I am definitely not a domestic goddess. The one and only "Becky Homeckie" thing I enjoy doing is cooking. My cooking style has changed over the years based on what my life is filled with at any given moment. When I was a stay at home mom, I loved creating new and exciting meals to ease my husband's weary soul brought on by his long work hours and to get my kids interested in eating a wide variety of foods. When I went back to college and became a teacher fell in love with pressure cooker recipes, crockpot recipes, and anything ala Rachael Ray that took less than 30 minutes to cook. Now I am once again back at home full time and love the challenge of creating delicious & interesting meals for my family that don't cost an arm & a leg. I love family events where I can search for new things to make and spend all day making something interesting and delicious for my family and guests. I have to start with what I hate to cook--anything bakery style! My mother-in-law and two daughter (17 and 14 years old) love to bake, but I cannot stand the exact measurements, in-and-out-of-the-oven routine, or the giant mess afterwards. This hatred of baking does not extend to cheesecake, however. I found a book years ago that has never let me down. The cheesecakes are amazing and relatively easy to make. Another type of food I love to make is appetizers. I love multiple options when I eat, and appetizers are the perfect way to find a ton of options, and not have to be held down to just one option for eating. When I was little, we had no family traditions;Christmas, birthdays, etc. were hit-or-miss. When I married my husband, though, I married into a family who loves to get together. We now have monthly Family Dinners that travel from one member's to another's house. Each family has an assigned dish to bring depending on whose house the meal is being served at. We now have this funny ritual of calling each other before every big family meal trying to remember who brings what to my house or Colleen's house. That gives us all one more excuse to call each other, laugh as we try to decipher our foolproof schedule, and plan out what we are going to bring once we remember it's veggies at Mother-in-law's and dessert at Colleen's (for me anyway!) My cooking triumph really has more to do with the planning end of a recent challenge I was faced with. Due to me quitting my teaching job and returning to home-life, we experienced an enormous loss of family income. My husband challenged me with cutting our food bill in half (at least). To do this I had to extend my monthly meal calendar from the usual one-month to an astounding 3 months. I also coordinated my shopping lists for all three months so that this month (our last month of extreme cutbacks), our usual $400 grocery bill has been downsized to only $125. My freezer is packed to the gills with extra meals and I have accomplished a very tall feat! My husband nearly died from my cooking for the first few years we were married! He still doubles over with phantom gut pains from some of my earliest attempts: spaghetti sauce the dog (who ate garbage) wouldn't eat, meat roll (imagine undercooked hamburger and gummy Bisquick rolled together and you'll get the idea,) and something called "Cashew Chicken" that looked more like roadkill and tasted 10 times worse! He was a real trooper and stuck with me, now his gastronomic needs are much more satisifed!