Update on the Nomadic Life

Well, not sure on the “Nomadic” part. Our Fifth wheel – AKA “Vera” (Vehicle of Extraordinary Road Adventures) has been pretty stagnant. Thought I would send an update post as I hear from friends that are thinking I’m living the high life travelling around in my R.V. and loving life. Close, but not quite folks!

You know when you get into something new, and after a few months you find you are saying to yourself “if I knew what I know now I wouldn’t have……….” or “I would have”. Well, we certainly went into this R.V. life not knowing many things.

Firstly, the size of Vera. I think we were so impressed with the comfort and space of our new home and I just felt that I’d make the travelling with Vera part work. Well, that was not the case. At over 32 feet long, then add in Mike’s truck (AKA “The Beast”), it was way too large for me to maneuver without causing loss of life or damage! Way too tough for me, so stay put it has. We have been very blessed with having a great friend offer up their acreage just out of Summerland to park Vera. Another thing I didn’t take into account though, was being such a people person there is the feeling of being quite lonely at many times. There were thoughts of me travelling and moving Vera around from park to park, or driving across Canada, but instead I have stayed in this one spot (albeit very beautiful – see pic below). So this has confirmed to me that if we continue this lifestyle of Mike working away from home a lot, that this little social butterfly needs peeps around her for mental wellness. I never realized that even though I was on my own when Mike was away, but taking my dog out for a walk I had mini conversations with many neighbours which helped with my social side. I can’t complain completely as we have managed a couple of mini-trips on Mike’s brief visit home which has been lovely – discovering more of Beautiful British Columbia.

You know when you buy and move in to your new house you then discover that – oh this creaks, and oh, this window doesn’t close properly etc? Well, this was like that but more so. For example, when the weather turns to 46 degrees Celcius,(new record high for the area) your new home – Vera is like an Easy Bake Oven! But then also, you don’t have a generator to run your air conditioner, and then ants invade your home, and then the gas decides to go off while you’re away for a couple of days and the fridge/freezer thaws……Yes, it’s been a challenging adventure with many a text to my husband of “how do I………..?”

So what’s next? Well, we have a possible 2 – 3 more months of Canada’s Fire Season that is Mike’s work and then the next “pack-up-to-go” step starts. But where??? Well, I’m definitely going to Costa Rica either with Mike for the Winter, or if he gets work elsewhere, maybe just for a month with Mike, then I’m going to look into doing the Workaway thing again traveling around Costa Rica. Now THAT will be the nomadic lifestyle that I’m excited about. The long-term plan is to retire in Costa Rica, but as we all know – life happens and sometimes our perceptions aren’t quite what life turns out to be in reality so stay tuned……………will keep you posted.

(Below is a pic of our current smoky view from Vera.)

The Evolution of our Home

For 18 years we have lived at our beautiful home in Summerland, B.C., Canada. We moved here when our kids were in Elementary School and we have proudly watched them grow up here, spread their wings super wide and fly on to their own paths of success. We became “Empty Nesters”, which after the initial shock, meant there were possibilities for us to venture onto our next chapter. If you’ve been following this space you will know I’ve been searching for my own path – which is why this blog was created. “The Evolving Empty Nester” was a way for me to channel my thoughts, ideas and feelings about this new stage of our lives. So the new path is unfolding……………

After 2 long visits to Costa Rica and much soul searching, we decided that with Mike’s work, we could live anywhere in the world – so why not give Costa Rica a go! This was not an easy decision when we considered that our youngest daughter has always lived somewhere not too far from our home, consequently making for the toughest part of our move away. For our oldest daughter there isn’t a huge change in distance for either of us. She will be living as close to Costa Rica as she does to B.C. so it’s no different for her where we are. Obviously we wished we lived closer, but Toronto is where her blossoming career is so “c’est la vie” for now.

The plan? Well here’s the “Readers Digest” version :-

• Sell our Home. Check
• Secure job for Mike for the Summer. Check
• Buy R.V. for to be our temporary new home. Check
• Wait for travel/covid situation to improve – work in progress and out of our control
• Learn how to drive Mike’s truck whilst hauling said R.V. all over Canada exploring and following where Mike will be based – probably Ontario. Working on it….

• 

A side-by-side of our home transition

The plan (which is pandemic-situation dependant) is that when Mike’s contract has finished around October 2021, we will head off to Costa Rica, and rent a temporary house. Boom! If it turns out that this is a winner decision (I know – how can it not be a winner??!) we will buy land just up from the Dominical coastal area that overlooks the Pacific Ocean, build a house with space room to build an Airbnb on it, a covered cement pad for my Fitness Studio and that’s it! Here, is a pic of our vision that Mike photoshopped for our Vision Board. We gaze at this picture all the time so it’s no doubt going to be a reality as that’s how it works right?

• 

Our future home

This whole process has kept us super busy – a great way to pass a pandemic in the cold Canadian Winter. Would have loved to have spent this winter in Costa Rica, however the knowledge that it’s coming is keeping us warm, busy and excited. In the meantime, as of March 31st this is where we will be, in our mobile new home which is now appropriately named “VERA” (Vehicle of Extraordinary Recreational Activity)

This Evolving Empty Nester is Evolving

If you’ve been following my blog, you’ll know that I’ve been searching for “what to do with the rest of my life now the kids have gone” for a few years now. I haven’t blogged for over a year and so much as happened! Read on……

For  those of you new to my Blog – I started “The Evolving Empty Nester” 4 years ago just as my youngest child left home to begin her “adult” life. I found myself to be very somber, and inwardly empty, hence “Empty Nester”.

“Readers Digest” version – I had a career in Hospitality, then kids, then……..no plan.  Now, maybe I realize that I should have listened to my in-laws and focused more on my “life after children” which they had constantly suggested whilst our kids were then growing up at home.  At the time, I just felt I wasn’t ready to think about it.  Then the kids left.   I was at a loss of what to do with, and for “me” after a wonderful period of “us”.  Meanwhile, I’ve been plodding along working in restaurants part time, and searching for the “new Kim”

In July of last year, a lovely lady who had started me on my path to fitness 17 years ago as my Personal Fitness Trainer, posted a request on Facebook. She was looking for Personal Trainers to join her business “Funktion for Life”.https://www.funktionforlife.com/  Mmmmmm.  I mused.  Interesting.  I love fitness and training, I love people, I love helping empower change, this seems like maybe it will be a fit for me.  Hold on a sec……  I don’t have a degree, and am certainly not ready to get one at this point in my life.  Nicole said “we need to talk”.

I met with Nicole and she shared that she thought it used to be all about having the Degrees, but now, it seems like people are looking for yes – certainly the knowledge, but even more so – the personality and how they connect with others.  She thought I would be a perfect fit to be a Personal Trainer with her business!

On it! And super pumped, I signed up for an online International Fitness Trainer Certification and attacked it.  I also started shadowing Nicole and her other trainers to learn the “hands on” aspect whilst studying.  I never thought I’d find myself studying again, and it certainly was a struggle for my well-used brain, but I passed with flying colours I’m pleased to say.

I spent 2 months in Costa Rica during the Winter and towards the end, Nicole started sending me information on new clients that she thought would be a perfect fit for me to start with when I returned home to Canada in March. In the meantime, I planned workout sessions for each client.  I was nervous, yet super excited.  The date I came home was March 13th 2020.  Yup, the Covid 19 situation was escalating in Canada.  Two weeks of quarantine ensued for me, meanwhile the Gym that I was about to work in, closed their doors “until further notice.”

In the downtime of closed gyms’,  I ramped up my education.  I’d been following some super-well established knowledgeable trainers, and taking some of their online classes , taking online courses through CrossFit and reading any article I could on anything fitness or health related.   I did some “freebie-training” for friends to help with my learning curve of coaching, and led a Zoom class for my girlfriend in Australia and her rowing team who were on lockdown and not able to train.  I sent workouts to my brother and two others in Wales, and to 2 girlfriends on Vancouver Island.  All of which, along with their great feedback helped me to continue my fitness education during this pandemic.

Maybe this time of waiting to start my next phase was a blessing?  It gave me the time to adjust from my most fabulous adventure in Costa Rica to starting my next career adventure.  I had time to focus on myself and my relationships,  learn to be at home, and be OK with it (I’m a super social being).

Fast forward to today………………..Lockdown loosened its grip, business’ started to open up, and I nervously started my new career at the ripe old age of 57!  I’ve now been training some wonderful clients for the last five months and absolutely loving it!  I find it challenging, yet oh so rewarding, and wonderful to share my passion for fitness and empower others to feel rewarded by their efforts.

I wonder how life would have been if I’d found this “career path” earlier in life? .

In some ways, I feel that my life and work experiences have helped shape me to be the Personal Trainer (that I’m proud to say) I am today!

(Below – myself and my Italian buddy Suzi doing one of my Workouts in the heat in Costa Rica)

Download

6 days……

I sit here sipping my tea, after consuming my very British marmite on toast for breakfast, and think about my week ahead.

Up until May 7th 2019 – a mere 6 days away, I have known one person my entire life.  My Mother.  56 years of consistently having that one person in my life – whether we shared a house, a Province, or were across the world from one another.

In 6 days, she won’t be here.

People die suddenly, people have illnesses for long periods of time and then pass away, but I never predicted that someone so important to me would plan to move into her next phase and have control over when that happened.

My Mum suffered a terrible car accident, and at the age of 85 was taken to hospital with 12 broken ribs, a broken pelvis, ruptured liver, a broken left leg and a broken right ankle.  Not only that, but over the next few weeks her diaphragm collapsed  and a revelation to us that she had breast cancer.

Over her 8 weeks in the hospital, she became unresponsive twice and was assisted back to us.

Time moved forward, and Mum’s ongoing life choices were thought on by Mum, the hospital and her close family.  Mum emigrated to Canada from the U.K. in 2004.  Had she still lived in England, she would have had to suffer with extreme shortness of breath and painfully await her demise, while cancer ravaged her body. In Canada, she can apply for M.A.I.D.  Medical Assistance in Dying which became legal here in 2015.

Mum has always been fiercely independent, planned out her life, and been in full control of her choices…..so why would she stop now?  She had the choice to be in charge of her destiny right up until her last day.

How do I spend these last 6 days now a date has been chosen for her departure from this Earth? Do I carry on as normal? Go to work?  CrossFit as usual?   Do I spend as much time as possible with Mum?  Is there a “right” or “wrong” way to deal with this “waiting period”?

I’m not ready for the world to know about my Mum’s decision.  I feel unable to deal with a potential disagreement with anyone over my Mum’s choices.  This is private.  It is Mum and my families business only at this holding point.  So I continue in my premature grief getting through the 6 days ahead, visiting Mum, and witnessing her being the most content and happy she has been in the last 8 weeks since her collision with life.  She’s anxiously excited about her transition into her next phase, and on that I must focus.  At the very moment of her accident all authority over her choices were stripped from her.  Yet now, she feels in control, in charge, and that has power for her – and it shows in her inner peace.   For that, I am so happy for her.

My tears continue to flow, sometimes out of nowhere, sometimes they are all dried up.  I will go quietly through these next 6 days and wrap myself in Mum’s happiness and my family’s endless support and love.

Empty Nester – yet still immersed in Motherhood guilt.

 

Yup, I did it.  At the ripe age of 53, I “rescued” a canine creature.  I have never owned a dog in my entire life, but after much debate and pondering with my hubby, we decided this may be the answer for me.

This all happened two years ago now, and Stanley has been in our life and become part of our quirky household.   I was struggling with the quiet loneliness once the kids left the Nest with Mike still working tours overseas.  The decision was made to give it a go and start by Fostering a dog to see how it worked for us.  Well of course in a short space of time I became what’s known as a “Foster Failure”.  This is actually a positive thing meaning that you’d failed at being a Foster Dog Owner, and had actually decided to adopt the pooch.

He really has been a bit of dream dog for us.  No whining, no barking at every little thing, no chewing of furniture.  Just the odd bit of aggressive behaviour when on leash.  We changed his name from “Tyson” (he never answered to it anyway – and being as my husband is called Mike, we just didn’t think that would work for us) to Stanley, aka Stan-the Man, Stanners, and Stan.

The main problem with having a dog is all in my head.

The issue that I’m having with owning a dog has nothing to do with him, but instead this irrational guilt I carry. Turns out its not him, it’s me.

You see, I seem to have held on to that amazing skill I have to immerse myself in the “Motherhood Guilt” technique that I had fine-tuned over my 20-or-so years of being a full-time parent. Now I have developed the ability to put that same guilt on myself for leaving Stanley alone for a longer period of time (6-8 hours).  Yes, I know, I’ve heard all the advice before.  “He’s just a dog”,  “They just sleep anyway”, “They have no concept of time”.  But still I go round in circles worrying in my head.  Does anyone have any better advice than those listed in the previous sentence to help me get over this ridiculous issue?

Tonight, I’m enlisting my “self-talk” skills and going off to work for what may be a 7 hour shift while Mike is away working.  “You’ve got this Kim, he’s just a dog, he’ll sleep, it’s all good”, I’ll be chanting to myself.   Summer’s coming and more of this is coming, too.  I need to smarten up.  Fast.

 

 

A trip back to the Motherland

I’m working towards making this an annual thing –  getting out of Dodge in the winter I mean.  When I first came to Canada, I heard of the term “Snow-birders”.  For my non-Canadian readers, this means – as soon as the white-stuff starts falling from the sky you all flock off to warmer climates in a mass flurry of 50, 60, and 70 year olds screaming “get me outta here!!”  When I first moved to Canada in 1993 I figured I was just too young for all that  (having young kids at home) and set that thought aside.  Now at the ripe old age of 55 with no kids at home anymore,  winter creeps up on me and I find myself in search of the big yellow globe in the sky.

Last year I took off to Australia for a family wedding, and holiday.  This year, it wasn’t the warmth I was seeking so much (although U.K. is warmer generally speaking than B.C.,Canada),  I was seeking time with my wise, and wonderful older sibling who has had some hard times with his health of late, and I felt the need to be there for a few weeks.

I took off to the non-snowy country of Wales and the fabulous company of my brother Lee, his daughter India – now 19, and son Taylor, 21, both relatively unknown to me living across “The Pond” (as the Brits say).  I spent 2 weeks with Lee and his delightful kid-lings, then moved around mid-England visiting with my old high school years BFF, a couple of old night-clubbing-in-my-youth girlfriends, my Step-Brother and his family and my cousin – who I had not really spent more than a tea-time visit with in years.

The vacation was enormously therapeutic, albeit short-lived. I re-discovered how gorgeous my Motherland is.  Stunning fields upon fields, rugged and beautiful coastlines of Wales, and historically majestic buildings and structures.  I re-connected with old friends, deepened my already strong family ties with Lee, and discovered the joy of being an Auntie.

Not quite the  heat-seeking holiday I was looking for, however my soul was beautifully warmed by these ever-lasting  and deeply-rooted connections.

I guess that’s one positive about being an Empty Nester now.  I can take off on trips either with Mike, or solo and not worry about the kids and if they’d also like the holiday.  Or  alternatively – if we left them behind I would be worrying about Day-Care etc.  Now I just send them a postcard and bring them back an appropriate souvenir.  Having said that, a family holiday would be fabulous……..  oh, this Empty Nesting is still tough, who am I kidding?

Where will Winter 2018/2019 take me I wonder.  I’m going to put it out there for a trip to Costa Rica!  Maybe the kids will save up and come too????!

It’s a New Year, a New Day, a New Life ……..

………and I’m feeling, gooooooddd.  (in the words of many a jazz singer!)

Yes, it’s a New Year, and a time where many people make resolutions for new beginnings, achievements, goals etc.

For me this year, being the “Evolving Empty Nester” I am working on myself  and running towards how I can be the best Kim Kohan possible.  I don’t think of it as a Resolution, more of a “work in progress”.  I don’t want to just settle for the way I am now, but want to find the best Kim that I can be.

Whilst doing that, I’m putting it out there that there will be a sign showing me which direction to take with my life/career/time going forward.  Don’t get me wrong – I actually LOVE being a Server at a fabulous location and business in the Okanagan and I feel that I could quite happily go along doing what I’m doing – but feel that there is something more out there for me.  I love to train/coach people, I love to be moving at work (not sedentary), I love to be in a positive environment, I love people laughing at my jokes (or maybe they’re just humouring me, but I enjoy that anyway.)   I am great with staff and customers alike.  Now to wrap that all up into one thing and make it my own.  That’s what my goal is this year.  To find out what that bundle is!

Just to backtrack  4 sentences in the previous paragraph – yes, I feel I AM great with people!  This might sound braggy I realize – but shouldn’t we know our strengths in order to go forward?  So I wrote it – bragginess and all, hope you’re not offended.  I believe it’s important for your self-worth to realize and be proud of your abilities.

To summarise, my 2018 Goals are to keep  working on being the best possible Kim Kohan there is, and along the way – be shown how to make the money I need to have everything I desire going forward!  I am on the Cutting Edge of Evolving!  (Someone just said that to me).  Stay tuned!

 

The party is just beginning………

I’ve been on a bit of hiatus from my Blog for quite a while, but I recently received some words of encouragement to write again.  I was offering some of my “words of wisdom” to a friend of mine and actually, she loved what I had to say! “You should write about that on your Blog” she suggested.

So here I am.  Blogging about it.

While being on a wonderful holiday in Perth, Australia,  my Sister-In-Law left an appropriately placed informational book on the bedside table of my room in her apartment.  This publication was about moving into and through your mid-life and finding ways to deal with all that comes with that phase.

Being an “Evolving Empty Nester” I was completely open to reading this book feeling that it may assist me with my present transition in life.  My current way of thinking was teetering between “Now what?”,  “I have no idea”, “I miss my kids being at home so much”,  “I don’t want to move on”, ” I just want that time again” and finally – “I’m on the downhill slope to the end of my life”.  None of which are in anyway productive to a happy, enjoyable mid and older life.

My thought on mid-life in the past seemed to be on how my body would begin to fail in many ways – strength, appearance, and susceptibility to injury and illness, and that it was a slow downhill slope once you hit your 50’s.

But then I read the aforementioned book and developed a whole new outlook on the next “Empty Nesting” phase of my life.  This judiciously placed book was a positive guide to recovering individuality and mapping out a second life.  It made reference to time spans in our life and looking at what the reader had been able to do and achieve in that period of time.

Let’s make a positive prediction that I’m going to continue to live a pretty healthy and active lifestyle, just like I am now, and that I will be able to do anything that comes my way physically and mentally  from 54 (now) to say 85.  Then that’s still another 31 years of living ahead of me.

I then compared that upcoming 31 year time-span to another 31 year time period in my earlier life – when I was 19 to 50.  Then I contemplated all the things I had fulfilled in that time, what I had achieved, experienced, and how I’ve grown as an individual.  Let’s just put that in a super brief form – I’ve had many great jobs leading to a fun-filled career, found my wonderful husband, raised 2 amazing daughters, lived in 3 countries, rescued a dog, grown hugely as a person, and the list continues……

Slowly – a whole new realization came to me……….. I have a whole lifetime ahead of me and it’s not downhill at all!!  (Unless of course, I allow that to happen).

Doesn’t this thought seem so much more positive in comparison to my former way of thinking that the next 31 years will be a downhill decline?

Now all I have to do is sit back, stop worrying that “time is marching on”,  but just be-in-the-moment. Enjoy-life.  Stop-worrying.   I have a large expanse of time ahead of me.  Who knows what delights and experiences I have to come and how I will develop and grow as a human??

My outlook on this next phase, my “Empty Nesting” phase,  has changed towards a positive future, and that’s a great thing!

Stay tuned for my “whats coming”…….

                    

Nineteen – or thereabouts……………………………………………………and 31 years later

Double-edged sword?

 

After 2 1/2 years of having “left home”, my youngest daughter is moving back to the Nest this week.

I have quite mixed feelings about this.  I will explain.

My initial reaction is of complete happiness and a warm, “snuggle-up-in-something-comfortable” feeling in my heart.  When either of our girls come home I am constantly smiling for at least the first 24 hours – normally way longer.  We will get to enjoy her wit, sarcasm, energy and love flowing through the family nest on a regular basis which is something that makes me so very happy.

Then there’s the flip side.

It’s not forever (nor should it be) and the day will come when she moves out and on with her life, so my heart will go through that aching-falling-apart all over again.

Or maybe not?  Maybe she’ll steal too many of my clothes, hair brushes and make-up, eat up all my leftovers that I was saving for a meal at work,  take my special shampoo out of the shower (that I’ll discover when I’m soaking wet and now there’s no shampoo in the shower), or steal my husbands comfy sweaters and sweat-pants and leave her “crap” all over the house and I’ll have to listen to him rant-on about it!

Somehow I think the above “cons” will be irrelevant in the end and I will be so content for her to stay as long as she likes.

However, to grow and move on -as our children should do, the time will come for her to fly the nest – again.

For the meantime though,I’ll just have fun with her here – do our goofy dancing, join her in teasing my husband about his eccentricities that we love him for, and generally just lap-up having her around.

Or maybe I’ll grow up and move on myself and come to terms with the fact that our kids need to explore and forge ahead with their own lives.  Hopefully I’ll find that thing in my life that takes away this blue feeling of being an Empty Nester that I’m still searching for.

Keep reading and I’ll keep you posted……..

The Evolving Culinary Stages of my Life – this far

Our lives evolve – we grow, we learn, we move on through the stages of life from being a child, teen, learning to “Adult”, relationships, parenthood, being an Empty Nester and then hopefully – being a Senior.  I may have missed a couple of stages in there, but generally speaking a lot of us experience these life phases.

I had this realization the other day that my world in my kitchen has also “evolved” over the times.  Let me explain…….

As a child – my main recollection about food is having to eat boiled eggs with “marmite soldiers” every-single-day for breakfast.   This may contribute to my huge dislike for the taste of eggs  (well this is what I attribute it to anyway).  However, as a child I didn’t have to plan meal choices, I just had to eat what was served up.  Looking back, maybe that was easiest stage of all, but of course I didn’t realize that at the time.

As a teenager/young adult at College it was all about trying to stretch my measly-pittance-of-a-grant money out for as long as I could.  What was the cheapest option that would make my stomach feel the fullest for the longest? This was the question I asked myself daily as I’m sure still happens for many teens and young adults now.  A Cornish Pasty was only 75 pence (yes this was a while ago), and if I got a Coke I could sit at the local pub and socialize with my peers for an hour or more for £1 – bargain!

Then I entered the food stage of my life that I enjoyed the most which was during the “relationship” phase.  Let’s hear it for Dinner Parties!  Spending my entire day off prepping food for the evenings extravaganza – mutual friends coming over, enjoying a few bevies and a yummy two or three course meal prepared by my good self.  I had no other responsibilities at the time so spending the day cooking was easily achieved.  There were catastrophe’s for sure – like the time I grabbed a packet of chocolate powder mix instead of tomato seasoning mix for Spaghetti Bolognese – not one of my masterpieces for sure.  But mostly, using the Australian Women’s Weekly cookbooks as my guide, we would thoroughly enjoy great food gatherings with good friends.  The added beauty of this wonderful stage was that my guy (now hubby) always cleaned up after me – I have always, and still do strongly dislike the cleaning-up part.

That fun and social stage was closely followed by entering into the world of Parenthood and feeding my girls whilst trying to appease their food choices, and also prepare a balanced diet to care for their growing little bodies.  As the kids got older it became increasingly more difficult getting them to eat what I’d taken my time to prepare.  The constant rejection and dislike of my cuisine led me to come to hate planning and preparing meals.

Picture this – I’d be preparing the dinner and one of our girls would say “What’s for Dinner Mom?” to which I would answer with excitement “Thai Chicken” or whatever I was preparing at the time.  This was promptly met with groans or sulks.  At dinner, everyone sat down, and then came the long faces and scowls and crossed arms as if to say “I’m not eating this”.  This was closely followed by the stand-off between Dad and one of two said kids of – “you will sit at the table until you’ve eaten at least 1/2 of it”.  My youngest would hold out endlessly and quite happily entertain herself playing “horses” with her fingers or whatever todays game choice was.

At 16 years old, my eldest daughter was making lots of junk food choices now she had some spare work dollars and figured that this was way better than Mom’s food.  One day whilst at Costco I came upon what I perceived to be a great book called “Skinny Bitch” that talked about making smart and healthy food choices and was aimed at the young ladies of the world.  I quickly bought it after reading the back cover blurb, and rushed it home to Morgan with the thought that the days of her believing Twizzlers were a food group were over.  In hindsight,  if I had only read the Chapter on ‘how poorly we treated the animals of the world’ I may have saved myself the last couple of years of living with an avid Vegetarian – or should I say, Pescatarian – she ate fish.  To make my life as the home cook even more complicated, Laura was a full-on carnivore that hated fish and loved spicy food.  Needless to say her sister hated anything spicy.  The last 2 years of them both living at home was shall I say “complicated” in the cooking department.  This consequently lead to an even stronger dislike for cooking on my part.

Now in the Empty Nester stage I find life in the kitchen a little easier, and when Mike is away with his work, it is definitely the utmost easiest.  I am a super lazy cook now, and if I can make a meal that will feed us for a week, I’m happy.  The criteria being that it must have only one or two “stages” to the preparation and cooking of the meal – no more, keep it simple.  Fortunately  I also work in a fantastic restaurant where I get a discount on their meals.  Perfect, I don’t need to cook or clean up – life is good!

However, I would rather my hubby is home and with this I need to start working getting back into the “relationship” stage of my culinary career.  He is after all 99% of the time hugely appreciative of my efforts.  So I should move back into loving to hang out in the kitchen right?  Anyone got any ideas how to ease me back into this phase and out of my “lazy cooking” stage?  Help please?