Life By Lindsey Rae

I think cooking is a huge waste of time. I guess it's partially because I don't care about food as much as the average person and partially because being an artistic person if I'm going to create something, I like to be able to see it and enjoy after. With food, particularily cooking food, it's like you spend all that time making it and then it's just gone!
Also, I don't understand why everyone has such a problem with the fact that I don't have any desire to cook. I mean, if everyone was good at cooking, that would kind of steal the thunder of the people who actually do have that talent.

So, my kind of cooking is this "recipe" for Chicken and Dumplings from the Pillsbury website. I happen to have a lot of Pillsbury products right now, because at Publix there was some good sales on the stuff recently. Then with using coupons and taking advantage of rebates, there was the opportunity to make $6.50 to bring ten cans of biscuits home.
So, I went to their website to find a way to use some of these and found that by dropping pieces of frozen biscuits into a can of soup, you can make quite tasty dumplings.
I have a memory that once my grandma made dumplings for me when I was about four years old and I enjoyed it very much, for some reason. I asked many times for dumplings after that, but never really got them. I guess it was not popular with any one else in my house. Now I can make them myself by just thawing out a biscuit! hehehe.

And speaking of savings and coupons: maybe I don't write as much on here because I spend too much time looking for the deals. No, just kidding. Seriously though, since I started using coupons (like a crazy person) in the past few months, I cannot believe the amount of money I have saved. I get many of the groceries I buy for pennies or free or even make money on them. If I would have known how it all worked and how much I could save before, I would have been clipping coupons long ago. I hate to think of how much money we could have saved if I would have known all the things I know now.

Like tonight, when we were having dinner I pointed out that almost everything we had was free or nearly free. Pasta was about $0.20 or $0.30. Biscuits were free (money maker). We had those Green Giant steamer vegetables that are normally about $2.99 and I got for $0.09. The butter was free. The tin foil was free. The Pam we used on the tin foil was free.

It always tastes better when it's free.

We had the missionaries from church over tonight, which was nice. Nice of us to feed them! haha, Just kidding.
Jerrod cooked Chili and I made potato casseroles...(don't get too excited now)....from a box. I also made croissants...from a box and cupcakes....yes, also from a box.
That it came from a box is not important...box food can be delicious....the point is that I(helped) cook supper and then donated my food to others. I did something nice today! :)
I also took a few cupcakes to give to the kids of my next door neighbors. They thought it was very sweet, so that made me happy. I did a good deed today, and it even involved making something in the kitchen. Who would have thought....

My Dad is here now, visiting from Canada.
This is the first time that my Dad has been able to come to Tennessee, so it's nice that he can be here right now. I wish that I was able to think of more great and wonderful and exciting things to do while he is here....I had a couple things I thought of, but some depended on the weather. Recent weather = downpour. But hopefully tomorrow will be a little nicer.

My dad did do some cooking for us tonight, which was nice. We generally get our food from a box. Today we had kind of "Sunday dinner" cooking, I would call it, because on Sundays, when we were growing up, we always have roast beef, which he made tonight. With the roast, we made mashed potatoes(I pealed all by myself. haha), fresh vegetables, stuffed pears, and ceasar salad. I was supposed to make some bread to go with it...but I forgot.
With all the cooking gone on today we pulled out pans and utensils I never even knew we had. Shows how much this chef is in the kitchen! If you any doubts about my cooking skills and before you judge me for trying to cook more, please read my post on Aug.6th, and that will bring full understanding as to why I would not attempt to do this often.

Yesterday I went up to our apartment Christmas party to get myself some free food. I always appreciate anything free. I guess that's why we pay the big bucks to live here. So we can get "free" food once a year. While I was there, I did see my neighbor, George, who is the elderly guy that lives in my building whom I mentioned a few weeks ago. Last time I saw him he was being carried away in an ambulance, and I hadn't seen him since, so I wasn't sure if he made it or not. But, I saw him yesterday and he told me that he had just spent nine days in the hospital from a staph infection. He didn't looks so good. He also seemed to have his speech slightly slurred, so I was wondering if maybe there was something else wrong with him. I didn't talk to him very much though because he said he had to get going so he could "talk to all the other pretty girls." And then he ran over my foot with his wheel chair.
As it turns out, tonight there was once again an ambulance, fire truck and two police cars that were by our building, I think come to take George back to the hospital. It's too bad.

Tonight was another free supper with Jerrod's work party. It was at the Opryland hotel once again this year. They did have a thing where they had a photographer taking pictures of everyone to give as a memento and you could pick up the printed picture after a few minutes. After much persuasion I was able to convince Jerrod to take a picture with me. Unfortunately, we both didn't think we looked good in it and now I am afraid I will never have any hope of getting Jerrod to take a picture again. Seriously, it's a concern. I don't know why it has to be so difficult, but it is.
When we were leaving the party, I saw my friend, Manami, working at the front desk of the hotel. I hadn't seen her in awhile and so I was really happy to run into her. I know she has been working there a lot, but hopefully when she has a day off I can get together with her again soon.
(Manami is from Japan and has done translations for my Japanese songs for me.)

Speaking of food, we also bought our fridge today. This is the one we got, excpet in black.It's an expensive little purchase, but it seems to be a necessary one. We got a Samsung with french doors.We were going to get the side-by-side originally, but decided on this one because there is more room for bigger things with French doors. Like, you can't really fit a large pizza box in the side-by-side. Although, I do prefer the side-by-side because it has the water dispenser on the outside of the door (along with lots of blue glowing lights). Ours does have the water filter/dispenser, but it's inside. Not as convenient for someone who drinks water all day like me, but I guess unless you have endless funds and can get your own custom made refrigerator, none will be absolutely perfect. You just have to balance the pros and cons with these sort of things.

It is around 3:30 am and I am awake...so I was making a little snack. I burnt my toast. Again. And I'm not even sure how. I was trying to watch it to make sure it wouldn't burn. Not too long ago I actually burnt 6 pieces...not at once, but in a row...like with 6 different tries. I blame it on that new toaster oven. It's hard to get used to because it takes so long to heat up and then with in seconds it gets so hot it just burns.
Now I am worried that the smoke alarm is going to go off and wake up Jerrod and maybe even the upstairs neighbors.

Anyhow, once again, I have reaffirmed my thought that I hate cooking...I shouldn't be cooking....If you can call making toast cooking.

And, if it can get this disastrous with a toaster, imagine what I could do if I tried to really make something?! Yes, it could get much scarier. So for all the people who ask who cooks at our house or when I'm going to start learning to cook so I can cook at our house.....just be glad that it's Jerrod who does the cooking at our house. Don't question...just understand it's for the best.

(But I promise I really can make a few things, which sometimes I do! I'm not totally useless around here!)