we were oh-so-close to home I was parked at a stoplight waiting to make a right turn. Well, some idiot thought that snow and ice were no match for them, and rear-ended me. Thankfully they were in the process of slowing down so it wasn't too hard, and I have an old old car with the rubber bumpers that actually help when someone bumps into you so there was no damage. I was a bit sore for the rest of the week though.

Bah. Well, all of this had me wanting something warm and comforting for my little throat today. I still had some leftovers from last weekend which I have been slowly whittling away at, and I decided to make some soup!

YUM!

There's no real recipe, but here is the gist of what I did:
I had about a cup of leftover hashbrown casserole, as well as some leftover pot roast that I had cooked with potatoes and onions (about 2 cups). I removed the meat and ate it on its own, then I threw the potatoes, onions, casserole, about a half cup of milk, a few tablespoons of cream cheese, about a 4th cup of sour cream, and some pepper into a big pot and cooked it on medium high heat. Once it started bubbling a little I got out my immersion blender to puree the larger potato pieces a bit, and get everything incorporated. I think I probably cooked it for about 10 minutes all together (I did add things as I thought of them instead of all at once).
It is so delicious! As you can see in the picture, there are still a few tiny bits of the beef potroast and they gave it a wonderfully rich flavor. I also left the potato skins on when I cooked the pot roast so there was that too. It was so creamy and warmed me up inside! I think I will really enjoy this for the rest of my sick weekend.

What are you doing to keep warm?