Not There Yet

Okay my chest swelled up and I am five pounds heavier. My skin looks better and I am not having hot flashes during the day. I still wake up at o'dark hundred every night. I am now only suicidal when it snows. (This is normal for here.) Is this success?

Now for something completely different. I hate, hate, hate to cook. Is a problem as I want to eat non-processed stuff. In response to Annimals' questions I reviewed my cooking history. Very interesting.

In doing my culinary retrospection I was shocked to discover my horrible experiences with cooking.

1. At four I did all the shopping and cooking for my mother and I. I would stand on a stool at the counter and she would direct me from the bedroom how to stir up pancakes and cook them in a frying pan. I also fried hunks of bologna. That's what we ate most of the time.

2. At six in the foster home I peeled potatoes for thirteen people every evening. Also carrots, turnips and beets. My first grade teacher thought I had some sort of disease after one of the beet nights. Here also began my dish washing odyssey.

3. At eleven I moved back in with my mother and took over cooking again. She was much better by now and helped me, but getting meals on the table was my responsibility.

4. At thirteen I began cooking supper once a week for the 25 old people in the nursing home. My adopted mother cooked the other nights. I made pancakes and eggs mostly. Sometimes I branched out with macaroni and cheese and vegetables. My first paid job was washing dishes in the nursing home. I started at twelve and finally graduated at fifteen when I became a nurses aid.

5. My adopted mother could cook like a dream, and she hated it. She was perpetually exhausted and cooking made her back hurt. But she cooked anyway. We did not eat our meals at the house, we ate at the nursing home.

6. During nursing school and after I mostly ate out or ate t.v. dinners or sandwiches. That is twenty-some years of junk food.

7. When I married at 32 I began cooking three meals a day. We have not been "in the funds" for a good portion of our married life so we have mostly eaten at home. Mark cannot taste much of anything so elaborate meals do not matter to him.

8. The only time I now go "all out" in the kitchen is when we are going to have company. As we usually have big gatherings I am tired and stressed out before, during and after these dreadful cooking marathons.

Is it any wonder I can't stand to cook. I am glad to have learned why I detest cooking but...I don't have any idea how to fix the problem. This cooking hangup is one of the main reasons I am fat, so I would really like to learn to appreciate cooking. Any ideas?

Bon Appetite, Bea