Crock pot chicken and dumplings bisquick

Interested in hearing your go-easy cheap and healthy recipes. Baked, sautéed, boiled, slow cooked/one-pot, anything.
We usually eat only (as far as meat goes) chicken breast/tenderloins, ground beef, rarely steak, and fish. We don't really like meat with the bone (I know that it's usually cheaper though, so if you have tips and tricks). We should be eating more veggies.. when we do I usually buy asparagus, spinach, carrots, cucumbers. I like cabbage(s), and get white, savoy, and Brussel sprouts sometimes (SO is sensitive to stuff like Brussel sprouts)
My SO has a dairy allergy, and a tomato sensitivity. He usually responds better to fresh tomatoes, has an issue with like tomato sauce..
I think I could have some insulin resistance or sugacarb sensitivity as fyi (but I do love potatoes so dont be afraid to include those guys...). SO and I have some opposing preferences and sensitivies so it's pretty hard to find 'perfect meals.' I am willing to experiment and be creative to find ways food both works for us.
I am trying to figure out ways to budget food better while being healthy, with grocery prices increasing so much, and I'm not getting any younger so I feel I need to get healthier. I'm just intimidated by the lifestyle change and having to budget more strictly (usually just get whatever I want at the store).
So yeah, anything that would work for my household, is appreciated!

Crock pot recipe for sirloin steak and gravy using aus jus mix, brown gravy mix, ranch seasoning and water. Calls for 2-3 pounds sliced steak, only have about half pound.

First time hosting a dinner in many a year. My cooking tends to be inconsistent because I tend to not follow recipes and I’ve only started cooking with meat in the last few months so still learning and definitely not confident about being able to serve a super tasty dinner.
I was thinking of making mushroom and chicken mandu/dumplings. Have one person who doesn’t like ginger and I can’t stand cloves or anything like that, so having trouble finding a recipe guide that I’m confident on.
So I’m thinking mushrooms cooked with soy sauce, garlic, onion powder and added to chicken mince with garlic chives. What else can I do to make it tasty and not reliant on a dipping sauce? Also - what dipping sauce would you pair with that?
As a side dish/accompaniment I was thinking of a cold noodle salad - either somen or glass noodles; shredded carrot, cucumber, cabbage, and apple; dressed with a mix of gochujang, apple sauce, soy sauce, apple cider vinegar, sesame oil.
Thoughts?

I just made two chicken stocks - one with ginger and scallion, the other with celery/carrot/onion/bay/thyme/garlic. Both used chicken backs. I also had a major forgetful moment.
I just realized that I used half the required water needed for both. With the latter, 3L instead of 6L. I did get around 1.5L out of it. Large pot. Did I just waste the chicken backs by forgetting to put in enough water or will this just be very concentrated and I needn't worry? And is half volume expected? Can I make more stock with these bones since they were expected to support twice the amount of water?
In addition, the former used 1.5L/6cups (I actually needed 3L) but I only got 0.5cup of stock out of it. Medium pot. Why did this one reduce so much more? The lid was on for all of it. I'm really confused about that.
Both were simmered for 5.5hrs. Stainless steel pots, medium low. (2.4 out of 10 on the range)
Thank you!

This is one of the best things I have ever made. It has both instant pot and slow cooker instructions, but I have also made it in a dutch oven and just cooked it for 3-4 hours on the stovetop on low. Watch the liquid level in this case.
First, this is for Hatch Chilis, which are unique. I get them at a local fruit market in the fall and they roast 25 pounds for me. I then skin them and vacuum seal them and freeze them. They are amazing and there is nothing else like them.
This worked great over rice but also makes great stuffing for burritos or enchiladas or even an omelette. I salt AFTER cooking, as it is too easy to oversalt it. The instructions offered alternatives to the garlic cloves and onion (powder??) and I left those suggestions out. I also doubled the garlic.
Enjoy!
Hatch Green Chile and Pork Chili (aka green trash water)
2 lbs. pork butt or shoulder roast trimmed of fat and cubed into 1” cubes (could also use chicken, but yuck)
4 or more cloves of garlic crushed
1/2 yellow onion finely chopped
2 tsp green chipotle powder (or other hot chile powder)
1.5 tsp fresh ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
2 Tbsp butter
1 chicken broth cube or one tsp of chicken broth powder
27 oz can whole fire roasted green chiles or about 1 pound of fresh roasted Hatch chilis, pealed and deseeded
Juice of one lime or 2 TBSP
Water to just cover the ingredients
.Finish: 7oz can diced fire roasted green chiles salt, pepper, and chile powder / hot sauce to taste
Add the pork to the dry instant pot on saute mode and saute until all sides have a little brown on them and there is some fond on the bottom of the pot. Add all of the other ingredients other than the small can of green chiles and salt and pepper (plenty of salt in the brine of the chiles -- don't add more now). Fill the green chile can with water and pour into the pot and give the whole thing a good stir. Liquid level should just about cover the ingredients. Set instant pot on stew mode, high pressure, 90 minutes. Or cook in a slow cooker for 2-3 hours on high.
When instant pot is complete, allow it to natural release pressure — could be up to another hour. Remove the pork and shred finely. Use a stick blender to blend the broth and chiles remaining in the pot to a liquid. Add the shredded pork back in. Add the small can of green chiles and season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve over corn, hominy, corn chips, rice, or whatever. Top with a fresh squeeze of lime and pepper jack cheese.
Edit: not loin roast, butt or shoulder.

Ingredients

• However many chicken thighs (5-6)
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1 tablespoon garam masala
• 1-½ teaspoon ground cayenne
• 1-½ teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 1 teaspoon ground paprika
• extra salt & pepper
• extra olive oil for baking dish
• ½ cup half & half or heavy cream
• bit of butter (somewhere between ½-1 tbsp)

Dishes

• pyrex style baking dish tall sided (big enough to fit all pieces in one layer or just use multiple smaller ones however it works out!)
• small sauce pot
• mixing bowl

Directions

• preheat oven on bake @ 400°F
• mix spices in some vessel (I honestly like disposable solo cups for this)
• dry chicken thighs
• pour 2 tbsp olive oil & 1 tbsp honey in mixing bowl. Add chicken and toss until covered
• Add spices and toss until covered
• Lightly coat bottom of baking dish with olive oil
• transfer chicken to dishes in one layer and put in oven for 30 mins or until done (use meat thermometer or cut into biggest piece to check for doneness--however you usually do it. If not done stick it back in until it's done)
• once done, remove from oven. I let the meat rest for 5 minutes before removing from dish, but using a stiff spatula go ahead and start scraping the sides of the dish while it's still softer (deglazing)
• Because I have a stainless steel sauce pot I preheat it on medium while meat rest. If you're comfortable with an empty pot heating for five or more minutes go ahead and start this.
• after resting, transfer chicken to plate and cover with foil to keep warm.
• scrape as much of the gunk in the dish loose as possible. Pour as much grease and gunk into the sauce pot as possible and bring to soft boil
• once boiling reduce to simmer and pour in ½ cup cream (or half & half), and add bit of butter. Simmer until it reduces to gravy consistency, adding salt and pepper to taste (I really fucking hate saying that, but here we are...)
• plate chicken, spoon gravy over chicken & preferred starch (btw...make preferred starch or not--really up to you. I like rice, but I think egg noodles would be good too)

My wife had literally no notes. I thought this was spicier than she would normally like, but she didn't proffer any complaints. The chicken came out super juicy with a crust of spice. The gravy was a solid imitation butter chicken gravy. But this was like 1/1000^th labor of butter chicken.

In hindsight, I should have listened to the kill-bill alarm bells in my head when eight-year-old Cassie announced she and her cabin mates were going to skip out on camp activities and play Operation instead.
Though it’s not like I didn’t have things on my mind. Seven counsellors had gone missing—along with our head counsellor who was supposed to be taking care of us.
It started out fairly normal. I mean, one or two counselors wasn’t bad, right?
Lily and Joey had been drowning in sexual tension for a while, so nobody was surprised when they sneaked into the woods for what I could only guess was the most uncomfortable sex ever. But then they didn’t come back.
Teddy and Yuri went to look for them, and then they too also disappeared. It was almost like a wild animal was lying in wait for another unsuspecting teenager to cross its path.
With six of us left, I was definitely freaking out.
I wasn’t expecting summer camp to be like this. I did consider working in my local Sephora, but mom had a preference—and whether I was eighteen years old or not, she was getting her way. So, it was goodbye civilization, and hello Canadian wilderness.
There were fifteen kids queued up in front of me for lunch, and I was having a hard time keeping that optimistic Camp Redwood smile.
I couldn’t help constantly counting how many hours it had been since the latest disappearance, Connor.
He was supposed to be helping with getting the emergency generator going, after the electricity sizzled out.
The boy was gone an hour later. This was happening fast. Whatever was going on with the counsellors was burning through all of us. Would it happen to me?
I had seen so many TV shows and movies set in a summer camp where every camper and counsellor was doomed to die in the grossest way possible. Was that going to happen to us?
I tightened my grip around the stupid ladle I had found myself stirring, a giant pot of chocolate syrup. Watching watery chocolate drip from the edge, I felt nauseous. Of all the summer camp’s mom had to send me to, it had to be the one with vanishing counsellors and zero adult authority. Which meant we were the authority. Twelve teenagers who came to relax and babysit a bunch of little kids before college.
We had to put on brave faces and pretend everything was absolutely fine—and we weren’t all terrified out of our fucking minds.
At the corner of my eye, I glimpsed Harry offering piggybacks to a bunch of little kids, with one of the littles, Eleanor, wrapping her arms around his neck and squealing.
From the look on the boy’s face, he wanted to stop. It was hard to keep a façade when reality was becoming harder and harder to bear. Abandoning his hat completely, Harry was dripping with sweat, trying to twist his lips into the Camp Redwood grin. But looking closer, as he galloped across the cabin with Eleanor holding on for dear life, the guy was ready to collapse. I didn’t blame him.
Entertaining the kids was supposed to be Teddy’s assignment—and he was who knows where. I had taken over lunch duties for Lily, who had joined the long list of the missing.
Harry was supposed to be joining the search party for the missing councellors, but had ended up becoming the little’s personal punching bag.
When I first met him, Harry Carlisle had been the kid who sat on the side-lines and offered sarcastic remarks and crude jokes. Now, he had been reduced to a playground ride the kids pretended didn’t have an off switch.
He had enjoyed maybe the first two rides to raise morale, but now I could see the strain in his eyes. “Ow!” Harry winced when the little girl’s fingers prodded at his eyes. “Hey! Eleanor, not my eyes!” He was dangerously close to toppling over, though managed to catch his footing, ordering all of them off of his back. “Horse Rides are over!” He cupped his mouth, shouting across the cabin when a group of kids surrounded him with equally terrifying faces. Harry backed away and threw his hands up. “Come on, guys, my back isn’t built for all of you!”
“Horsey!” The kids shouted back in a cacophony of giggles.
It was 10 against one.
Against two, if I got involved. Which wasn’t going to happen. There was no way I was putting effort into play-fighting a bunch of eight-year-olds. Harry shot me a hopeful look, though I pretended not to see, busying myself with slightly burned nuggets.
Running his fingers through thick strands of sandy colored hair, Harry pulled a face when a little girl, Phoebe, was brave enough to step forward.
“No.” Harry shook his head, squeezing the front of his counsellor shirt practically glued to him. The temperature still hadn’t let up, and it was heading towards 8PM. Night-time, I thought dizzily. It was almost bedtime, and still no adults. “I refuse to surrender,” He told her. “Phoebe, I am not joking around when I’m saying my back is hurting. We’ve been playing horsey’s for two hours.”
“So?”
“So!” Harry couldn’t yell or hiss, or swear at them. That was a big no-no with kids.
However, I could see he was coming close to breaking that rule. “Because I’m tired,” he said through a Camp Redwood grin, which was quickly twitching into a grimace.
I think all of us had given up with the fake enthusiasm when our colleagues started to vanish. Now, we were just shells of our former happy selves. “And… uh… did you know that if you ride a horsey at this time, the ghosts will come and get you?”
When a boy opened his mouth, his eyes widening with fright, Harry realized his mistake.
“I mean the nice ghosts! Yeah! The uh, the nice ghosts who haunt..I mean play in these woods? It’s a well-known Camp Redwood legend that ghosts don’t like horse rides. In fact,” his lips curved into a devilish smile now he had several faces staring at him. The kids dropped onto the ground to listen, their hands clasped in their laps. This was the quietest they had been all day. I could understand though. Harry had taken the reins around the campfire telling ghost stories for three nights in a row, and the guy was a damn good storyteller.
With every eye on him, Harry lowered his voice into a whisper. “Do you guys want to know what they do?”
The kids nodded with wide eyes.
“They sneak into unsuspecting cabin’s…”
“Harry.”
Rowan’s voice came from outside in a warning. The window was open, and the guy was standing watch to see if any counsellors came back. Since the only adult had disappeared, he had been appointed leader—and the guy was taking himself a little too seriously.
His warning was valid though. Sometimes Harry’s ghost stories were a little too scary for little kids, who’s Imaginations tended to run wild—especially at night. Olive, my cabin-mate, had to give up her bed for a little girl who was convinced Harry’s depiction of Slenderman, “The tree boy” was going to sneak into her bed and turn her into an apple seed.
“Did I say sneak into cabin’s? I meant dance around the woods…” Harry corrected himself. “And they look for their next unsuspecting victim…”
“Harry!”
“Friend.” Harry swallowed his words when a little boy’s eyes went wide. “I mean they are looking for a friend! So, the point of my story is…”
“Horsey rides get us new friends?” Phoebe wasn’t buying it. I could tell from the slight arch of her brow and her widening smile.
The girl shook dark curls out of her face, smirking. I think it was her pleading eyes which won him over. Because, with a sigh which definitely wasn’t joking around, the guy dropped onto his knees and practically spat at her to climb on his back—and she did, plonking one sparkling shoe on top of the boy’s spine with enough force to send him onto his stomach. I might have been imagining it, but since when were these littles so outlandishly spiteful?
The little girl was grinning. Not because she could ride her “horsey” but because Harry looked like he was going to either wring her neck, or wring his own. Mom had a “talk” before I started here, and she made sure to tell me that if adult authority is nowhere to be seen, little kids will start to act out.
I could definitely call it acting out, but I had spent all day with her several days earlier playing with dolls and having a teddy bear picnic when she admitted she didn’t want to swim in the lake with the other kids. Phoebe had been shy and only spoke to me through her teddy bear, so what had changed?
Could the lack of adults really be scaring the kids that much?
“Miss Josie?”
I wasn’t paying attention, half noticing some kids had just helped themselves, piling chicken nuggets and cookies on plastic plates and hurrying to their seats like I couldn’t see them.
Blinking away brain fog, I found myself face to face with Eli, who was probably my favorite camper.
You’re not supposed to have personal preferences when working with little kids, because your opinions could upset them.
However, it was incredibly hard not to like Eli.
Hiding behind a mop of brown curls, the boy was one of the more vocal kids in the group. Eli said he wanted to be an inventor when he was older, and he wanted to make robots. The kid had asked me if I wanted to see his robot collection, but I was too busy with setting up camp activities. Standing in front of me and clutching his tray, the boy was frowning.
“Josie, I just saw some kids steal chicken nuggets.”
I shrugged, shovelling a large portion on his tray. “Well, you can have some extra too.”
Eli’s smile wasn’t as big as usual. “Where’s Teddy?”
I pretended to be oblivious, hastily adding more nuggets to his tray as if I could keep his mouth shut with extra food. “He’ll be back soon! Teddy is just playing in the woods.”
“No, he’s not.”
At first, I thought I’d heard the boy wrong. The kid wasn’t looking at me, counting his nuggets as usual with the prongs of his plastic fork.
I leaned forward with my best smile. “I’m sorry, what was that, Eli?”
The kid lifted his head with a wide grin. “Can I borrow a knife, Josie?”
“Why do you need a knife?”
Leaning forward, the boy shrugged. “There’s a squirrel caught in a trap,” he said. “I want to put it out of its misery, Miss Josie. It’s in a lot of pain.”
That was… dark.
“Well, I can’t give you a knife…” I trailed off, my gaze finding Harry and the growing line of kids awaiting a horse-ride. “But! How about you go and ask Harry for a piggy-back ride?” I pointed to myself with a forced grin. “I’ll save the squirrel!” And when the boy’s eyes filled with tears and he shook his head, I reached out, grasped his hand, and squeezed it as tight as I could. “Eli, we don’t need to do that, okay? I’m sure the squirrel can be saved and I’ll make sure to take it to the vet, okay?”
“But what if it doesn’t need saving?”
I squeezed tighter. “I’ll save it, Eli. I promise.”
Eli didn’t look convinced, but he nodded with a grumble. “Okay.” He said, before twisting around and joining the other kids torturing Harry. Immediately, I left my station—whether Rowan liked it or not—and headed outside to look for this supposedly dying squirrel. That was something we didn’t need. The sky was darkening when I made it into the woods, cotton candy clouds blurring through the thick canopy of trees. Eli said it was near the sign pointing towards the lake. Though I couldn’t see anything. Odd. That thought retracted in my head, however, when I stepped forward, and a squelching sound cut through the silence of my own heavy breaths mixing with insect chitters and nightlife buzzing above me and beneath me. The wet sounding squelch twisted my gut, and when I stared down at the ground, I didn't know what I was expecting.
A squashed squirrel, perhaps? In Eli’s words, the poor thing had been on the edge of death. Though, when I was thinking about it, there were no animal traps around camp. That was basic health and safety. So, what the fuck was I looking at? The bottom of my shoe was caked in dried blood, but it was the thing which was stamped into the dirt which sent my heart into my throat. It looked like an eye.
But looking closer as I lowered myself to the ground, I glimpsed something metallic, something glistening around the pupil. I picked up a stick and prodded it, though the thing didn’t move. It was definitely an eye—the eye of some kind of animal, judging from the pigmentation and the color of the iris.
But it was the metallic pieces around the eye which was throwing me off. Part of a trap, maybe? It wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility that a poor critter had been ripped apart, and a wild bear had dropped its dinner near the camp—and the metal encasing its eye was most likely pieces of trap.
Peering closer, though, I glimpsed silver slithers in what appeared to be the destroyed nerve caked to my shoe. After scraping most of it off, I caught glistening pieces of blood stained metal catching the late-setting sun. This time, I pinched a piece between my forefinger and thumb. It didn’t look like a bear-trap. The metal itself wasn’t serrated or old. In fact, it was new.
Which begged the question: What was this thing?
Whatever it was, it had started converting what looked like a critter’s eye, before stopping. Was it a virus? When that thought slammed into me, I fell back with a hiss, swiping my hands on my shirt.
“What are you doing?”
I almost jumped out of my skin, diving to my feet.
Carmel was standing behind me, grasping what looked like her sixth or seventh coffee. The girl had been running to and from the coffee machine all day, and I had been silently counting how much caffeine she was consuming. Carmel had been a well put together and fairly popular girl when camp started. She immediately had everyone following her beck and call, all of the boy’s (and girl’s) following her around.
Carmel wasn't straight. She made that clear on the bus to camp, announcing she wasn’t interested in guy’s, and that she had a girlfriend back home. Still though, the guy’s still followed her because... well, she was pretty.
Carmel was my bunk-mate and had woken me up on three separate occasions at 6am to go through the exact same hair and makeup routine. Now though, there was no sign of makeup or even that she had brushed her hair.
Instead of its usual tidy blonde ponytail, Carmel’s curls were tied into raggedy pigtails with ribbons I was sure she had stolen from a camper’s doll. I think what was keeping her going was coffee.
Carmel regarded me with too-wide eyes and a Camp Redwood smile we all knew was fake. She was grasping onto her coffee cup for dear life. “Josie!” she jumped when I jumped, which almost made me laugh. “Rowan’s having an emergency meeting in his cabin,” she said.
“So, whatever you’re doing can wait.”
Her gaze flicked to the ground. “What… are you doing?”
For a brief moment, I considered telling Carmel I may have found what looked like a virus which turned flesh and blood to metal—before I remembered her reaction when a spider had crept into our cabin.
Whatever this thing was, keeping it a secret for now was probably what was best. Making sure I was standing on the thing, I shrugged. “I was looking for the others.”
Carmel cocked her head, before resting her coffee on the ground. “In the dirt?”
“Footprints, Carmel.”
The girl looked confused before shaking her head. “Okay, whatever. Tell the others I’ll be there in a sec, I just need to make sure the kids are okay. We’re putting a movie on for them in the lunch hall, so that will hopefully distract them for maybe two hours.”
I nodded. “Did anyone find a phone?”
“Not with signal.”
“Carmel.” I had to fight back the urge to yell at her to keep her voice down. Kids were curious, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we had some littles peeking into our conversation. “You’re okay.” I said softly.
“I mean, we’re not okay, because yes, things are very.. screwed up right now, but we need to be… optimistic.” I exhaled out a breath, searching for eyes in the dark. I tried to smile, tried to keep up that Camp Redwood façade we were all held hostage by until the last day of camp (According to rule 5 in the Camp Redwood counsellor handbook, all counsellors must retain a smile and a positive attitude. If any counselor is caught making a frowny face, or spreading what we call “unhappiness” we will be forced to send the counselor home).
At this point, I didn’t give a fuck—but part of me didn’t want to scare the little kids.
“No, Josie.” The girl grasped hold of my shoulders with a grin rivalling the joker. “I am so sick of being told to keep smiling, because what is that doing? Three of my cabin-mates are missing! I’m the one left, and Rowan and co expect me to keep up this act? We are fucked!"
She cupped her mouth. “F. U. C. K. E. D. We have zero adults, an unexplainable loss of power every few hours which makes no sense in the middle of nowhere—I mean what the fuck is out there which is sucking that much power, huh? There is no explanation! There should be an explanation. I should be able to think, “oh, yeah! That’s why! But no. Things are happening, and I don’t know why they’re happening. Rowan is trying to force us to act like things are okay —but in reality? He is shitting himself, Josie! We are ALL shitting ourselves!”
I took a step back, keeping hold of her hand. Carmel was trembling, her hands clammy and slimy entangled in mine. “He's just trying to keep the kids from freaking out."
She groaned, tears glistening in her eyes. “Okay, yeah! I’m blaming them because they keep acting like everything is okay—”
“Everything IS okay.” I turned to her with what I hoped was a reassuring smile—knowing damn well about the thing I’d found in the dirt. If that thing could spread, it would have a field day in an enclosed space like a summer camp.
I noticed my own hands which had been touching the thing making contact with Carmel, and dropped my hands, inwardly squirming.
If that thing was a virus, I was already fucked.
Maybe Carmel too.
If it was fast acting, it could explain the counsellor disappearances. I was already putting together a plan in my head as we headed back to the main cabin. We had to put together a search party. Some of us would stay with the kids, while a small group would venture into the woods to try and look for traces of the missing. If I was right, we would find a horror scene in the woods, and yes, that would be the time to panic.
If I was wrong, however, there was still hope.
“Are we going to be okay?”
Carmel’s voice sliced into my thoughts, and I took a moment to drink in the camp around us.
Usually, when the sky was turning twilight, it would be bustling with campers and counselors toasting marshmallows on the fire and gathering around to fall asleep to Harry’s ghost stories. Carmel would be knelt with a bunch of kids, watching a YouTube video they had all insisted on her watching, while Rowan would be hiding behind his book with his knees to his chest, his gaze glued to every page he flicked through, ignoring everyone.
Teddy, making funny faces for kids who were scared, and Connor, handing out plates of burgers and hot dogs. I remembered feeling safe and at home, cosy around the flickering orange of the fire as chatter turned to laughter and white-noise in my head. After the kids went back to their cabins, the group of us would resume positions around the fire, but this time it was more… intimate. With Allison in her cabin, we kind of ignored her rules all together.
Making out happened, because of course it did. Beers stolen from Allison’s mini fridge and raging hormones, as well as late-night skinny dipping in the lake did that. Couples went off into the woods, and we all felt completely comfortable and at home with each other.
Looking around at that moment, I felt sick to my stomach. That feeling was gone.
The feeling of family and familiarity and friendship. What I was looking at now was that same log we had all sat on, now turned on its side—hot dog buns and candy wrappers littering the ground. It was a ghost camp.
I could still see Connor’s jacket slung on the ground, and Lili’s bright pink ray bans sitting on a beer can. Because there were no adults to yell at us to clean up after ourselves. I was frowning at the skeleton of the fire when Carmel nudged me. “Hey.” Her voice was shaking slightly. “Josie? You didn’t answer my question.” Carmel wanted me to be the voice of reason, and I wasn’t that. I was just as scared as her.
There was only so much I could sugar-coat, and I gave up doing that after the third counsellor disappeared. All I could offer her was forced optimism.
“Yes.” I said. “Just keep the kids busy, alright?”
“Right.”
When I was twisting around and power-walking to Rowan’s cabin, I shouted over my shoulder, “Give them some of those animal crackers!”
“What animal crackers?”
I turned to elaborate, but Carmel was gone.
When I finally got to Rowan’s cabin, I was sweating through my shirt, and had an idea of what I was going to tell the others. It was… a thing. Which could be considered a disease or a virus—so it was vital that we split into two groups; half of us would search for the others, while the others would look for anything to get in contact with the outside world. An emergency landline, laptop, or cell phone.
I did have one problem, which was lack of evidence. All which was left from the thing I’d found was stuck to my foot. The rest of it was buried in the dirt. It was too dark to search for it, and we would be wasting time doing so.
All of that was in my mind and tangled on my tongue, one single string of incomprehensible gibberish I wasn’t even sure was English, when I stepped into Rowan’s cabin, where four sets of eyes met mine. Olive, cross legged on the floor with her arms folded, Harry, pacing up and down with a brand new bruise blooming under his eye, courtesy of Eleanor almost poking his eyes out—and Rowan himself sitting on top bunk, his legs swinging off of the side.
The guy wasn’t built to be our leader, originally being the laziest of our group, opting for sitting in a tree with a book, rather than helping set up camp activities. Yet he had become our default guy in charge because he so happened to be wearing the head counsellor hat when Allison disappeared. Admittedly, it suited him, the bright red of the cap contrasted his dark curls under a late setting sun through the back window, setting strands of straying hair on fire.
The hat was a little too big for his head, though, slipping over his eyes.
Rowan looked like a divorced father of two, dark circles bruising his eyes, and a very “dad-like” scowl curling on his lips.
With a clipboard pressed to his chest, and a pen he was chewing on, the boy resembled a grown man who had just caught his daughter coming in after curfew. “Josie.” Spitting the pen’s lid out of his mouth, he scribbled something down. I had no doubt he was tracking my attendance for these stupid crisis meetings. His eyes were wild, scanning me for answers. “Where the fuck is Carmel?”
I shut the door behind me, leaning against it with my arms folded. “So, we can swear now?”
“Yes.” Rowan rolled his eyes. “There are no kids here, so go crazy,” he pointed at me with the pen. “Carmel. Where is she?”
“Keeping the kids busy,” Callan’s muffled voice came from the bottom bunk. I could barely see the guy lying on his stomach, his face stuffed into a pillow. “It was my idea to play Shrek for them, but the little shits said they haven’t seen it,” the boy lifted his head, his lips carved into a scowl. “I’m sorry, am I tripping? Everyone’s seen Shrek! Do these kids expect the Minecraft movie?”
“They don’t like that, either,” Harry stopped pacing the cabin. “Eleanor looked at me like I was crazy when I asked if she liked it."
“Fortnite, too.” Olive said, a cushion pressed to her chest. “I suggested playing it a few days ago, and like, zero kids knew what it was.”
“Six counsellors are missing,” Rowan raised his voice over the other’s chatter. “And you’re questioning what games they like?” His eyes found mine once more. “So, Carmel is with the kids? You’re absolutely sure of it?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I mean, I just saw her five minutes ago.”
“Great.” Rowan said, sarcastically. “I’m sure she won’t go missing under mysterious circumstances.”
“Stop.” Olive shot him a glare, throwing a cushion in his face. “I told you. They’re probably lost—- or maybe they went to get help?”
“We’ve all been trained to know every inch of these woods,” Rowan catapulted the cushion right back at her. “They’re not lost.”
“Well, where are they?!” Callan sat up, bringing his knees to his chest. I had never seen the guy looked this vulnerable. “Allison made sense. She probably had other duties, and left us to look after the kids. But six counselors? All of them disappearing—- our phone signal completely cutting out, electricity cutting off, not once, but twice? What is even sucking all of our power?”
“I got the emergency generator working,” Olive raised her arm. “Connor and I managed it before…” she trailed off.
“Before Connor disappeared.” Callan finished for her. “And before him, it was Joey, Lily, Mira, Yuri, Noah, and Teddy. Which isn’t a fucking coincidence,” he shot Rowan a look, who glared down at his lap. I could tell the boy didn’t want to lead all of us, come up with plans and answer questions we desperately needed answering. His job was to look after us, as well as the littles, and so far, he was doing a pretty good job. I could tell by his expression that he thought the opposite, but he had managed to keep the kids from finding out about something as sinister as someone actively kidnapping counsellors.
He made sure they were fed, entertained, and safe watching a movie—while we were scared for our lives. Rowan was keeping up the façade no matter how scared he was. The boy dropped his head into his lap with a sigh. It looked like he might fall asleep before he slammed the clipboard into his face to wake himself up.
Nobody wanted to admit what Callan was saying, but we were all definitely thinking it. “This was planned.” Callan continued.
“Someone out here is fucking with us, very clearly trying to freak us out. Now they've got six of us. ” He spread out his arms. “How long until one of the littles gets taken, huh? A bunch of 18 year olds aren’t going to satisfy them, so what about when they start taking campers? We are in the middle of fuckin’ nowhere with a serial kidnapper on the loose, and did we really just leave fifteen kids in the care of a girl who thought Australia was in England?”
“In Carmel’s defence, she was black-out drunk when she said that,” Olive murmured.
“Voice down!” Rowan hissed. “Do you want to scare them?!” His gaze flicked to me. “Did you do a headcount during dinner?”
I nodded. “Fifteen kids all accounted for. Ten are in the lunch hall, and five girls are in Cassie’s cabin playing Operation.”
“All day?” Olive spoke up. “Weren’t they playing that this morning? I tried to get into their cabin to give them breakfast, but they just shooed me away and locked the door.”
“Fuck.” Rowan ran his fingers down his face. “Alright, I’ll go and see what’s going on with them. Knowing Cassie and her friends, they’re probably zonked out on stolen candy. When all of the kids are accounted for in the lunch cabin, we gather outside.”
I swallowed, speaking up. “I actually wanted to talk to you guys about something.”
Rowan lifted his head, jutting the edge of the clipboard into his chin. “Go on…”
“I found something?” I pulled a face. “I mean, think I’ve found something?”
I wasn't sure how to explain to a dwindling group of exhausted teenagers that there may be something even more terrifying than potential kidnappers out there. Four blank faces started back at me, and Rowan leaned forward with a frown. “Like, in general? Josie, we don’t have time to go foraging.”
“You could call it a lead,” I said. “But I need your eyes to find it.”
“Uh-huh. But what is it?”
Thinking back to what exactly I had seen, I had no idea how to describe it. “It’s better if I just… showed you.”
Rowan looked sceptical, but nodded. “Alright. Josie comes with me. We’ll check out Allison’s cabin again to look for an emergency line, and you can show me whatever this ‘thing’ is you’ve found. Then we’ll escort Cassie and the other girl’s to the lunch cabin. Every camper needs an escort from now on. The rest of you? Act normal. If the kids see you freaking out, they will also freak out—and we need to keep up morale.” The boy pointed to Olive. “Olive, you sit in with the kids and look after them. Callan, check out the emergency generator. Harry, the kids see you as a playground ride, so use that to your advantage. Offer them horse rides if they’re scared. And with the ghost stories, it’s making it worse. Give them piggybacks.”
Harry rolled his eyes. “Do I have a choice?”
“No.”
Rowan cleared his throat. “We all keep up appearances. If the others turn up, after getting high or… I don’t know, having an orgy in the woods—- I will fucking kill them.” The way he smiled through his teeth, jumping off the bunk, his toes primed like a wild animal, I knew he wasn’t joking. If this was a well-constructed prank the other counselors were playing, I had no doubt Rowan would rip them apart for leaving him as a reluctant leader. To my surprise, the others wandered off with their tasks.
I watched Rowan lift up his pillow and pull out a pack of animal crackers, ripping open the bag and pouring the contents into his mouth. He caught my eye, crunching through mini animal crackers. “I didn’t have lunch,” he said through a mouthful.
I couldn’t help feeling a sense of relief as we headed across camp, Rowan in front of me, while I lagged behind.
“So, what’s the plan?” I caught up to him, almost tripping over a log.
The guy didn’t turn around. “I am completely winging it,” he said through a choked laugh. “I have no idea what I’m doing, and if I’m honest? I just want to go home, dude. I haven’t looked after this many kids in my life, and if I have to smile one more time as a little brat, I am going to fucking lose my mind.” He heaved out a breath. “I am making this up as I go along.”
I laughed that time. “That’s… comforting.”
“Yeah?” He turned to shoot me a grin. “Well, rest assured I am just about as scared—if not more scared than you,” as we stopped in front of Cassie’s cabin, his gaze found mine. “Is it me…” he said softly, “Or does the lunch cabin seem quiet.”
He was right. The windows were dark when they should have been illuminated by the TV screen. Instead of answering, I stepped in front of him, grasping hold of the cabin door. “Cassie?” I knocked three times. “Girl’s, are you okay in there? It’s Josie and Rowan.” I tried the door, and it slid open. Shooting a look at the boy behind me, I turned back to the door. “We’re coming in, okay?”
“Wait!”
Cassie squeaked from inside. “But he’s not finished!”
Ignoring the coil of dread unravelling in my gut, I forced the door open and stepped into unusually milky white light which flooded the cabin. The first thing I saw was eight-year-old Cassie, sitting cross legged with her back to me. She was sitting in a circle with the other girls, no doubt playing their game.
When I stepped closer, however, I noticed something pooling across the wooden floor. It must have been juice or water that they had spilled. I took another step, but this time, clammy fingers wrapped around my wrist and yanked me back. Rowan didn't speak, but his eyes were elsewhere. Initially, they had been drinking in the cabin before they found oblivion entirely. I heard his breath start to accelerate, his grip tightening on my wrist.
I had half a mind to pull away, before I saw the body shaped carcass the girls were sitting around. In the dim light of the cabin, it used to be a person. Teddy. I could still see parts of an identity, freckled cheeks and eyes which were still open, still staring at the sky.
But that was where the similarities to the missing counsellor ended. The thing which used to be Teddy was more of a shell, a scooped out thing resembling a human body. What sent me stumbling backwards, my mouth open in a silent scream, was the almost surgical efficiency of each organ's removal, like it really was a game of operation. His heart, lungs, and intestines were in one pile-- while his brain was cupped between little Cassie's bloody hands— and when my gaze found the little girl, Nina, hiding behind dark curly hair, I was seeing what looked like a toy robot’s head in her hands. In my head, I was thinking about the eye with the metallic pieces glittering around its pupil, and something turned in my gut.
Did I find a human eye?
I was staring at the crevice inside the boy's skull, and the boxes of surgical equipment piled on the girl's bunks, when Rowan finally pulled me back, and I was stumbling straight onto my ass. "We need to go." Rowan spoke through a croak. Cassie’s words rattled in my head. Teddy, I thought.
Teddy wasn’t finished.
"Josie. Get up. Now!" My head was spinning, and I was sure I'd thrown up. I didn’t even realize we had managed to stumble from the girl’s cabin before cool air grazed my face, tickling my cheeks. Something wet and warm, and lumpy was spattering the front of my shirt.
Before I could coerce words, the boy was pulling me to my feet, and I was seeing stars in my eyes, blinking brightly. When the two of us started forwards in a run, Rowan stopped abruptly. I followed his gaze to find several kids surrounding his cabin, where Harry, Olive and Callan were. Maybe I was hallucinating, but Eleanor and Phoebe, both of whom wielding weapons where I had no idea where they had gotten them—looked… taller? Rowan didn’t waste time, dragging me back. “Allison’s cabin.” He spoke in cry which became a sob, pulling me across camp, stumbling over rocky ground.
“We need a phone. Fuck, we need a phone. We need a phone.” Rowan was struggling to stand, occasionally bending over and choking up dust.
“They were playing Operation."
Literal operation.
“But they’re just kids!” I choked out.
Little kids, who had surgically removed every organ inside Teddy’s body.
Little kids, who were hunting the other counsellors down, and would surely be coming for us.
Allison’s cabin was thankfully further into the woods. When we were safe inside and Rowan was locking the door, I dry heaved several times, unable to get the sight of glistening gore splattering the cabin floor from my mind. “Josie.” Rowan was already tearing apart the cabin. “Work with me here, okay? We don’t… we don’t have fucking time to freak out, or to barf—we need to help. Now.” Rowan was almost in tears, and when he hit the ground on his knees, I took over. I searched Allison’s desk first. Nothing of importance, just documents and invoices. Digging through her draw, there was still nothing. We were running out of time.
Abandoning the desk, I went through her suitcase and bags. When I was crawling under her bed to try and find a weapon, Rowan hissed out. “Wait.” When I turned to him, he was still kneeling, but his foot was clamping down on a loose plank. The guy didn’t hesitate, pulling at the loose plank, which, to my confusion, revealed what looked to me like a trap door.
Rowan turned to me. “You’re kidding.”
I could only stare at the trap door revealing stone steps. He peered down, his voice echoing. “Allison has a fucking secret bunker?”
His lips curved into a surprisingly childish grin which took me off guard. “Oh, wow, that’s so cooooool!”
Lifting my head at the sound of loud squealing, I glimpsed a group of littles led by Eleanor stalking towards us. Eleanor had a hostage. Harry. And with the way she was sticking the blade of a scary looking knife to his throat, I figured she meant business.
Their height difference was almost comical. The eighteen year old guy had to hunch over so the little girl could successfully keep him prisoner. Behind them in the trees, I could see something illuminating the dark, an electric blue light bathing their faces.
So, that was there the power was going.
But what the fuck were these eight-year-old’s doing?
“Josie!” Rowan hissed from down below. He had already climbed down.
I joined him, struggling down the stone steps, before replacing the loose plank. If these kids were as smart as I thought, it wouldn’t take them long to realize the loose plank—also a trap door. Allison’s bunker was more of a control room. There were multiple screens lit up, a chair in front of a working MacBook. The phone-line was cut. But that didn’t make sense.
The kids were unaware of the bunker, so who cut the phone lines? Rowan was on the laptop, struggling to get through the password protection, so I turned my attention to piles of cardboard boxes.
When I opened them, I found myself staring at animal crackers.
There were hundreds of them, packed on top of each other. Looking further, digging through the boxes, I found a piece of old crumpled paper which looked ancient.
REGARDING PROJECT SPEARHEAD SUBJECTS:
PLEASE DO NOT INGEST UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. IF MULTIPLE SUBJECTS INGEST, PLEASE USE SELF DESTRUCT.
ONLY USE IN CASES SUCH AS IMMINENT DESTRUCTION TO THE PLANET/THREAT OF NUCLEAR WAR.
(PLEASE CONTACT FAMILIES IN ADVANCE. MAKE SURE TO INGEST WITH WATER TO AVOID NEUROLOGICAL SYMPTOMS SUCH AS PSYCHOSIS, EXTREME VIOLENCE. PLEASE APPROACH SUBJECTS WITH CAUTION.
Something ice cold slithered down my spine.
Abandoning the boxes, I searched through a cabinet filled with files which were crumbling apart from age. I picked one at random and flicked through it.
Eleanor Summer’s.
Sex: Female.
DOB: 08/05/1977.
Initially, I thought I was reading the dates wrong. But then, with my heart in my throat, I was grasping for other files.
Eli Evermore.
Sex: Male.
'DOB: 08/03/1979.
“Rowan.” I managed to get out through a breath.
“Mm?”
“They’re not children.”
The boy rubbed his eyes, frowning. His eyes were half lidded, almost confused. “Huh?”
“Eleanor.” I whispered. “Is forty five years old.”
He nodded slowly, turning back to the laptop. “How do you spell… documents? I’m looking for digital versions but I can’t find any.”
“You don’t know how to spell documents?”
“It’s been a hard day.” The boy whined, tipping his head back and blowing a raspberry.
Whatever I was going to say was choked in the back of my throat, when a loud bang sounded from above, the sounds of childish giggling coming through the floorboards. But the laughter didn’t sound like little kids. No, it sounded like teenager’s who were acting like little kids. I stared at the boxes of animal crackers, and then at the file confirming Eleanor’s real age.
My own words shuddered through me, and I remembered finding Teddy’s dismembered carcass in Cassie’s cabin. When I had caught her gaze, the little girl didn’t look scared, and somehow, her fingers wrapped around the scalpel looked just right.
Like the little bitch knew exactly what she was doing.
“Helloooo?” Harry’s voice was a hysterical giggle. “Olly, Olly, Oxen freeee!”
“Are you in heeeeeeere?” Carmel joined in. I could hear their footsteps above, dancing across the room.
Clamping my hand over my mouth, I dragged my knees to my chest and prayed they weren’t smart enough to figure out we were right underneath them.
Knowing the truth about them, though? I wasn’t counting on it.
….
That was an hour ago.
We’re still stuck down here, and I can get a connection here—thank god. For some reason, Alison has blocked all social media. We need help. We’re at Camp Redwood, and these kids ARE NOT KIDS.
Whatever Project Spearhead is was designed to keep them here.
The phone-line is cut so we can’t get help from whoever was helping Allison. I am counting on you guys.
Get us out of here!

I've been *mostly* a SAHM for the last 10 years of motherhood. I will be starting a part-time job, on top of school and other things. Now, could you let me know what you guys do for school lunches? OR, for dinner (great crockpot recipes). What I should make ahead of time and freeze and etc. I am concerned about our time on the morning and routine in that area. What are some tips?
My husband does work from home and will be able to throw something into the crock pot for dinner. or marinade or something.

Part 1: https://www.reddit.com/ReddXReads/comments/13lfqkw/vulturebeard_the_legbeard_that_ruined_roomies_fo
Hi everyone, bunny here. I’m having Ezekial post this for me because while I lurk on reddit, I’m on too many online communities and burn out quickly on all of them. I’m just here to tell this incredibly long tale. Pull up a chair, grab a snack, get comfy. This is a long ride.
The Cast List
Bunny (author): 33, female, a year or so out of a divorce that turned toxic and abusive and ultimately helped me realize I was gay. Recovering lifelong doormat slowly building a spine. Neuro spicy gym rat with major depressive disorder, general anxiety disorder, and most recently diagnosed with ADHD. Unfortunately very familiar with surviving trauma.
Z (poster): My partner. 31, nonbinary (they/them), also neuro spicy with depression, anxiety, OCD, BPD, autism, and also familiar with lifelong trauma.
One Liner Beard (OLB): 33, male, neuro spicy with ADHD and depression. He also suspects autism but isn’t pursuing a diagnosis. His nickname here comes from the fact that in messenger, he usually has one-word replies like “oof” or “mmm” as an acknowledgement he had seen the message but has nothing further to contribute.
VultureBeard (Vulture): 30, female, neuro spicy and disabled with multiple conditions. She has Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, POTs (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome), autism, depression, anxiety, chronic migraines, but also possibly a list of things that may or may not be real – that will all be explained. The star of this unfortunate circus. Her name will be explained in this part.
Kid: 3. Female. OLB and Vulture’s child. Likely neuro spicy like we all are, but she’s also only 3 years old. Slightly speech delayed and not potty trained yet.
Minor mentions:
Shit ass ex-husband (SA): name is self-explanatory. 32, male. Divorce was amicable to keep the peace. I immediately went no contact with him after.
J2: Friend of OLBs.
You ready? Deep breath. Now let’s dive into this mess.
​
Chapter Two: VultureBeard, or the Walking Diagnosis
With the backstory of how we wound up with a neckbeard, a legbeard, and their kid out of the way, I’ll start on VultureBeard properly now.
J2 was the one who introduced her to OLB. He ran into her at a local convention, and they talked and spent the day together. He ended up sleeping over at her house, on her couch, since she lived a few minutes away from the convention center, and he introduced her to his D&D group that OLB was a DM for. He said that at first, he wanted to smash just based on looks (before she stopped caring for herself, before the pregnancy), until she opened her mouth.
Oh boy.
I met her on Halloween 2018 or 2019 (trauma made my memory absolute garbage, ain’t it fun?), when OLB wanted to run a one-shot Curse of Strahd campaign for our D&D group. J2’s group was called Party A, we were Party B. Both of our campaigns existed in the same universe that OLB created. It was a fun one shot. I liked her. We integrated her into our D&D campaign as a side character who joined our party.
With her autism, she talks a lot, and can have a conversation with anyone, but she does naturally miss a lot of social cues. She says it’s okay to be direct with her and say things like, “I can’t talk right now, I’m busy.” But in the wild, she just enjoys people. That in itself isn’t a bad thing.
When we met, she was a Mormon with long brown hair, glasses, and modest clothes with long ankle-length jean skirts. I don’t know if that was a lifelong practice or just the people she had associated with. She didn’t curse at all, and still substitutes “fudge” for my favorite and most often-used curse word. Over time, she dropped religion, but she only curses in text, and very rarely at that, like when she’s pushed to her mental limit. She still dresses in a lot of the modest clothes from before, but it’s mostly because she doesn’t go clothes shopping a lot. I have passed down some clothes I have shrunk out of to her.
Her fashion sense is a bit of Walmart-meets-Goodwill. The tired mom “this is clean, so I’ll wear it” kind of aesthetic. She’s big on thrifting, but so am I. Most of my wardrobe is thrifted or passed on from a few gym friends these days, so it’s not like I’m poking fun at secondhand clothes. It’s just that there’s a lack of style or effort on her part, like she just puts clothes on and sometimes remembers to brush her hair out. I think there’s a part of her that doesn’t recognize she’s plus sized after pregnancy because she once bought clothes that are size medium, and they didn’t fit. She fit my old 2X leggings. I traded her leggings once, my bigger size for her smaller size.
She and OLB don’t fold laundry or put it away, so she will have laundry stuffed in their hamper that they keep in our shoe closet next to the laundry room, or boxes on her desk, or on her desk chair. They kind of live out of that clothes pile. If she needs to dress in something nice, it likely is wrinkly because it was in an unfolded pile.
The first run-in with realizing that something was a little “off” with her was when she tried cooking for us. We had other friends over to play D&D and Magic with us, and she wanted to cook some kind of chicken and noodle dish. With her POTs (post orthostatic tachycardia syndrome), she’s usually sodium deficient so she adds way too much salt to whatever she’s eating. Not being used to cooking for others, she served us completely inedible chicken that was too salty.
One of my former friends was there for that debacle. What she also noticed was that Kid seemed to be behind some childhood markers. At 2, Kid was still using a bottle and didn’t seem to talk much. She was worried that Kid would keep falling behind. It was a red flag that got tucked away. At the time, I was still thinking of Vulture as a burned-out first-time neuro spicy mom. That’s a lot for a disabled woman to handle. As a disabled person myself, I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt. I gave her too much benefit of the doubt for way too long.
Vulture as a person focuses very much on herself. Because of the body aches and pains that come with both Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and POTs, yes, I understand that her body regularly fights itself. But why is it that every time her body expressed pain, she had to do a loud, “AH, OW” or other pain noises as loud as she could? Or she will complain about whatever is giving her trouble. Some days she will be using her computer quietly, then when I come out of my bedroom, she starts to complain about her daily aches and pains. This happens pretty much every day, for different reasons. Her sneezes are likewise as loud, to where I can hear her across the house, through a closed door and over the show Z and I are watching.
Most awkward is Vulture’s bathroom habits. In Apartment #2, I guess Vulture got used to using the bathroom with the door cracked because they lived in a house without roommates, and she needed to keep an ear on Kid. Even now in a shared space, she keeps the door cracked, sometimes with the light off so I don’t think anyone is in the bathroom because it’s more migraine friendly.
Until I hear the grunting.
THE GRUNTING.
THE POOP GRUNTING.
I have heard it through my closed bedroom door, because her bathroom is right next to my bedroom. Usually, it’s when my bedroom is quieter, like when Z and I are off to sleep. But I hear her grunting as she’s using the bathroom, either because the door is open, or she is just that loud. I’m terrified to know which one it is.
Her hygiene is questionable at best. I know personally that Depression™ makes hygiene and self-care extremely difficult. I myself do the best I can, especially while being constantly sweaty at the gym and a Big Sad (depression) fighter. So, I get mental illness and hygiene. With Vulture and her long hair, she would leave it in a bun for days until it matted. She asked for my help with detangling it and it took me around two hours to safely work the mats and tangles out. When she cut it in a homemade attempt to do the popular wolf cut on Tik Tok, it was much more manageable. When it’s shorter, it has tight curls. She constantly has a natural body odor smell to her. I think with her sensitive skin, she has to wear a specific unscented deodorant, but I don’t think she applies it unless she’s leaving the house. The sink in her and OLB’s bathroom is used as mostly a storage space with things piled on top of it, so I don’t think it’s used for much. The bathtub needs a deep scrubbing, and she gives Kid a bath more than she herself showers.
Having heard the poop grunting, I’m afraid to look at their toilet.
In general, Vulture isn’t active, but to say that she’s sedentary is a vast understatement. The average sedentary person looks like an Olympic athlete next to her. She occupies two spots in the house: Her bed, or the couch in the living room. For most of the day. She will just have her laptop either on the table next to her or in her lap, and that’s where she spends most of the day, gaming.
With me being a gym rat, I am incredibly proud of how I went from a couch potato to a weightlifter. When I think about what would happen if I suddenly dropped to her levels of activity, I know my body would fall apart. I often wonder if her lying in bed or on the couch contributes to more of her body pains because her muscles are deteriorating from disuse. I mean what do I know, I’m not a doctor. That body pain cycles to her being even more inactive because she hurts. It’s a big cycle of negativity.
When the weather changes drastically, she will be hit with migraines or allergy attacks, to where she has to lay down all day as well. She takes OTC pain medicine frequently, as well as allergy meds. One of her desk cabinets is a well-stocked mini pharmacy of OTC medication and some prescription medication she has collected over time that expired over a year ago. When I’m hit with a rare migraine, I know she will have something in stock for it.
Her doctor says she needs to eat more frequently because she’s always shaky. She will hold up her hand to show me how much it’s shaking, and it always looks as though she’s making it shake from the wrist, instead of it being an actual hand movement. She always tells me, “Look at this,” and holds up her shaking hand, like she’s trying to show me how bad she’s doing, but it’s for different reasons every time. She didn’t eat, she’s too tired, she has a migraine, she has sinus pain – everything gives her shaky hands, which I joked about once.
If she has a new symptom, she goes to Doctor Google to look up what’s wrong with her, and then talk in our house chat on discord that she thinks she might have “so and so” wrong with her because the symptoms match. Or she will post screenshots of whatever her symptoms are. As far as I know in the time living with her, she’s never had close medical calls or anything that needed further treatment, except for a heart study where she wore a device to monitor her heart rate. Doctor Google gave her all sorts of things she could have, though.
Within the time I started writing this saga, I had this encounter with her in the house group chat on discord that she, OLB, and I are in, about how she thinks she’s allergic to mosquito bites because the bites swelled up and got inflamed:
Vulture: Just figured out something I’m most likely allergic to: mosquito’s saliva reaction is increased inflammation around the bite site and the condition is skeeter syndrome.
Me: You should get that confirmed by a doctor. It’s mosquito season.
(it sounds like she copy/pasted that bit about mosquito’s saliva from Google)
Mind you, my former in-laws thought I was allergic to mosquito bites because the same thing happened to me. My mosquito bites swelled up beyond what they should look like, and mosquitos have a good nose at finding me in particular compared to other people. I tried to empathize with her, even though it just seemed like she wanted to identify with a syndrome she found on the internet.
She said that she had the same symptoms her friend’s dad had for GERD because her acid reflux was acting up. The GERD saga is a fun one as well, which I’ll fully share later.
Funny enough, if I also have something similar to what her current issue is, she doesn’t play Oppression Olympics and say hers is worse. I’ve been dealing with vertigo on and off for the past month and I don’t have the ability to see a doctor for it at the moment. So, when she says that she’s dizzy or the room is spinning, I express empathy or at least a little “oh, same here,” because I have to carefully move my body in ways that don’t make the room spin. It might be her autism, it might be because she doesn’t care, but she never expresses empathy my way. She just moves on.
I’ve told her multiple times she needs to see a doctor to check for each new symptom she has, but somehow there’s an excuse. The latest I’ve heard is, “I will once my phone is turned back on. It hasn’t been paid in a while.” Valid yes, but then please get off Google. Because she’s on government assistance and doesn’t have a car and doesn’t know how to drive, she’s ferried to her appointments by a medical bus that stops at the house. They do need to be able to call her. Just please get off Google in the meantime! I’ve even told her that Doctor Google and WebMD will say everything is cancer or fatal and it’s not good for you, and she just kind of brushed it off.
One of my friends calls her the Professional Victim. Z is convinced she has Factitious Disorder (formerly called Munchausen’s). She loves to hide behind her illnesses as to why she can’t get out of bed or can’t do chores. If you were to listen to her every day, you’d think she was falling apart at the seams because it was always something. Migraine, body pain, allergies, sinus problems or sinus infections, stomach problems, dizziness, shakiness. Repeat. Forever.
She will ask me if her forehead feels hot, and when I can’t tell, she checks with a thermometer. She says, “My natural body temperature is low so 99 degrees is a fever to me.”
This is also where I gave her a lot of benefit of the doubt at the beginning, because EDS and POTs will affect the entire body in different ways. One of my friends, in her casual dark humor, will have conversations with me about how she’s just not going to be able to walk properly that day, because her ankle joint slid out of place, but she still finished her work shift. I talk to my friend regularly about her struggles with her body, but somehow it doesn’t have the same self-pity that Vulture’s does. Every disability presents differently between people. As rare as EDS and POTs is, it’s pretty common in online communities because it’s where people tend to flock to. In my time in varying disabled online communities, I’ve never seen someone who complains or fishes for attention as much as Vulture does.
If she’s having a relatively good day, she will either be gaming, or maybe she will get to one of the chores that OLB tries to get her to do during the day, like doing the dishes or cleaning Kid’s room. When OLB had prescription Adderall (before the shortage made him switch to a different ADHD med), she took one of his pills and was zooming around actually being productive. She has symptoms of ADHD but doesn’t have a formal diagnosis, so OLB thought it might help her. It seemed to.
If she has a bad day, which is most of her days, she stays rooted on the couch or moves between her couch and her bed, moving her laptop with her. She spends all day building in Minecraft, completing her Pokedex, or playing other games.
Sometimes when I come out of my room to cook, she says something along the lines of, “I planned on cleaning today,” followed by vague hand gestures of how she’s feeling. I never asked her about her daily plans, but she needed to tell me. Is it self-awareness or guilt?
If she’s doing a load of dishes, she will loudly proclaim that she’s dizzy and shaky and in pain and have to go sit down after 10 minutes of that. I don’t know if she actually has the body strength to stay upright for longer than ten minutes at a time, and I don’t know if that’s her actual chronic illnesses, or the fact that she doesn’t do anything at all.
I’ve given her the same advice I use myself for low spoon (low energy) days when I need to get things done. I’ve told her it’s okay to take ten-minute breaks and then get started again. Or an hour break, if her body is giving her trouble. I’ve told her it’s okay to clean the house while sitting on the ground or in a chair, if that’s easier on her body. In managing my broken mental health, I’ve taught myself all sorts of life hacks, or as I call them, “brain hacks,” to work around how gross depression makes me feel. And I’ve told her that if it’s a really bad day, the dishes aren’t going anywhere and can wait until tomorrow.
That’s meant to be compassionate, not taken in the “if you give an inch, they’ll take a mile” sort of way, but it must be interpreted as permission to not do The Thing. It just won’t get done if she feels she has permission to skip over it.
If she does anything, she will want metaphorical ass pats for her good work. OLB jokes that it’s a praise kink, but some days it really seems that way without anyone consenting to participate in her kink. She asks if I noticed she cleaned the kitchen or did some kind of cleaning and if I’m proud of her. I used to play along with the praise because I wanted to give her positive reinforcement, like maybe if I emphasized that it was a good thing, she’d be more encouraged to do it more. I’ve got jokes, apparently. Optimism was so strong early in the friendship.
If she cooks, usually it’s something frozen that she can heat up like pizza. Most of the time, she exists on boxed macaroni and cheese or sandwiches. Or what fast food OLB brings home. Most of her diet is processed, instant, or frozen. Or she eats odds and ends like what cereal and junk food is brought home from the food bank or when OLB goes shopping.
Since SA left the house, I took up cooking for myself and exploring what I like to cook, as SA was the main cook for the house. My gym regimen helped me meal prep and confront a lot of my bad eating habits, so I started prepping healthier foods. I am the stereotypical lifter that eats a lot of chicken, rice, and vegetables. Z also likes to cook, and it became a way for us to bond by cooking together or one of us watching the other cook and just vibe in each other’s company.
VultureBeard gets her name because, one, she is a legbeard. But two, every time I made something early on with her living with us, she always said something along the lines of, “Ooh, that smells so good! It’s making me hungry!”
Me, in my doormat stage, took the cue that she dangled and offered her some of my food. Back then, I always tried to cook enough for the whole house. It became a pattern. If I cooked something, she always popped up, hungry and unable to make actual food for herself or somehow her illnesses were acting up and preventing her from cooking for herself. If I said I was popping over to the store, sometimes she would ask if I could pick up a soda for her and occasionally, she would be able to pay me, always in loose change because her disability payments went right to the bills that she and OLB had. I always took the bait because yeah, doormats will doormat and vultures will vulture.
She does reciprocate in small ways, sharing some occasional treats with me or saying I can have some of her mac n cheese or Oreo cookies or French fries or whatever food she has some days. But for the most point, a lot of her behavior feels like fishing – fishing for attention, for food, for confirmations of her medical issues.
Her general attitude towards housework also contributes to her main other issue that makes me want to scream. She hoards. Empty salsa jars, Nesquik containers, pizza boxes, mac n cheese boxes. She holds onto things that Z and I see as garbage, because she has dozens of DIY projects in mind. She would be the person that followed 5 Minute Crafts for useful projects. To her credit, she did make a nifty sock organizer out of spare cardboard. But she has dozens of empty frozen pizza boxes and macaroni boxes piled up on her desk and ideas in her head, but no actual execution of them. I have pictures on my phone of her desk hoard, and while the desk itself is tall, the pile on the topmost part of the desk reaches the ceiling. That’s at least two feet of buildup.
It drives Z batty. With their OCD, Z can’t stand seeing the general mess in the house, but her desk makes them want to throw things. There was an empty Pizza Hut box that spent a week on the floor under the table in the living room before she finally picked it up and moved it to her desk. She scolded my cat for jumping on it.
Vulture: I want to save it for a project, I just don’t know what I want to use it for yet.
Me: Why not just throw it away? Isn’t it garbage?
She only gave a vague shrug, and the pizza box stayed on her desk for another few days until while cleaning the kitchen, Z got tired of looking at it and finally took it out to the outside garbage bin.
This is a constant pattern for her. She hoards things that she sees as something that could be useful in the future, but in the meantime it all stacks up and takes up space. She and OLB both are pack rats, which I think enables it further. OLB said that she also hoards food when she thinks there’s a food shortage in the house, but that also includes things that shouldn’t be eaten or are close to being spoiled. She freezes produce and even bread dough she made because she would start projects and then not have the energy to finish them or deal with them properly. I think if Z and I weren’t in the house, it would just be a rat’s nest of garbage.
That was why Z and I took on the majority of housework. We have a current setup to deep clean the common areas of the house monthly, and anything she doesn’t pick up that we read as trash will get thrown out. It’s barely making a change in the house, but it’s better for our mental health. It’s unfortunate that the house barely stays clean for two days after we clean it.
OLB usually has an excuse for not contributing towards the housework. His ADHD makes him forgetful, plus he hates dishes and purposefully avoids them until he knows he has to deal with it. He’s mostly just exhausted from work. With Vulture? Ten thousand excuses.
With OLB working an exhausting but consistent tech repair job, that leaves Vulture in charge of Kid during the day. If she exists entirely in her bed and the couch, how is she able to keep up with a toddler?
Oh, that’s going to be a huge tale on its own. Fuckle the buck up. We’ve got a long way to go. And yes, it will make you angry.

Hey everyone! This is my first post on this sub, I just wanted to see if anyone had any ideas for the best way to cook a frozen chuck roast. I used half of it a few weeks ago for beef stew and froze the other half. I’ve seen recipes for crock pot, instapot, Dutch oven, roasting, etc. Has anyone tried any of these? I have all of these appliances/supplies, I just don’t know which would be best. My go too is usually crock pot or Dutch oven for a roast, but most of the crockpot recipes look kinda gross at the end result when you start from frozen.
Thanks in advance!

Okay, maybe not all chefs, but mostly kitchen guys and all restaurant workers. I was invited to a potluck with a group of BOH workers from the restaurant my boyfriend works at. I’m from the south so my boyfriend is wanting me to make them some gumbo, as they’ve probably never had good gumbo. I’m more than happy to do it, I just want to make sure it’s /really/ good. I’m going to go with chicken and sausage because fresh seafood isn’t readily available to me. I know the basics and I’ve made some pretty solid gumbo before, but I’m looking for any and all tips on how to make this the best pot of gumbo they’ll ever eat. Thanks in advance!

Hey y’all.
I was just hoping to get a compilation of food ideas/recipes for those of us around the same time in our post-op life. We can share our food struggles here as well. Hopefully it can help others when they hit this milestone.
Here are my top three easiest/hardest foods to eat right now..
Easiest: • green beans • cheeses (thank goodness) • deli meats
Hardest: • eggs • chicken 🤮 • broccoli, even overcooked
My goals this week are to make: • crock pot pulled chicken • spaghetti squash w/ meatballs • faux pasta salad (no pasta, cooked veggies mixed with turkey pepperoni and deli meat eaten w/ a light dressing) — this is my #1 FAVE pre and post op. • deviled egg salad
I also bought enough chicken to make chicken alfredo and chicken bacon ranch in the slow cooker — mainly for my fiancé, but I’ll have a little without noodles. I’m really trying to find a way to eat chicken, but I’m struggling with it a lot.
Looking forward to everyone else’s input!