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Hello Grandma Donna,

First, I am sending all the positive thoughts to you and Charles for his hip replacement.  I hope it goes very well and that he is up and around again and able to do the things that both of you want and need to do.  Several of my older relatives and friends have had successful hip replacements and I wish that for him as well.  

To answer a few of your questions - lately I have a breakfast smoothie with oats, protein powder, milk, greek yogurt, and berries.  I work outside the home full time, I'm a single mom who turns 50 in the fall, so I'm younger than many here. I've found that this works well for me, as I don't tolerate a very early meal and I can sip on this between meetings and other work in my office. 

My college-age child and I alternate between our largest meal at lunch or at dinner - it depends on the day. Our favorites are simple foods - some typical meals are tacos, pasta with sauce, baked fish with vegetables, and on special occasions pancakes (with chocolate chips for my kid, haha) or waffles with yogurt and other toppings. We don't have a particular favorite. Most of our meals are made from scratch at home, I don't buy a lot of processed foods because we are both picky eaters. :-D 

I look forward to the comments from the other ladies in the forum, I enjoy and appreciate everyone's responses and wisdom so much.

Prayers that Charles's hip surgery goes well.

I make a casserole dish called an egg bake for my husband's breakfast. This makes eggs go farther. I started this when eggs were very high. He also has toast or a donut, orange juice and coffee. Orange juice & coffee are very expensive here but so far I've been able to buy them on clearance. We have waffles or pancakes on Sunday. I often skip breakfast but if I eat it I have oatmeal or grits.

My husband's biggest meal is dinner. I usually eat about the same amount for both lunch & dinner. 

Prayers for Charles and for you as you care for him.  

I always eat breakfast and it's seldom the same day to day.  In summer cold cereal or eggs.  In winter oatmeal, Malt O Meal or eggs and toast or English muffin.  I seldom do waffles and never pancakes.  I made and ate so many pancakes when the family was growing up that I don't like them anymore.   I'm not allowed tea, don't like coffee so orange juice and water are my drinks.

I often skip lunch especially if I eat breakfast late which I often do.  Large meal is evening.  I'm trying to remember if we had large meal at noon or evening when I was growing up.  I know when dad came home at noon, we had a substantial meal, but I think we also did for the evening meal.   Dad was a hard worker and thin so needed substantial food.  Mom always cooked breakfast for sis and me until we were in high school then she sometime bought cold cereals.  When dad wasn't home at noon or when we were at school, the evening meal was the most substantial.  Due to work and school schedules, I always fixed the main meal in evening.

Hello Grandma Donna, 

I hope the surgery goes well for Charles and that he is freed from pain and better able to move around once he is recovered.

Not everyone has good memories of home, and this is sad, but we can make sure when it is our turn to be the keeper of the home, we make good memories.  

Thank you for this, it really resonated with me. I have always really made an effort to make sure my children have had plentiful good memories to carry them through life and I can't wait to do the same with my grandchildren to come.

Breakfast is usually some combination of fruit, porridge, homemade sourdough or eggs. We are picking a lot of papayas, bananas, citrus and passionfruit at the moment so we've been enjoying eating those. The sulphur crested cockatoos have been having a good feed of the passionfruit as well. (I ducked outside just now thinking you might like to see a photo of some wild cockatoos if there were any around and caught two in the act of raiding my passionfruit again, the cheeky buggers! The one in this photo posed nicely on the roof while his friend flew off.) 

Our main meal is at teatime at 6pm. Tonight is pork belly braised in soy sauce, garlic, sesame oil and brown sugar until tender with broccoli from the garden and some jasmine rice. 

That is so true about improving health being the most important thing. I love how having peaceful surroundings helps us to have good health. Good luck to Charles on his surgery! Medical science is truly a wonder. Our bodies are such amazing healing machines. Some good rest time for reading, and good food and good movement, and then a less painful future. :) I'm so happy for him that he can have this surgery. 

Dinner at night is our largest meal, and breakfast is whatever we feel like. I want to have set meals at set times, but that is still a work in progress. I am very affected by pictures from the past of how meals looked. The most appealing ones are dinner with meat, two vegetables, a bowl of salad, and a roll or bread, and sometimes soup. That's what I am working toward. I like all those vegetables in one meal. The terrible illness caused by contaminated lettuce that is going around the country has not dampened my desire for salad with my dinners. I just have to grow it myself! We've been harvesting potatoes and there is always the really little potatoes that didn't have time grow like the other ones on the plant, so I've started making what I call Small Potato Soup. It's mostly cut-up tiny potatoes with leeks and carrot in chicken broth. My family really likes it. I had a few green beans from the garden that I threw into the last batch. My watermelon plant has stuck out a few leaves and vine in a testing the waters way, while my winter squash vine has exploded over the trellis and is making quite a few squashes. It's a variety called Doran, and I think it's a keeper. It has huge beautiful flowers. 

My new roof is on, and the siding goes on in a week. The new rooftop attic fan the roofers installed is absolutely working to keep the house cooler. I am so pleased about that. 

We were very surprised by the news that my husband was in the will of a relative who passed. When he heard the news, he treated himself to a steak dinner. He was out of town at work when he heard. The steak dinner for one person was $40! We were both shocked at the price. Any steak dinners we may have again will be at home and on a special occasion! It's the drought raising the prices. Ten years of drought and no relief in sight. 

I'm not a big breakfast eater so I just have what I feel like - sometimes some home-made muesli, sometimes just a cracker with cheese, perhaps toast and avocado or a poached egg, a boiled egg or even a small piece of home-made vegetable slice.  Anything goes for me, although I do cook some kind of breakfast involving eggs on Sundays.  My other half gets his own, and that's usually porridge with oats, toast or cereal.  I don't care for cereal.  We have a glass of juice as well in the morning.

Lunch is our main meal of the day and has been since early retirement twenty years ago - before that it was all over the place as he was a shift worker so meals were worked around shifts.  I always cook a full meal with a small amount of meat and heaps of fresh vegetables for lunch, followed by mostly fruit, sometimes jelly and ice-cream.

At night we just have a light supper, perhaps a toasted sandwich or a chicken and cheese melt, sometimes crackers with a spread, sometimes just some gherkins, pickled onions and cheese, anything goes as it's not an important meal.  We do have a few squares of dark chocolate at night with a glass of red wine, and he drinks coffee, I drink tea.

Good luck with Charles' surgery, it's a very common procedure nowadays, along with knee replacements.

Firstly, sending all best wishes to Charles ahead of his surgery and for the healing afterwards, hopefully once that’s done he can live without so much pain.

When you have time would it be possible to share your new method of kneading the bread dough? I too have arthritis in my hands so find manual kneading hard and have to use the dough hook on my mixer but that obviously takes power. 
As for meals, we tend to have either yoghurt & berries or toast with either preserves or eggs for breakfast, occasionally we will have bacon too but to get decent bacon is expensive here in the UK. In winter the yoghurt is swapped for porridge and apple compote as we have a tree in our garden that is very generous

Our main meal tends to be in the evening, around 6ish when my husband gets home from work but when he retires we will change that to lunchtime and just have a light snack later.

Your comments about making your home a sanctuary really resonated with me, my ex husband was abusive and I used to dread coming back to our house & not knowing what I was walking into. When I finally left it was to an unfurnished rented flat (apartment) with just a couple of bags of clothes and my little cat but the main thing was that he didn’t know where I was? I borrowed furniture from family & friends, thrifted pots, pans, bedding etc from charity shops and just made that little place into a real home. It wasn’t smart or trendy but at the end of the day I would come home and heave a big sigh of relief at the peace of it all.

Thankfully those days are long behind me but I’ve never forgotten that little flat and the lessons it taught me, home is a feeling.

Dear grandma Donna,

First of all, great news about the surgery. I hope it will be successful and Charles will have no pain anymore.

Here in The Netherlands we have repair café. You can bring things that are broken to be repaired. We are volunteers. My husband repairs computers and I do textile.

Other people repair coffee machines etc. The repair café started in The Netherlands and has spread to other countries, which is fantastic.

Breakfast varies. Some people eat sandwiches with gouda cheese and jam, or Dutch rusk with something sweet or savory. Other people eat baked or cooked egg on bread. Some eat oatmeal, or yogurt.

We eat yogurt with fresh fruit. My husband eats granola with it, I crumble a Dutch rusk into my yogurt and fruit. We have freshley picked wild fruit at the moment, combined with peach, tangerine and banana from the store, with fresh orange juice.

Our lunch consists of sandwiches with Gouda cheese, sandwich sausage and something sweet like chocolate sprinkles.

Dinner in the evening is our main meal. We eat rice and pasta dishes and potatoe, veggie with meat dishes. Sometimes baked potatoes, or fries.

It is so nice to read all the comments.

Hi Grandma Donna, please know I will be praying for Charles !!! (and you). I know many people who've had hip surgery, as I'm sure you do too :). They are all in different age groups, and have had different rates of recovery. Age does not really seem to be a factor in this. My mum recovered quickly, in her 80's, but as her body had to realign she was plagued with a sore knee after the surgery. It took many months for the knee to come right. 

Regards breakfast: I normally have 1 kiwifruit, or in summer I will have some sort of stone fruit off our trees. My husband always has a smoothie (always :apple juice (low sugar), spirulina - helps his energy level, pea protein powder, banana, small apple, kiwifruit), the only variation to this is fresh stone fruit in Summer added. On the weekend he will have a slice of toast as well. 

Other meals, I'm trying to eat lower carb for most meals, but sometimes I just have porridge for lunch, Ryvita crackers, or protein smoothie. I go through food phases :). For dinner, my husband is happy to eat whatever I dish up - it normally consists of lots of veges, salad, some sort of meat, eggs or vegetarian protein. 

I like to bake sourdough bread for my husband every week. I will occasionally eat a slice, but generally my boy doesn't do well anymore with wheat. I also use the stretch and fold method.

Thanks so much for another lovely blog Donna ~ Linda

I actually made your Breakfast Carrot Muffins, from the website, over the weekend and have eaten them 3 mornings in a row! 

I will be praying for Charles.  I know several people that had it and have had zero problems or complaints.  Kitty is so cute in his recliner! And I'm coveting the enamelware and cake tin on your shelves.  

For breakfast I usually have oatmeal with honey, walnuts and blueberries. Sometimes an egg and toast or biscuit and banana or if I'm in a hurry, toast and Greek yogurt with fruit and honey.  I prefer my bigger meal in the afternoon, but that doesn't usually happen. I usually try and have a salad full of spinach or spring mixes and tons of different cut veggies and beans and salmon about 3 times per week. None of which he'll eat so I eat it for lunch.  Husband still works so he wants to eat at 7pm which I dislike because it's too late and we are in bed by 9. So I've been trying to eat more at lunch and less at dinner - there's such a big time gap between lunch and dinner that doesn't bode well with me.  I do make my own bread, although husband won't eat it for sandwiches so I buy him store bought. 

I love old radios!!! I just saw a floor standing one online on Saturday and wished I owned it, but know nothing about them. Plus we Iive in the boonies and we have spotty reception, so I'm not sure it would even play. I miss those as they had good sound. My grandmother had one. I need some sort of new mindful hobby.

My stove is 7 years old and the coils need replacing, but they want $275 for all 4 and I think it's robbery. I'm not sure it's worth it. I will not buy a smooth top. I want to cook!: slide and shake my pans and use my cast iron, but the coil stoves are made so cheap. It's really a bummer. Like you Gr. Donna, I also prefer baking.

My home must be a sanctuary. It is 100% important to me. My husband did not have that luxury growing up, so while he hated the way his home was, his care of it lacks quite a bit just because he doesn't find a lot of it that important.  Honesty, it's mostly what I care about.

Always happy to see a new post that gives me joy and peace and some eye candy. :).

Best of luck on that hip replacement!  My dad had both osteo- and rheumatoid arthritis and had both hips replaced in his 70's.  To see him climb onto his tractor again after his second hip replacement was so wonderful.  I pray Charles will recover very well.  If his hospital is anything like my dad's, they will have him up and walking on it practically as soon as the grogginess clears.

Growing up our main meal was dinner, which we called supper.  We called our lunches, dinner.  However, I say that with the caveat that my mother cooked all three meals for us, since we kids were allowed to leave school at lunchtime and go home to eat.  I usually came home to a hot cooked meal at noon, then another hot meal in the evening, so calling the evening meal our main meal is not quite accurate.  We ate sandwiches very rarely as a meal, unless the weather was really hot.  My own kids had to eat on the school's campus at lunch, so they had packed lunches such as sandwiches, soups in a thermos, fruit and a snack, and I packed similar lunches for my husband and me.  We ate hot, cooked meals in the evenings.  Now I switch back and forth.  If I eat a good lunch with vegetables and protein, I might have salad and fruit for supper, or vice versa.  It just depends on the leftovers available, how busy I am, and how hot the weather is.

My breakfasts growing up were prepared by my stay-at-home mother, so we ate foods such as eggs, toast, oatmeal, grits, rice in milk and sugar, biscuits, bacon, sausage and always a piece of fruit or a small glass of fruit juice.  Once in a while, pancakes or waffles, usually on a Saturday.  Cereal was only in hot weather and rare even then.  My kids got cereal on some occasions, but it didn't hold us until lunch very well, so it was more of a Saturday breakfast.  I usually cooked them an egg with toast or oatmeal.  Sometimes on a rare Saturday my T1 diabetic husband would drive to town and get the kids and me a few fresh, hot doughnuts from the locally owned bakery, and not take a bite, even while smelling that divine smell as he drove home with them. Usually he worked Monday through Saturday, so those doughnut days were a wonderful, but rare, treat.

I had to go through an elimination diet for my autoimmune disease, then gradually reintroduce foods, so for a long while I couldn't have dairy, eggs, all grains (including rice, corn and oats), seeds and seed flours and seed-based spices (including pepper), nightshades (tomatoes and potatoes fall into that) and legumes, including nut butters.  For breakfast I had tea or water, vegetables on the allowed list, chicken, beef, pork, goat, lamb, fruit and bone broths.  I got in the habit then of eating vegetables at breakfast, so I still eat them with eggs or an animal protein.  My favorite is cooked spinach, roasted cubed sweet potatoes and eggs or a ground meat patty of pork, poultry, beef, lamb or goat.  I make them ahead every few days and just heat them in the mornings.

I am trying to make my home comfortable, welcoming and calm.  I am surrounding myself less and less with things.  I love my treasures, but I also love clear space, so I am working at finding that balance between keeping the things I truly love and de-cluttering until I feel the house is open and uncluttered.  I find I tend to keep things because a deceased loved-one gave it to me.  I'm slowly letting go of some of those things, and so far, I haven't regretted what I have let go.  I offer them to my family first, of course, and sometimes they have a use for it.  Then I get to enjoy the item at their house!

Praying for Charles, that surgery will go well and to give the Dr. wisdom. I'm not much of a breakfast eater but I make myself  eat  an egg or two with some sourdough.  My mother always made our home cozy and safe and had homecooked meals . I have tried to emulate her and cook most every meal. Since hubby is retired he is learning to do a little cooking and he actually made some blalckberry jam from our bushes the other day!  We live in a log cabin in the woods near a lake  and have a garden, chickens etc.  Our kids and grandkids all 21 of us gather here regularly  they all love to come to grams house.:)  Hubby is a homebody so I make it as cozy as possible for us. Love reading how everyone else lives and what they eat. !! Take care.

Best wishes to Charles as he recovers!   

I worked out a kind of standard breakfast formula a few years ago and while the details vary, the formula remains - 1 egg cooked In olive oil with and topped with quality fermented kimchi or sauerkraut, a half cup of old fashioned cooked oats with a a bit of honey, some ground flax seed, some fruit, and a tbsp of walnuts, pecans, or sunflower seeds, 8 oz of skim milk, and 1 or 2 servings of vegetables - typically cooked broccli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, spinach, or whatever is ready to go and a couple times a week about 25 grams of avocado.  and 2 to 3 cups green tea.   I keep breakfast and lunch at 400 calories.  Lunch has a similar formula.  Dinner is light and there are snacks.  

I started adding veg to breakfast when I realized that even with using  only use whole grains, and generally eating quite a lot of fruit and veg every day, I still wouln't always hit the recommended goal for fiber.  Adding a cup or two of cooked veg to breakfast mostly fixed that issue and I stay fuller longer.   Breakfast is my favorite meal!

Good Morning Grandma Donna!  
Prayers for Charles and yourself with this up coming surgery.  Just wanted to drop a note letting you know Jim (hubby) eats cereal and milk every morning and I have 2 pieces of white buttered toast.  We both have coffee, me plain, Jim with honey and cinnamon.  When cooler weather comes oatmeal and toast and sometimes an egg will be the fare fore breakfast.  Our main meal of the day is usually lupper (lunch/supper) then maybe popcorn early evening.  
We put in some garden this year and hope to add to and improve next year.  So far I have made 2 half gallon, 1 quart and one pint of fermented kosher dill pickles.  We have cayenne peppers coming on and a few broad Italian green beans but not veggie yet.  I am hoping to get pumpkins in this week if the temp ever cools down for a day.  We also have two watermelons ripening on the vine but tomatoes were a complete bust.  Our one eggplant is very tall but don’t know if it will make any fruit.  We just have to wait and see.  This is hubby’s first experience of eating home grown veggies and he is loving it.  We have two large hydrangeas but in the two summers we have been in Tennessee there have been no flowers.  
Again, praying for you and Charles.

Love your lessons and insights,

Sara T

Good morning Donna and Charles. 

I don't respond in the comments often but I always enjoy what people post.  So much useful information and a peaceful community.

I am keeping you and Charles in my prayers.  I am a retired RN and have seen total hips done but I was not prepared for what happened three years ago when my father-in-law fell and needed the surgery.  The procedure went very well but they discontinued the IV fluids prematurely.  My father-in-law was given VERY strong narcotics immediately after the surgery which made him so groggy he wasn't alert enough to drink and keep himself hydrated.  He became dehydrated in the rehab hospital and the medication built up in his system so much we almost lost him.  It was very stressful and entirely avoidable. You and your children will have to be vigilant and advocate for Charles as he recovers in the hospital.  Once my father-in-law was home the recovery process went smoothly. I'm not telling you (and everyone in this forum) in order to scare people but to inform the two of you and everyone else reading this.  I hope everything goes well in August.

Breakfast for me is usually oatmeal with yogurt, blueberries, chia seeds or flax seeds and walnuts.  I'm trying to support my brain :)  On Saturdays I make pancakes from scratch.  When my kids were growing up I made them with white flour but now I make them with 1:2 white flour to whole wheat. On pancake days we also have eggs.  Back when all six of my children were home I'd make enough pancakes for both Saturday and Sunday.  Back then I would use 12 cups of flour just to feed the entire crew!

May God bless you both.

All the best wishes to Charles and yourself, may he heal well. My father had his right hip replaced some years back, and it gave him a new lease on an active life. 

Growing up, the only breakfast option was cereal, which I didn’t like so I never ate breakfast unless it was Saturday. My dad always woke us up with a “Tarzan yell” and then he would make a big breakfast of bacon, eggs, and pancakes smothered in various fruit sauces. My dad cooked on weekends so my mother could participate in her sports (she played soccer and softball), and mom cooked during the week when dad was working. 

Our breakfast is usually toast and boiled egg. I usually treat us to a couple of avocados a week so we can have avocado toast for a couple of mornings, then the rest of the week we either have butter and homemade jam or I make a batch of hummus for the toast. Oh, and three mugs of coffee, no cream or sugar, is a must!

Your round loaf sounds like our daily bread. I make it every other day, but I use a square Corning ware casserole dish with a glass lid. Slices from the square loaf are long rectangles, which I can cut in two to have two square slices for sandwiches or the toaster. The recipe I use is 3.5 level cups of flour, 1/4 tsp yeast, 1 tsp salt, and 1.5 cups water. Stir in the bowl, cover with a plate, and leave overnight. Turn out on a floured mat, stretch and fold a few times, rotating as you go, then fold into a square, pinch the seam, and flip over on the mat. I cover it with the bowl I mixed it in and let it rise an hour or so. Oil the dish and place it in the cold oven, preheat to 425. Turn dough into hot dish, cover, bake 30 minutes, remove lid, bake 20 more minutes, cool. I like this bread, because it has a good texture and takes less than 10 minutes of hands-on time. I usually mix it up when my partner is doing the dinner dishes, and then I prep it for baking in the morning while the breakfast toast is toasting! In the winter, when it is colder in the house, I will often make it in the morning on day one and bake it on the morning of day two, so that it has 24 hours to rise in the cooler house. 

Our main meal is probably dinner. I am the main cook in the house, by choice, and I work evenings some days. I will prep a casserole, soup (winter), or salad (in summer) in the morning if I work that evening. Depending on when I get off, I will take a portion with me to have at work, or my partner will finish the meal by baking the casserole/reheating it/making the sides, so it is ready by the time I get home. We like casseroles and one-bowl meals, for dinners. Last night it was pork chops and mushroom rice with sliced tomatoes on the side. Tonight I will make a ground beef & broccoli stir fry bowl over rice. Mince and tatties (a sloppy joe-like concoction but with more minced veg than beef, served over mashed potatoes. It was a favorite of my Scottish great-grandma and she served it often when I was growing up).  We don’t eat a lot of meat, although we do tend to eat meat most days. Our usual portions for a dish that feeds two people are a half chicken breast,1/2 lb of beef, or two thin-cut pork chops. We also eat a lot of “on toast” meals — tomato gravy on toast, beans on toast, mushroom toasties, cheese toasties, creamed cabbage on toast. Sometimes, instead of toast, we serve the topping over a baked potato.

Today I am canning bourbon cherries before it gets too hot. This is the last of my cherry canning for the season, as the trees are done producing! I do bourbon cherries every year. I save a couple of jars for making holiday pies, the rest are used as gifts for friends and family. They are quite the popular gift, as every cherry season everybody always verifies that I am making the bourbon cherries this year! Quite a nice gift, it seems, and other than time and a bit of electricity, it costs nothing but a box of canning lids and a bottle of bourbon. I save the extra bourbon for soaking the Christmas fruitcake that I bake and start soaking in October. Unlike store bought fruitcakes,  mine is delicious and has made a fruitcake convert out of many a person!

Those look like some pretty stressed out felines (haha).

Prayers for you and for Charles.  Just a word of encouragement: I went and saw my FIL two days after he had his hip replaced.  He was still tired looking from the surgery and being in the hospital where they don't let a person sleep more than 2 hours, but I told him he looked 10 years younger.  He thought I was being silly.  He did look younger!  He had been in so much pain, that painful expression he didn't even know he had was gone.  He felt better almost immediately.  He still had to recover and regain mobility etc., but felt so much better and moved easier.

Breakfast if I have it is usually 2 eggs sprinkled with parmesan.  When we aren't working, we kinda have a joke: we eat brunch and linner.  During the week, our big meal is lunch (noon dinner).  We don't typically eat supper.  Might have a little snack in the evening, but pretty light.  Neither of us can eat three meals a day.  It's just too much.

Blessings :-)

Hello, and thank you for all the cozy pictures and inspiring material, Grandma Donna. I will pray that Charles's surgery goes smoothly and is successful. 

My mother always said, "Breakfast like a king, dinner like a pauper". Has anyone ever heard that?

I try to eat heartily in the morning and taper off during the day, but dinner tends to be rather hearty, too.

I have a breakfast menu that we follow. Mostly hardboiled eggs and toast, because there just isn't money for bacon or other fancy things for nine people right now. I make either muesli or granola in big batches which I store in mason jars in the freezer for a Saturday morning treat. Sundays we have scrambled eggs with banana bread. On Tuesdays my girls and I attend the ladies' Bible study at our church and we are in a hurry, so we enjoy low-sugar chocolate breakfast cookies those mornings. I sort of made up the recipe and keep it clipped above the mixer because I use it so much.

I'm glad you'll be giving us updates about Charles. Even though you don't know me at all, the two of you feel like relatives!

I now have some yummy new breakfast ideas ... thanks everyone.  It also made me remember one of my favorites, rice with raisins.  Mom didn't make it often because my sister hated raisins.  When I was seven, I had hives on top of my head, on the bottom of my feet and everywhere in-between.  I had to go on an elimination diet that consisted of rice.  Rice with nothing added.  By the time I finished with that little issue, I hated rice and wouldn't eat it for many years.  Now I'm a fan but can no longer have raisins ... such is life.

I wish my husband was agreeable to fewer or smaller meals but he insists we have to have the traditional 3 meals with dinner being the largest. His parents are in their 80s and now eat smaller meals and usually only 2 each day. Dinner is often sandwiches.  They really only cook when he visits. I keep asking my husband when do we start doing sandwiches for dinner? Hahaha 

Jenny Wren, my brother switched to bourbon for his fruitcakes and I believe it significantly improved them. He's had more than one gift recipient say they only eat his fruitcake; otherwise, they don't like it.

Joan S mentioned finding the balance between keepsakes and clear space. I'm working on that also. Some days I lean towards more clear space! I have a few give away items I could sell on Ebay but I just don't know if it's worth the effort. 

Lainey T_2,  I am going to post a link here so you can watch the method I use of making my favorite bread.  I do make a pre-ferment bread where I make a biga or a poolish before I go to bed at night and make the bread the next day.  However, I also make a non pre-ferment that is my favorite and can be made in the same day and does not take very long.  I actually enjoy making this bread because I can go around the house for 30 minutes at a time and clean, fold laundry, sorting or mending, go back stretch and fold another round, back to another thirty minutes until I have done 4 rounds of stretch, fold and rest the dough.   I found this lady that is a Chef and she made a video of her bread so I will post it here for you to watch.  This is a safe link on youtube, she made this video about two years ago. I do not normally post links anymore or want other too because I have to make sure they are safe so I avoid them but I will send this one because it is one I have watched many times.  I use the second method, the stretch and fold and make sure to go to her website recipe because the written recipe is a little different than the video because they cannot correct things in the video but can on the written recipe.  Here is a link to the written recipe but watching the video will teach the stretch and fold method.  https://www.emmafontanella.com/the-easiest-no-knea...

Everyone,  Thank you for your well wishes and prayers for Charles and I, they are much appreciated.

I am enjoying reading what you eat for breakfast and what is your main meals, I love hearing from all of you here on the forum because we all get to read about it.

Diana M_2  You are absolutely right that anyone in the hospital or a nursing facility needs a strong advocate.   A power of attorney for health care decisions should be prepared before it's needed.  Also, it's very important to discuss with the person you want to name to be sure they are willing and to let that person know what your wishes are.  

I was POA for former d-i-l and it was a difficult time for me, but I was thankful I was able to be there for her.   She passed over a year ago and I'm still angry about the rotten care she got at a nursing home ... 8 days without a shower, followed by hospitalization for sepsis, then back to that place and 7 days without a shower.  I had to pitch a fit to get her two showers before I finally got her transferred to an excellent nursing home where she got proper care ... however it was too late as the first place had let her sink so low she could not recover.

Knee and hip replacements are now routine, and I've not heard of any individual who has had a problem.  I'm old so I know a LOT of people who've had replacements!  In fact, I know of a few that have had replacements of their first replacement because they wore it out.

Grandma Donna and Charles , praying for an easy surgery time and swift recovery time.

I have a friend that has had both hips replaced this year and the difference for them is unbelievable. This person waited too long and ended up on crutches and now can do about anything again.

I do not eat breakfast, cannot do food in the morning, even as a child just could not do it.

I usually have a smoothie at noon and then will eat at suppertime. In summer supper is salads or a cold plate, in cooler/cold weather stews, soup or veggies with a very small amount of meat. Meat does not appeal most of the time but I will eat a small amount once in a while.  If I get snack hungry, I usually have popcorn or sometimes a handful of pretzels. I am not a chip eater at all.

I have been looking at menus and pictures of meals from 1942, lots of veggies and stews/soups. 

I have been researching and thinking about how to make a heavier type of drape for the 10 windows in my sunroom for winter. I have good windows but want sometime for the cold transfer thru the glass.  I have a new 25 foot canvas drop cloth and I plan on measuring and cutting plain coverings in prep for cold weather. A simple rod pocket and hemmed on the other 3 sides should work just fine. I have access to another if needed.

JCKitty

I love reading your posts here in Australia. ( got on to your post via Rhonda Hetzel from here ) This pos in particular is so beautiful and so inspirational. We try to live a lot like you in many ways. I take my hat off for all you both achieve and love the way you write all your thoughts/ believes etc and share with us.

Hope all goes well for Charles! 

I will be praying for both Charles and you, Donna. It is hard to do all the jobs and take care of a patient, also. 

I eat a breakfast muffin each morning. I love eggs and used to eat those, however, my body decided it didn't like eggs. I grind a combination of gluten free berries into flour and use pumpkin in place of eggs, for the muffins.

We eat our main meal at lunch. We each grab what we want for dinner; something light.

I always enjoy reading what people share here. 

Hi Grandma Donna

Thankyou for the reminder about living within our means, and looking after what we have. We tried to impress this on our daughters and now as young adults, it seems to be standing them in good stead.

I think "within your means" has to encompass the future as well, to an extent. We have had comments in the past from within the family about our reluctance to spend on holidays, new furniture, luxury cars etc.  But when a health crisis hit me, and again when my husband was unexpectedly out of work for several months, that money was available and we could sleep better at night. 

Best wishes to Charles for a successful surgery and recovery. Him being so active will be an advantage. And best wishes to you as you support and care for him, while also "filling in" for him around the house and garden! 

Our younger daughter moved out recently,  so my husband and I are adjusting to being a two-person household. I prefer not to eat until later in the morning, and not after about 6pm. For me, this means two meals a day. He goes out to work and likes three meals, but doesn't get home until around 7pm. I prefer not to eat meat, whereas he likes it. 

We both eat porridge for our first meal of the day; his with brown sugar on. I add blueberries, grated ginger and psyllium husk to mine. I put yoghurt and sprinkle cinnamon on top. My drink is unsweetened cocoa made mostly with boiling water and just a little bit of milk (I'm no Sweet-Tooth!) My alternative breakfast is a wrap with felafels, coleslaw and yoghurt on.

Husband takes cheese and salad sandwiches and fruit, or sometimes leftovers for lunch to work.

For dinner I'll either make a vegetarian soup, curry or casserole - something that can be easily reheated, or a stir-fry with legumes and plenty of veg served with rice. I've made and frozen some meatballs that can be reheated and added to my husband's plate, and sometimes make a stew with meat in it that I remove from my plate if I happen to serve some to myself.

I eat when I'm ready and then will sit and have a cup of tea with my husband while he eats dinner. I learnt the importance of eating together, when possible, from Grandma Donna!

This is the ideal but it doesn't always go to plan.

In addition to the 'cost of living' I should add that we do have a television set, a "smart" TV, but when we bought it we immediately turned off the internet connection function - we only watch DVD's or free to air television, never ever had any subscriptions and have no intentions of doing so.  We read our pysical books or else download free books from the library on to our phone - that comes in handy when we're away or in a waiting room, we can just open the phone and read whichever book we are reading at the time.

Thanks Pam, it's good to know you can turn off the "smart" in the smart TV. Like you, we only watch free to air and DVDs. The TV is good for watching home movies though.  Ours is on its last legs. If we have to replace it, I no longer need to fear the new TV listening in and spying on us!

Ann E We have a stove that needs a new switch to turn one of the burns on and off.  It is very old and I went to the appliance store that we have gone to for years and the woman tried to find us a new switch and she could not find one.  She said when our stove was made they had to keep parts for 10 to 15 years.  Now they only have to keep parts for 7 years for appliances.  So keep that in mind when trying to decide to get new burners or a new stove.

Ann W My husband when to the rehab center (nursing home) for a 11 days after a surgery and he was supposed to stay longer, but came home because of conditions there.  He never got a shower.

For breakfast I usually have an egg, and some oatmeal with fruit, prunes and walnuts, and a cup of green tea with lemon and Manuka honey.  My husband has 3 eggs, sausage pattie, 2 oz of fried potatoes, and sauerkraut and a cup of breakfast tea with Manuka honey.  We eat our larger meal at dinner, but we don't often eat the same thing because we have different diets because of health issues.  I always feel like a short order cook.  I like the sandwiches for dinner, but bread is a problem for both of us.

I have been trying to plant something every day for the fall garden too.  I am watching the storm in the Gulf and trying to decide where it might go.  Hope you don't get hit too hard.

Wishing Charles a quick recovery and he can be planning his work shop for repairs.

I am finding much inspiration from the comments - thank you to all!

I'm sending good wishes for Charles' surgery and recovery, too.  I pray for good medical personnel and for a quick hospital stay - quick for that type of surgery.

I'm 67 so I think I'm a little younger than many of you.  I am technically retired (was told to quit or be fired after discovering that a very senior executive was 'adjusting' numbers to dramatically increase his bonuses), but it happened when first, I was eligible for early social security and second, my daughter and son-in-law couldn't find child care for their soon-to-be-firstborn.  So I called it 'retirement', bought a camper/caravan to put on their property and closed up my house 2.5 hours away.   That baby is now 4 and her younger sister is 18 months so I've been here for a while.  I've insulated the camper well enough to live in it during the winters and summers where temperatures range from -30F to 100F. 

I've lived for over four years between two places which means whatever I want is generally at the other place.  I've accumulated a lot of duplicates of things I need at both places.  The house became a storage place with a large garage, a 12x24 foot workshop, a shed and the 900 square foot house on it.  But last January during a stretch of absolutely awful dangerous weather, the furnace in the house quit working.  I couldn't get there for three weeks so I didn't know it had failed.  During that time, the temperatures fluctuated wildly from above to below freezing multiple times.  And to make things more fun, the bad weather caused the worst field mouse infestation in 50 years.  Inside the freezing house was still more secure than outside so they all moved in.  At some point, the whole house water filter, the water softener and the reverse osmosis unit (all necessary because of high iron levels in the well water) failed.  All three had water always flowing to them so all of that water was pouring into the house.  A neighbor called to say that water was running out from the foundation and he thankfully shut off the house's electrical power for me so the well stopped pumping.  I had had a previous mouse infestation so most of my things were stored in sealed tubs - thankfully.  But I lost all my filled canning jars to freeze/thaw and lost anything not in tubs to the mice.  I've gotten most of what I could salvage out of the house and into storage, donated or sold.  There is still a lot that has to be climate controlled that is piled up in the camper.  I read all your words with hope that soon I can get the piles tamed and have the camper back to being livable.  I am calling this forced decluttering - said with a smile.  

To answer your question, my breakfast is usually a scrambled egg with a little cheese when I fix the girls' breakfast.  I was diagnosed as borderline diabetic and I'm trying hard to lower carbs and increase protein to lower my numbers.  Lunch is also with the girls and is generally light.  My main meal is in the evening.  

I've read here for a long time but just recently started posting.  It's so good to read about how all of you are coping with life in this time.  My mom grew up in the 40s and she has been a goldmine of information about how they lived.  She is 91 and the last surviving member of both my dad's and her siblings.  I love hearing about my grandma and her sisters all gathering together to pick and can 200 quart jars of green beans, enough to share between the four families, cutting enough cabbage to make sauerkraut for all of them, canning enough tomatoes for a year.  I wish we could go back to those gatherings, that cooperation.

Good morning from a (thankfully), slightly cooler UK.

I'm adding my best wishes for a speedy recovery for Charles after his hip operation.  I've had two friends who had them.  The first sailed through it and was up, pain free and mobile within no time at all.  The second? She took much much longer to recover and every day was a hard felt battle.  I'm guessing that the point of this post is that everyone recovers at their own pace and for Charles to not be despondent if it takes longer than other people.  Lin got there in the end and is now totally pain free and mobile!

I don't tend to eat breakfast very early as it seems to take a while for my stomach to wake up and recognise hunger!  So I usually prepare breakfast oats in the summer and porridge in the cooler months, but tend to eat it a couple of hours after I've risen.  At the moment that's still very early as it's still light and as it's still unseasonably warm, I've taken to watering the garden (watering can - takes longer but I get a good look at the plants whilst I'm doing it), as early as possible.  They seem to be responding well but I obviously need to look at improving the soil quality for next year's crops. I have harvested a few peas, French beans and the odd tiny courgette but am hopefully that another couple of weeks and I shall have an abundance! The loofahs are continuing to do well and, again, I'm hopeful that they'll produce enough for home use and presents.

I tend to eat when I'm hungry and what I eat also depends on how bothered I can be to cook. During the really hot weather I ate a lot of cheese and crackers later on in the evening! During the colder months I tend to eat a lot of stews and casseroles and am attempting to grow the vegetable ingredients for these dishes. I also follow a couple of WWII diet blogs. I've  been experimenting with asian cookery and have splurged on a rather nice (and rather large!), wok.  I've also been learning how to make my own noodles!  You Tube is an invaluable resource at these times...  I have a small freezer and have been laying down lots of foraged blackberries and will also freeze some apple sauce once the cooking apple tree next to me ripens.  I count myself as very blessed to be living where I do.  In September/October edible mushrooms will be appearing in the local fields, so I shall be foraging them too.  

What local free foods do other readers gather?