@Kimberly Annette
The story below is old. "The Man" in question is a college ethics instructor who took out a credit card in my name without my prior knowledge or consent, transferred a balance from his credit card, emptied our joint checking acct., ran it $500 into overdraft paying for some other woman's medical care, and kicked me out of the house (actually, he demanded rent, but he hadn't wanted me working much outside the home so I had no means of paying him rent). I myself am in need of medical care but am now unable to obtain it because I had to leave the state and I do not qualify for medical assistance here. The woman he left me for bills herself as a "patient's advocate." She's also a law student and they've threatened to sue me for defamation of character if I tell anyone what they've done. SO SUE ME. He also says it's my fault for having trusted him, I should have listened to Suze Orman and protected myself from him better. Well, here's the previous story from when he was pretending to like me: I live in a Post-War Tract House that we're slowly updating. The Man and I are battling over "Generic Cheap But Functional, Modern, and Cosmetic" vs. "Being True to Post-War Period Housing, Evoking a Sense of Nostalgia and Respect for Our Parent's Generation." Mostly HE'S winning. We have a 7'x15' galley style kitchen, one end of which is supposedly the dining nook. It's not nookish at all. It's just the end of the room in front of the doorway to the rest of the house. There is no dining room or other eating area. This is one area I would eagerly modernize, reserving nostalgia solely for the decor. Instead, it seems to be the only part of the house that will preserve its original integrity. Our dining table is too big for the space, and even a small table would block the doorway. So we put a breakfast bar on the long wall - smack dab in front of a 4'x5' window. We put a kitcheny-looking bookcase at the short wall, so all my cookbooks and recipe card boxes are at hand. My favorite cookbook is the Betty Crocker Dessert Cookbook my mother gave me for my 17th Christmas. My next favorite is the Hill Country (Austin, Tx) Senior Activity Center's Recipe Book for 1982.