Hi Elaine! I dropped a large landscape timber on it 2 Christmas' ago. I broke 4 toes, tore the achilles tendon, and the tendon that runs down the outside of the right ankle. The tendon pulled the bone away from itself. They treated me for 2 months, and released me. About every 3 - 4 months since the original injury, I would step down and feel "bone-on-bone". Then, this past spring, I felt the leg go again. I was put into a boot cast and sent on my way. I worked outside in the yard a little in the Spring, but I just couldn't get comfortable. Finally - I simply started staying inside and not walking on it. Then - in July, I was walking to my car and the leg gave out. Back into the boot cast. It didn't get better. Finally my doctor sends me to a surgeon to have my "tendon re-attached". The surgeon looks at my films and says, "You've got a broken leg!" Sure enough - clearly on the films 2 years ago and on the new films - there's my broken tibia, clear as can be! I had to go through tests for bone cancer and MRI's to try to find out "why" it didn't heal. The answer: Because they didn't immobilize it! Anyway - After 10 weeks in a pretty fiberglass cast - the cast came off today, and I'm back in the boot cast until 12/22. Then they will allow me to walk without any support. If the tibia breaks again - I will need surgery to put plates in me leg. What pains me the most about the whole situation? My gardens look AWFUL! LOL...

ohmygosh, How appropriate your responce is to this forum! It isn't that I am ashamed of my age, but there are so many young people that do not respect the wisdom of years and would discount what I have to say because I'm probably old enough to be their parent. Much of what I know is from experience and some from other people's experience. Some of what I know comes from reading about human behavier. Some of what I know comes from reading the Bible, and especially Proverbs. Some of what I know is just an application of common sense. I think that wisdom can come from thinking and/or contemplation.

I was thinking the same thing as juliekcmo said: I think, in the context of the larger world outside of GW, that "messy cook" = "I cook" (vs I reheat/thaw) It goes farther, however. I wasn't feeling well so went for high convenience, low fuss. I asked the butcher to butterfly the chicken for me (i.e., no chicken bits flying because someone got too happy with his cleaver). I did slice an onion but used pre-peeled baby carrots, peewee potatoes, and yellow cherry sized tomatoes. Put all the veg in a sheet pan with the chicken on top, and--look out for the mess!--dumped a bottle of madras sauce over the chicken. Nope. No spills or splashes, just have to rinse down the sink after rinsing the jar for the recycling (waste of water, not mess). Delicious dinner. Passably homecooked, though not from scratch. No mess. One knife and cutting board to be washed. Dished up out of the pan. Pan went in DW. Some people do that kind of mess free, low prep cooking all the time. When I make a big kettle of spaghetti sauce, it splatters. It gets on the backsplash, and the counters, and the floor. Not a lot of it. But there's some mess what with the bubbling and the stirring and the ladling and the pouring. And for sure there are little tomato drips on the soapstone (and the tile). Like they could care. People complain about cleaning grout, but I can't even get red paint to stain it. Tomato sauce is a breeze. But by the time the containers are cool enough to refrigerate and the counter is revealed, if it were marble, it would have etched freckles at the least, and they'd probably be red ones. Yes, one could put down paper, or even better, a board, to preserve the marble, but what the hay? It's a kitchen counter! It seems silly to have to cover it in order to be able to ladle out spaghetti sauce. There's enough other clean-up to do as well, without obsessively lifting each container and trying to wipe up unseen freckles well enough that they don't become permanent. I do clean as I go, and actually wash the counter (and backsplash and floor (unless the housekeeper is coming in the morning, in which case I just wipe)) after everything's packed up, but, yes, I'm too messy a cook for marble.

You really just cannot clean someones home without moving things around and straightening up the shelves and all manner of things. I cannot imagine anyone coming into my home and what they would do with my stuff that is all so personal. How to clean up someones kitchen when the countertop may be strewn with assorted objects? If you move them all and clean the countertop and then put them all back where you found them, the act of cleaning is negated. That is the same for any other room in the house. What your friend really needs is to pare things down and rearrange her lifestyle to match her lack of ability to care for it. That is where a deep cleaning needs to start for your friend. No amount of mops and vacuums and bottled cleaners is going to amount to anything against a house that is strewn with things that have been unattended and that she is unable to attend to. I suspect that your friend needs someone to help declutter and pare down before anyone can actually clean anything. Sure, she felt violated. I would too. You have to take charge of your own stuff and you have to own less stuff if you have limited ability to take care of it. First, you clear the deck then you have someone come in and wash the windows, clean the carpet, scrub the bathrooms, etc. I would not let anyone roam around my house like that, getting into everything with no supervision. No way!