(Written 8-19-08, 7:33p, but it took this long to get the photos. Photos were as of last week; there’s been improvements since.)

The first week of living with a boy was stressful; the house was a mess and the very tidy Mr. W was about to pull out his hair. He so badly wanted his house to look a certain way, and there just weren’t enough hours in a day, what with having to work and all. But we chipped away at the pile of boxes, and over the weekend he built another Gorilla Shelf in the garage for additional storage. The garage is neater now, altho we still have to find places for more stuff if we want both our cars in the garage at the same time. The house is fairly presentable now, tho.

Up until two days ago, Mr. W fixed breakfast, handed me a lunch as we went to work, made dinner. It was all his stuff and his food in the kitchen, so he knew his way around it earlier. Three days ago he uncovered a giant box of kitchen food we had yet to unpack, and so I went thru the box as he worked on the sprinkler system outside. The boy has like 12 cans of salmon, 9 cans of tuna of various brands, a case of canned peas, a bazillion packets of hot cocoa (which he doesn’t drink), three commercial-sized boxes of Lipton iced tea bags, three bear-shaped bottles of honey, two difference sizes of unopened Heinz ketchup, 28 cans of different brands, cuts and preparations of tomatoes, 5 canisters of different protein powder mixes, 3 bottles of different brands of apple cider vinegar, 2 or 3 more different bottles of different kinds of vinegar (balsamic, red wine, rice, etc.) plus a gallon jug of store-brand apple cider vinegar, 10 boxed packages of various flavors of instant Thai noodle dishes…I could go on (believe me, I can), but you get the idea. It was an inane amount of food, most of which he doesn’t eat. Like the bajillion little packets of dried up mac & cheese. Immediately I resolved to clean this out cuz we have a HUGE shelved pantry and things are piled on top of other things. When I ranted about this inventory, Mr. W said helplessly that 1) he shops at Costco and things come in multi-packs, and 2) when he lived alone he was too lazy to dig out what he had in his shelves and pantry so if he wanted to eat a particular thing, he’d just go buy more. At Costco. So last nite I made a modified Thai green curry with peas and ground turkey over brown jasmine rice, and tonite I made honey-barbecue glazed chicken breasts (in the oven so it’s healthy) with wasabi and Italian herbs as a base marinade, served over a bed of mashed potatoes to balance out the sweetness of the honey.

Not a dent in the pantry. I haven’t given up.