tisha - i have tried healthy choice, wasnt too happy with them but i never had the lean cuisine. stouffers and hungry man are okay tho. thanks for the link to hormel. i will have to give those a shot. susy - i dont know how you do it. you are the busiest person i know and still have time to look so good! it is plain not fair! LOL, i have tried those "just meats" your talking about and that is exactly what i got, too. 4 slices of turkey and tons of greasy, yuky gravy. have you tried the prepared meats in the meat section? now they arent too bad. i got a rolled pork honey mustard roast already that was pretty tasty. that was an easy meal. just shove it in the oven with some potatoes and a pot of corn. i made it so much we sort of got sick of it... i do cook larger roasts and than freeze some for another meal, meldy. trouble is that doesnt happen to often in this house. i like making stews and pot pies in the winter, but i am not a fan of left overs. hub likes them, so nothing goes to waste but like you said, who wants to eat stew all week? mj, i bet you are like me in that you could make a meal out of raw veggies and fruit? when hub works late i just love it. i dont have to cook ( even frozen meals) and i can make a meal out of a piece of cheese, some crackers and a bowl of blueberries. there is certainly a lot of votes for lean cuisine. i must try some. we arent talking diet meals here now are we? because i surely am not on one nor do i worry too much about my salt intake ( maybe i should?) so the meals dont have to be 'special diet" meals. i agree tho, that the portions arent big enough for me in any meal that is in the frozen section. i have to laugh at those 'family' size meals that say serves 4 or so. ha! that just about feeds hub! the deli chicken at wally world is tops and we get one of those about 2 a month. it is lovely with rice and a veggie. marie calendar is one of our favs too, gabriell. it sounds as tho you have the same problems i have. there are days when my back plain up and refuses to allow me to cook. those days hub has to fend for himself. geez, dare i say i dont iron either? g

I once put a broccoli seedling on my railing and went to gather some stuff up before I went outside to plant it. I came back to find my sweet little girl cat (right now purring in my lap) helping herself to a nice fresh salad. Grr! Cats like broccoli?? Most humans don't like broccoli, and cats are carnivores! I took the seedling back up to put it under lights where it could grow another leaf or two before I planted it. It's doing fine, actually. So's the cat. I did not kill her. She's too cute. I just yelled at her. My spare room is a cat-free zone. That's where my quilting, my plants, my crocheting, and all those other delicate items stay, and the cats aren't allowed in. My thoughts and sympathies re: the Virginia Tech shootings. I have a similar back yard. I'm from Colorado.

I get some things already mentioned like the white balsamic vinegar, chocolate chips, cereal & the tall bottle of pure maple syrup (it is a good deal but we have to use one half shelf in the fridg just to store it). I also get the mulitgrain baking mix that I use for pancakes, occasionally the cornbread mix, dried fruit, coconut oil since I read about it on here, some herbs & spices. I love their moisturizing cream in the white pump bottle with the hot pink label. Tried their toothpaste, but the kids & husband don't like it. Their graham crackers, BBQ sauce & honey wheat pretzels, as they don't have high fructose corn syrup or partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. My son likes the red pepper spread with eggplant & garlic.

Joann, bulls can be very unpredictable, I know. I've had some who were so even tempered they became pets, and the one I borrowed from a neighbor last year was named Ethan and developed a distinct taste for powdered sugar donuts. When it was time to take him home, we just bought a box of donuts and walked him into the stock trailer, LOL. HOWEVER, and it's a darned big however, an animal that weighs over 2,000 pounds and can lift three times it's own weight with its neck muscles must be treated with respect and never taken for granted. You won't get a chance to be careless twice, that much is for certain. And that's why I was in the pasture with donuts but the kids were always required to stay on the other side of the fence. Always. Carol, my mother jumped a fence once and it was a bossy old dairy cow that chased her over. Wasn't so funny then as it is now, somehow, but Mother was not happy until that cow became burger so I guess she got her revenge. Annie