Needless neighborly nosiness

Our next-door neighbor is a lady who lives by herself.  Her daughter is in college locally and stops by quite a bit, and the daughter’s boyfriend mows the lawn for her.  The neighbor lady herself seems quite friendly, and although I can’t remember her name I have chatted with her on more than one occasion.  All this to say, she seems nice and normal.  A perfectly ordinary situation.  Except for the fact that this lady has had two large chairs blocking her front door for the better part of a month now.

I am beyond puzzled by this.  I didn’t notice at first, and as we were backing out of our driveway one day several weeks ago N commented that Neighbor Lady must have gotten some new outdoor chairs.  I assumed he meant that she had a little sitting area set up on her front porch so I didn’t bother to look.  No.  When I took the time (several days later) to see for myself I realized that she in fact has two large chairs from an outdoor patio set taking up the entire width of the path to her front door, one in front of the other.  Clearly she isn’t expecting any visitors.  Weird.

Pictures for your viewing pleasure

As promised, a picture of Miss T pushing her shopping cart around:

(Notice – and please ignore – all of the baby-related detritus clogging up our living room.  We have given up and now embrace the mess.)  And just for fun, here is a bonus shot of her playing on her brother’s computer.  It wasn’t turned on, she just thought it was fun to bang on the keyboard and push the mouse off the table:

That picture just makes me laugh and laugh.  Hee!  Although you can tell she didn’t feel very good, her little eyes are all puffy and red.  Poor baby.  She’s better now.

Help wanted

I hate cooking.  There, I said it.  I HATE IT.  I hate trying to come up with something to cook for dinner each night, I hate perusing recipe books and the internet for new ideas, I hate grocery shopping for the necessary ingredients, I hate actually cooking the meal, I hate putting away leftovers, I hate the cleanup involved.  I hate the whole damn process.  Have I said HATE enough to get my point across?  Haaaaaaaaaaaate.  ANYWAY.  I think my actual point is that I am looking for some quick and easy meal ideas.  The operative word being EASY.  Because above all else I am lazy.  If you have suggestions, please lay ’em on me.  A few items of note:

1. N doesn’t like seafood all that much.
2. AE doesn’t really like pasta (or vegetables, but he is a kid so that goes without saying).
3. I don’t eat beef at all (consequently, neither does anyone else).
4. I get home from work about 4:45ish and Miss T is usually ready for her bath by 6:30 or so, which doesn’t leave a lot of time to cook, eat, and clean up.

Am I being totally unreasonable here?  Is my family doomed to eat the same few mutually acceptable meals over and over again until we all die of boredom?  Can anyone help me?  Anyone?  Bueller?