Oh god, a man who not only cooks but cuts up meat into cubes and knows how to make kabobs!! My Alan wouldn't know his way around a kabob if you shot him!!!!

And you have a GARDEN. And you can grow Beefsteak Tomatoes?? Oh, I'm so jealous, I could spit (but that wouldn't be ladylike).

Oh I have to tell you what happened last night. I have 3 windows that face out into the street. On the window sills of these windows I have lovely chinese vases in which I put fake flower arrangements. Looks really pretty as a person passes in front of my home and they look up and see the pretty flower arrangements and the beautiful chinese vases. I got them for $5.99 in the dollar store and believe me, they look expensive.

So my husband, every night before he goes to bed, checks that all windows are closed, locked, etc. I have told him OVER AND OVER, don't close the window over the flowers. They'll crumple and you might knock over the vase. And since I'm the one who usually closes the windows, my vases have been safe.

UNTIL LAST NIGHT!!!

I went to bed (11:00 p.m) AND FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A LONG TIME, I DIDN'T TAKE MY ALPRAZOLAM. I had said "oh good, tonight you don't have to rely on a pill to get you to sleep. So I was drifting off into la la land, when all of a sudden, I hear this yell from the Living Room. I groggily get out of bed saying out loud "for crying out loud, I was sleeping", and Alan is responding "I have neuropathy, I can't move, I can't walk". What do I think?? His legs gave way and he couldn't walk". I immediately woke up and said "what, you can't walk???? what??? what??. I walk into the living room, and there's Alan, standing stock still, in the middle of my broken chinese vase, and he's YELLING AT ME TELLING ME "didn't I tell you, you can't trust me to close this window, didn't I tell you I would knock over the vase, that I can't see in the dark when I close the window".

I didn't move a muscle. I simply said "there's a light switch directly to your left, why didn't you turn on the light when you had to close the window. Why are you such a MOOSE when it comes to closing windows??"

He just stood there saying "but, but but, I told you I can't close windows if you have vases in the window sill, I'm too clumsy".

I said "no, you arent' clumsy, you are clueless because you just went over and with your two big hands, you just closed the window over the flowers, and knocked the vase off. It has nothing to do with ME!!!! You should have turned on the light, opened the verticals, moved the vase, AND CLOSED THE WINDOW. That's how I did it every night".

So he's yelling at me that it's all my fault. So there I was, getting my broom, carefully cleaning up around him because he's yelling at me "I have neuropathy, I'm not moving until all the little pieces of the vase are removed".

I wanted to take the broom and swat him one.

So after we finish, he goes into the bathroom and starts yelling "you left the water running in the bathtub, WE ALL MAKE MISTAKES NOW DON'T WE"???

We laughed our heads off. That's why we've been married for 27 years.

I don't take crap from him and he overlooks my leaving the water running.

lol Melody

I think you are probably doing the best you can already.

You can have 'make your own sub night'.

Hardboil a bunch of eggs...

Have yogurt in the frig.

Tuna is versatile.

Slow cookers, filled up with soup or stew fixings the night before, give you a hot meal the next day when you get home.

Put a bar stool in the kitchen to sit when you cook.

Mel's cereal idea worked in our house too...even oatmeal can be made in a microwave.

It is hard to work a stressful full time job, deal with illness and raise kids without help from the spouse. Spouse simply can not do enough either.

We spend about $150-200 and we don't eat out much. We do eat a fair amount of organic or high quality food...in season we can get some pretty cheap veggies. I do drink organic milk which is $3.49 per half gallon, locally produced and packaged. I admit I eat better since I was diagnosed, but at times, Ensure was all I could get down and hubby had to do ALL the cooking and clean up...some days he still has to.

PN is so unpredictable, you never know how you will feel. Give yourself options and some slack.

Don't add guilt to your work load.

I hope Alan couldn't move because of fear of stepping on a sharp bit of vase,and not because he "COULDN'T MOVE!! My heat jumped into my throat when you said he couldn't move.

In my house, it would be me closing the windows,and if I could convince the husband to do it on my behalf, then the vase would have annoyed him and ended up in the bin.

I have a country look, to my lounge room,and on my lounge I have a country teddy bear. My husband sits on it all the time when he parks himself down on the lounge. Even though it's wearing a nice knitted jumper,and you can tell it's not actually a child's toy,but a collectable, he still sits on it and makes a mess of him.

So basically if it doesn't have a functional purpose,it may end up as "collateral damage" in my house.

If I lived on my own I might of been prone to have a collectable teddy on each chair in the house,and maybe a cat with knitted socks.

So at least he saved me from that fate!!!!

No, Alan WOULDN'T move because he was scared he would step on a piece of broken vase.

So, NO MORE VASES ON WINDOW SILLS in my house.

That should be my biggest problem right????

mel

I have completed my weekly menu. Now I got to try to stick to it. I have received great ideas from everybody, and really do need to rethink my shopping a bit.

I am not using this as an excuse, but I personally am finding it a challenge to be creative when I get home at night, after being at work all day.

I almost just don't want to think anymore, if you can understand what I mean. But we must go on... Right?

I remember my entire life my grandmother lived with us. She was widowed in her early 40's and was displaced after that. Well anyways both my parents worked all day, and when I got home from school the house was always really warm and cosy,and there was always good food cooking, everything homemade. All the washing was always done,and the house was spotless clean. Afternoon tea was always waiting for me, and all I had to worry about was the homework. She even gave massages!

Aaaahhh, to be young again. What a wonderful time that was, no worries in the world!!

I don't know if any of you have thought of this or not, but if you do end up with bananas turned brown and are too far gone to eat fresh, stick them in your freezer, until you have enough to make a couple of loaves of banana nut bread...

Cathie

This is one we use when we have forgotten to plan dinner. We steam mixed vegetables in the microwave and then stir them into eggs as they are cooking and it winds up being scrambled eggs with veggies in them. Then I either open a chilled can of tomatoes or slice fresh ones if I have them. Toast some bread and voila' a meal in minutes. This is one that is so easy my hubbie can do them too.

Billye

Wow i'm still tuck at the 5 dollars for the box of muffins,is it like
a very,very big box. Wow again and again,no wonder your tired.
good gosh Sue

I was so excited I had to come to tell Aussie that there are avocados here 8 for $1 today. LOL

I just went to a supermarket yesterday and paid $2 each and today they're so cheap elsewhere. They're local ones too. That's something I was going to suggest to you too, Aussie. Try to buy local products when you can. I'm not sure if you have any markets near where you live. I'm pretty fortunate where I am for that.

Also try to buy what's in season although I notice that here we're able to grow a lot of fruit and vegies all year around now.

I use that supermarket that I think Noong mentioned earlier on the thread. Aldi. They're great for getting certain things, but I can't do all my shopping there is the problem. Great for pasta and pasata (sp?) sauces and Italian ingredients like cheap canned tomatoes. They also have a really good and cheap organic range of foods which I like.

I grow some of my own herbs too. Sometimes a simple dish can be made special with the right condiments.

If you live in a unit rather than a house with a yard, you can still grow tomatoes and lettuce easily in pots in the right postion on a verandah. Strawberries too. Depends on your climate I suppose. I used to grow my own sweet potatoes and cabbage and beans and tomatoes and all sorts of things. I'd use the crop of beans when they were finished to dig into the ground to make it more fertile for the next lot of vegies. I always had a lemon tree and other citrus. These days we can't really legally water anything so I've taken to growing my things like herbs in pots again.

If you like mushrooms, buy a kit and grow them at home. Same with things like sprouts. We eat a lot of them.

My biggest problem is that I love cooking so much but tend to make too much of everything and I end up eating it. lol

What part of Australia are you from? You are right Aldis is good for pasta sauce and pasta, maybe a carton of milk and frozen peas, but it's hard to be running back and forth to do shopping at different places. I like the one stop shopping, but it's hard to find bargains. I know of a farmer's market, maybe I'll go there.