Chief Nurse, Cook, and Bottle-washer

  I have taken over the kitchen.  Not by desire, by necessity.  I haven't done too badly and only forgot I had something on the stove once.  I'm very out of the habit, thanks to a husband who loves to cook and experiment in the kitchen.  I don't even know where to find everything!
  Matthew had shoulder surgery on Thurs, which is why I'm in charge of the meals.  All of them...he likes 3 a day.  I'm more of a grazer during the day.  Until now.
  On Friday late afternoon, I decided to make a frittata so he would have something for breakfast that's warm and easy to heat up if I'm unavailable (so far, it's day 4, and I haven't been unavailable yet).  I also fried onions and potatoes and reheated meatballs for dinner that night, then made the coffee for the next day, cleaned up the kitchen and crashed.  The day before, surgery day, lasted from 11 am until getting home at 8 pm and serving take-away food I'd picked up on the way home at New Leaf.   Two long days for retired me....and I'm sleeping downstairs on the futon with the 2 cats.  It's a little hard and a lot smaller than the king-size bed that used to be in there.  But I do love sleeping with my kitties.  They're not allowed upstairs during the sleep time.  Not-my-rule.
 

The next night I made chicken parmigiana, which I should have taken a picture of since it's my own recipe making my own sauce about 2 hours ahead.   It's not that difficult; I'm just so out of practice, getting anything on the table is a feat.  I don't get rave reviews for my food, but he did say it was good.

Below is from Sunday's dinner and tastes better than it looks.  Homemade cole slaw (thank you, Lennie, for easy and good recipes for this and the frittata!).   

Unfortunately, Matthew thinks they scraped a piece of skin in his throat which feels like a loose flap in there and is giving him a sore throat.  He liked the slaw, but it hurt to eat it.  Oh great, I could have gotten away with a can of soup.

I have had some time to work on my art in between kitchen duty.  I knitted a hat during surgery and felted it twice, but it needs at least one more round of felting.  I also have worked on some bracelets with designs that are new to me.  The second one was my first attempt at bead-writing.   I wanted spring colors, so it's subtle and a little hard to read here.  These aren't new techniques out there in the world, but they're new to me and I'm self-taught, which makes it very rewarding.  I encourage everyone to try something new to stretch your brain and reorder your thinking.

I have also been walking to the post office for our mail, something that Matthew usually does daily.  I take a shorter, easier route than he does--he loves this straight-up hill that's nearby, but I avoid it when he's not around.  The weather has been beautiful once the fog wears off and flowers are blooming.  Sounds so romantic, enchanting, mesmerizing....unless you've developed allergies in middle age (yeah, that isn't now...they developed many years ago when I really was middle aged).

In the midst of all this, I'm also working on family tax returns.  I have one of my appointments--the last one--late today.  I hope it's not too stressful because afterwards, I'll be stuck in commute traffic.  It's a good excuse, however, to get something out of the freezer for dinner.  Matthew has several of those leftover dishes in there waiting to be reheated.  Why hadn't I thought of that earlier?