Sunny, One of the things that my husband agreed to early on in our marriage, is that if one of our kids wants/needs the step parent to do things for them (because the parent can't), then the child has to ask the step parent, not the parent. When my son wanted a co-signer on a car, I couldn't help him because I had just started my own business. I talked to my husband and he agreed to help but I felt that my son should ask him, not me. My son did ask him and got the car with my husband's help. My husband does the same with his daughter. If she wants something from me, she has to ask me. She still asks him all the time and he tells her, 'you have to ask SM'. My sons got angry a while back because they don't like when my husband has an opinion about anything. They think he should stay out of 'our life' but then I remind him that he's my husband and he is a part of 'our life' and I remind him of the things my husband contributes and that they don't mind when he does something where they benefit. They don't like it but they know it's true. What your husband should have told his daughter is that she would need to ask you to cook the food because he doesn't know how or can't do it all by himself. It really is up to the parent to expect their children (even adult ones) to respect their spouse enough to ask for themselves instead of going through the parent. It's much easier for kids to let themselves believe that their parent is doing everything for them and they don't need the step parent if all they have to do is ask the parent who then asks the step parent. Then they don't really appreciate the step parent because they can tell themself that their parent is the one doing everything for them. It's funny that my son will ask me for something and when I say, you need to ask stepdad yourself... he'll decide 'I don't really need it.' He has been giving my husband a hard time and would rather go without than ask my husband, well, that's HIS problem, not mine.

Way back when I was in home ec class in high school. You know the dark ages! Lol We made the simplest cute and useful aprons. I hate losing it in the flood. I will have to make another one. It was basically 2 large rectangles edged on all edges. And a long strip of the fabric deep enough for a pocket. That strip was the same width as the rectangle and was sewn on the front rectangle across the bottom, leaving the top open, like a giant pocket. Then stitch 2 lines from top of pocket to the bottom spaced apart from each other evenly to turn the giant pocket into 3 equally sized pockets. Then stitch the 2 rectangles right side together at the top edges only about 2 inches each. That creates a boat neckline so that you can slip it over your head. Now you have an apron with a boat neckline and a row of 3 pockets along the front bottom. All you need now is a tie. Sew a ribbon or a piece of the fabric, with the edges sewn, to each edge of the front rectangle at waist height. Done. It literally takes less time to make it than it did for me to type this. This style is called a cobbler apron. Similar to this one.

Happy Mother’s Day to all ❤️ We had a small group of DH, me, DS2and my mother. The kids nominated DS2 to buy plants for my mom and me. We had a very lazy day, with lunch of quiche Lorraine I had made yesterday, and a dinner of chicken prepared like schnitzel ( cutlets pounded thin, dusted with flour and paprika, dipped in egg and rolled in panko and cooked in the smallest amount of oil possible), on a bed of creamed spinach and mushrooms, served with saffron rice. Watermelon pieces as a salad and coconut cake for dessert, all made by me. Our club restaurant isn’t open for sit down meals yet, and I did not want to risk going elsewhere just yet, so I had this all planned and it took just an hour to put it together. We ate in the informal dining area and I used one of the azalea plants the kids gave me as a centerpiece. Nothing fancy for a change, and I found a box of unused tray liners from Hester and a Cook when we moved and used those as sort of faux placemats. So glad we did not have a big do that required a lot of cleanup, as after dinner DH got a call, his mother died on Mother’s Day evening. She was in her late 80s and had Alzheimer’s for more than a decade, cared for in her own home according to her wish by round the clock helpers. DH and DS2 had driven to Alabama to see her the day before and found her especially frail, so it was not a surprise to anyone. Still, any passing is a blow, a jolt in the road. I’m more thankful than ever to have my mother! DH’s brother, a physician, was with their mom at the end. We will have a very quiet family funeral in a few days. “A life well lived is not to mourn, but to envy and inspire hope.”

My mother was an awful cook. She fried almost everything, yet she was slender as were my sister and I. She had a 5-6 dish rotation: smothered steak (fried round steak cooked in brown gravy until tender-ish); fried pork chops; fried chicken; fried frozen shrimp on Friday nights (we are Protestant but she served fish on Friday); over-cooked, shoe-leather tough roast on Sunday; and at some point every couple of weeks, the worst spaghetti you’ve ever tasted. There was no such thing as a casserole. Green salads were rare to non-existent. I never could understand the penchant people had for mac and cheese when I was growing up. Here is Mother’s recipe: Cook elbow macaroni until it is flabby. Drain and put in a rectangular baking dish. Beat 2 eggs. Add milk. Pour over macaroni. Top with a few slices of very mild cheddar cheese. Bake until the macaroni is hard again. We had an abundance of vegetables because we had a huge garden (couple of acres) that we shared with the people who worked for Daddy. Mother did not can food, but she froze a lot of vegetables. I ate a lot of fresh tomatoes growing up. We had them for every meal, including breakfast, when they were in season. I would sneak into the garden, find a good one and eat it like an apple! Then there was fried okra; fried field corn (corn cut off the cob and cooked in a skillet with butter or bacon drippings); pole beans; yellow squash; cucumbers, butter beans (harvested when they were tiny) and crowder peas. For such a lousy cook, Mother had very high standards. Vegetables had to be small and tender. Tomatoes had to be vine-ripened unless they were being used for fried green tomatoes, in which case they had to be truly green and hard. Fruit had to be unblemished. We had no processed foods ever. I didn’t know what American cheese was until I was 23. It wasn’t that Mother was purposefully a healthy eater. She just didn’t like the taste processed foods. Mother never baked a cake from scratch, except a coconut cake at Christmas. The coconut had to be fresh (as in ”first you buy a coconut…”) and finely grated by her own hand. Her pie crusts were always from scratch and always flaky and tender. She had 2 pies she made, lemon meringue and chocolate. Biscuits and cornbread were made without a recipe and were always perfect. Mother’s best dishes were her potato salad and her cornbread dressing. I can’t make either one to save my soul. My sister comes really close on the cornbread dressing. Mother was over 90 when she died. She was living by herself in her own home, doing her own housework and cooking her own meals (still nothing processed). She did the light portions of her own yardwork but hired a really good-looking, very buff young man to do the heavy lifting and mowing. We teased her that she found things that needed doing just to get him to come to the house! I suppose my ”rebellion” is not cooking like Mother did. But I wouldn’t mind having her yard man mow my grass. 😉 ETA: My sister just sent me these pictures of Mom. She may have been a lousy cook, but she went some interesting places!