I cook at least once every day. This is usually dinner, but in the summer I like a bigger lunch and light dinner. My youngest, who just turned 7, is totally against this! He has definite opinions about what is proper lunch or dinner food (rolling eyes!) We'll eat out or order something about once a month. Usually when I've had enough! Breakfast during the week is cereal, but I will cook something on the weekends during the school year. Usually scrambled eggs with biscuits, toast or bagels. Sometimes biscuits and gravy when I need them to stay filled up that day. I don't eat breakfast, just not ready to eat until around noon. Summertime is nice because I'll do the "breakfast" for lunch if we're all at home. I make the kids' lunches for school and DH will help with that since he has week days off from work. Sandwiches, fruit, snack food but occasionally I'll make calzones or send leftovers that are easy to pack. I cook something quick for myself or heat up leftovers. Dinner is the production. I admit, I get tired of it. Lately I've enjoyed myself because I've indulged in some new equipment, new cookbooks, or found something at the library for inspiration. I've been using Ina Garten's recipes here and there and have found them to be fairly simple yet so delicious! I'm reading one by Marcella Hazan and we've enjoyed some simple sauces. The Gorgonzola Sauce is to die for! I've found that kitchen equipment that helps me, rather than having to work around the negatives, which really ups my enjoyment factor. I'm an appliance junkie, though! My oven is fantastic and I have a new induction cooktop that keeps my kitchen MUCH cooler and is incredibly responsive. My Breville toaster oven is used constantly for smaller portions and it also helps keep things cooler. I'm experimenting with my pressure cooker and am thrilled with it's economy as well as the food it produces. Finally, my mixer is a godsend. Food I've prepared this week. Bake sandwich bread for kids' lunches. They like Japanese milk bread and I do two loaves for the week. I'm hoping to lead them to more whole grains, but it's slow going! Short ribs and mashed potatoes using pressure cooker. Peanutty Noodles for DH's birthday dinner. Cheesecake was his dessert choice, made in pressure cooker. A quick blueberry topping for it. Youngest's birthday was easy! Hot dogs and french fries. DH took care of the hot dogs on the grill while he made himself a steak. The child did require me to make cookies for his class, so the day before I made chocolate chip and peanut butter for his birthday dessert. Roasted chicken with root veggies cooked along with it. One day we ordered pizza, which was lunch the next day. We had left overs of chicken/veg and peanutty noodles last night, yay! I frequent the cooking forum, too. Looking for ideas, inspiration when I feel negative about cooking, and they are so nice. I'm looking forward to the day when cooking is a choice, instead of a duty. It makes all the difference for me! I love good food, so I cook. I like knowing what's in there, so I prepare a lot of homemade items. It's also more economical with 3 growing kids! Luckily, they eat a wide variety of foods. KSWL, I also do NOT enjoy grocery shopping.

I know exactly what you mean. I have maple butcher block countertops with black cherry edging. I held an open house around Christmas and really worried about the same sort of thing, especially as I had just finished the kitchen and the party was really to show it off! However, guests would not be cooking. I had soups keeping hot on the induction stove. I put huge wooden boards with cheese and crackers on the countertops. I put the wine and other drinks in the dining room, which didn't stop them drinking in the kitchen. I "policed" the area frequently, mostly to dry any spilled liquids if necessary. After they all left, I loaded the dishwasher, piled what was left into the sink, and put everything else away. Then, I oiled the countertops with mineral oil. Next day, the countertops were as good as new, except for a few tiny splatters where some black olives had dropped, but these have since faded into the wood. As you say, it's a working kitchen, not a museum. It's still "my baby", and I'm proudly looking after it, but it passed the test :)

Schoolhouse, I sure know that feeling. My current HP2540, I think it is, doesn't handle card stock unless it's really light weight. My old HP would, but when I got my previous to this computer, there weren't any new drivers available for it. Same with my old Cannon flat bed scanner. It was easy to use, and THIN, so I could put it in my laptop case to take with me to family so I could scan in old family photos. Nothing wrong with it, just no drivers to update to the new computer. Good luck finding what you need. Let me know if you find one that will handle card stock, please.

@Carl Arnold, welcome to the cooking forum! And if you really are a person trying to join in, and not trying to drive traffic to some outside website (why I mentioned no link, but sometimes there's a post that's sort of on topic, and the link comes later), you really are very welcome. As Sherry said, we have problems with bots. Your post was overwritten—very beautifully—for this kind of message board. Your follow up was more normal in tone, but unfortunately the new AI is capable of it all. That said, while we do run to older females in traditional families, we try not to exclude our younger, male, non-binary, non-traditional, unique and diverse posters, and it's right to call us out when we fail in that. Your point about cooking roles being more dependent on individual skills than gender is on topic, and an important POV, no matter how many of us have experienced the calcified classic gender roles in the title of the post. I bought a little table top barbecue last year, and have a littler freestanding one that's cute, but harder to use, and generally too small. I'm not really into outdoor cooking, and don't live in a climate where it's necessary. My little barbecues make my menfolk snicker. They have big and bigger gas grills to cook on...but really only for outdoor parties. I don't get the point (it not being an outdoor kitchen for all cooking in too hot and humid for indoors weather). I think barbecues should burn charcoal and aromatic wood chips to be worth the bother. I use a chimney starter. Barbecues are bad for the air quality, however, so mine are minimally used. The ”outdoors” cooking for us is not a gender thing determined by cultural norms, just a combination of attitudes and druthers that fall that way, informed by weather and circumstance.