Five Squares

New routines, new dishtowels.

It’s been a bit chaotic since John was discharged from the hospital last Thursday, but it’s for a good reason: frequent meals. Three small meals and two large snacks every day, or five square, but modest, meals a day, for a man whose stomach is slowly healing.

At our post-discharge visit, we learned that the tumor has shrunk dramatically. In the hospital, imaging showed that it’s now safe for my husband to eat whatever he’d like and can tolerate. The tumor is no longer blocking his digestive system. But there is still healing that needs to take place, and the rest of chemo to consider. Small, frequent meals are the way to go.

The new routine of meds and frequent mealtimes was just beginning to feel automatic when it was time to restart chemotherapy treatments following the hospitalization. I’ve wobbled a bit, especially this morning when I spotted on the paperwork from the cancer clinic that we’ve been scheduled for a ninth chemotherapy round. (I will call on this. It was our understanding that chemo would be done after round eight.) But, even with the chemo pump running here at home for a few days during round seven, we’ll be able to stick to the dining schedule established and simply adjust the contents and portion sizes to accommodate the insults of chemotherapy.

All of that means that I am putting out, arranging for, or thinking about food approximately every two hours (and I am not complaining about this, dear readers, do understand!) I must take care that my own waistline does not grow in inverse proportion to the tumor’s shrinkage. And there are a lot of dishes, because I’m going a little out of my way to make the food look appealing, too. And because of love, of course.

Last Saturday, I ran out between meals to visit a local independent kitchen store and pick out some quality dish towels as compensation for all the dishes I’m doing these days.

“Good tools make the work so much more pleasant, Lady of the House. That’s why I’m so picky about my litterbox.”

The peace of the kitchen is important to the peace of a home. Our kitchen is about 25% of the floor space of our small house, and having it tidy reduces my stress. Drying and putting away the dishes three times a day isn’t so onerous when you’ve got gorgeous linen-blend dishtowels to help with the work.

I do not have a dishwasher. Simply by accident, none of the houses we’ve owned have had one installed, and in none of the three home purchase scenarios were we in a position to remodel one into the kitchen. Since I’ve never had a dishwasher, and didn’t grow up with one either (the dishwashers while I was growing up were my siblings and me), I haven’t really missed not having one. Until now. Now it would be kind of nice to have one.

But then I wouldn’t have had an excuse to buy these lovely folk art linen dishtowels from Danica Studio.

“Head scritiches, please, if you would.”

“A dramatic and bold print. Just like me.”