Dawn, it isn't here yet, Edmond. I decided to do laundry today instead of tomorrow, and it is still flying in the northerly direction.

Moni

Well, it hit about 1:20 PM. My laundry all of the sudden was blowing in the southerly direction, and it got cool.

We had just finished a nice lunch, on the deck out back (north side), and my daughter was reading, while I contemplated on what to do with the hot tub.

Moni

Well, it hit here about one thirty. I was just finishing up painting the front of the house and it ran me in as I have been the unwilling hostess to a head cold for the last three days.

DS was supposed to be doing this painting, but lately every time the weather is nice enough that he could paint, it's either on a weekday when he works, or if it's on a weekend he ends up having to work that weekend. Well, anyway, that's what he SAYS.

I guess I'm just grumpy because I don't feel well, but I don't understand how come he can't paint for a couple of hours a day when the weather is good on one of his workdays. It's not like he doesn't have some down time every day, and he only lives a few blocks away. The last weekend that he had off, he didn't come over till after noon, and then he hadn't eaten. By the time he ate and visited with his dad, it was 2pm. So he worked from 2pm until he started running out of daylight.

Now before y'all jump on me (remember, I'm grumpy today), let me add that he came to me and asked if there was something he could do in return for our forgiving his monthly payment on some money he had borrowed from us, AND, we already made this same kind of deal with him almost a year ago and he never even started the task. In all fairness, getting the house painted IS probably worth BOTH negotiations so I didn't so much mind that. But warm days are getting fewer and further between and I'm not sure he's telling the truth about having to work these weekends.

Because it's James Hardy siding, it already was primed, but we've gone a couple of years without it painted and so I figured it would need priming again. He got the priming done on maybe 50% of the house, and some caulking. That's all. My front awnings were on the ground in the front yard and he left the downspout disconnected right before that last rain we got. Plus he can't seem to find a tool he likes, I've bought rollers, two different kinds of roller pads, a paint pad, and two different kinds of brushes. He has loaded every one of them with paint, and when he quits for the day he just hands me all the tools and tells me I can do with them whatever I want to. (!) Most of them I have wrapped in plastic to keep the paint moist, hoping he will return to finish the job. He thinks he's finished with a can of primer when there's still about half an inch in the bottom of the can and the paint pan probably has about another half an inch. The first time, I primed part of the back of the house with just the paint that was left in the brushes, roller, pad and the paint pan!

So with two really pretty days and no painter, I decided to take matters in my own hands. I'm afraid of heights but I climbed the extension ladder and painted the entire front of the house, painted the trim, and DH put the awnings back on, with the help of me and DGS. The next pretty day we have, I'm not even mentioning it to DS. I'll just paint a little something every time I can. And I am NEVER, EVER going to negotiate with him again. (Did I mention I'm sick and feeling really grumpy?)

Moni, I was out at fire stuff all day and it was HOT here--77 degrees officially at our Mesonet station, but as warm as 81 degrees elsewhere. I love that your laundry changed direction as the front came across! That made me laugh out loud.

It sounds like you had a lovely day before the weather changed. What to do with the hot tub? Well, fill it up and climb in, right?

Ilene, Well, at least you got something done before the cold hit. I like painting but I am a very messy painter, so DH usually does it. At our house, it is (of course) DH's firefighting activities that interfere with the list of "Things To Do".

Go ahead and vent about DS and I hope that blowing off a little steam helps! Some people are just procrastinators, and it sounds like he might fall into that group.

The house looks great! I love the front porch--it looks so cozy and inviting.

I hope you start feeling better quickly. Now that the cold and miserable weather has arrived, you have an excuse to stay inside and take it easy for a few days while you get over your cold.

Can you believe the cold front is not quite here yet--but very, very close. When DS left our house around 6:15, it was still in the mid-60s here. He called when he got to Overbrook, which is at the northern edge of Love County and said the front had arrived and it was 42 degrees there. It is only 60 here now, so I suppose the front will blow through in the next few minutes.

I suppose somewhere in Oklahoma some moisture will fall, and I am afraid it may fall as freezing rain/sleet/snow, etc., but I also am fairly sure nothing will fall here....because it never does. I think we're supposed to warm up again by next weekend.....and I hope that we do.

Dawn

Well, till yesterday we didn't have the hot tub hooked up to electricity. Now, it has to be filled, and run a bit to get all the yucky stuff out of all the pipes. Then drain it, refill, and if more yucky stuff comes out of the pipes drain it once more. I am just not up to messing in cold water cleaning it out, in these temps.

Thus, I hung the trouble light inside it again, and will hold off filling and cleaning for another nice day.

Did I ever say, I HATE moving?

Moni

Good Morning! At five a.m., we're at 37 degrees, and the radar shows some freezing rain going over us... but not a lot is coming down. It's mainly WET and cold... thank goodness. This means my oldest gets to go to school today! Ha, ha! I'm looking at Oklahoma, who's got a bit of snow now?

Ilene,
Your house is so pretty! I love the color combination, with that splash of red on the front porch in the flowers! We're going to be painting our house as soon as it gets warm again... I was thinking greens, now I'm thinking blues!

It had really been a lovely day here in Edmond.. until about 1:30, as Moni mentioned. I was at work and the doors to the Graden Center opened for one customer and it was fine. I'd even taken my hoodie off because I kept getting hot. About 5 minutes later it opened for another customer and the chill ran up my back! And had me running for that hoodie as soon as I finished with the customer I was checking out! I had noticed the wind starting to pick up some, but it hadn't really gotten cool yet. When it came on, it came like it was running late!

I don't blame you a bit for being frustrated, Ilene! I would be too! Especially after this is the second time you've forgiven payment and he didn't even START that task! Vent all you want, that's what we're here for!

Kathy~ Anticipating another COLD day at work near those doors!

Kathy, I think walmart made a huge mistake for their employees, when they faced that store with the doors to the north! Way to cold, when one of those nice northerners like we got right now blows in.

Moni

Moni and Kathy, Our WMT faces west, and there are double doors between the checkers and outside, so that is helpful to them. But when the store is busy, there are people who are coming in both sets of doors at the same time and the cold air does come in. I worked at WalMart Administration for awhile (I hated it because they were so regimented -- I felt like a prisoner. Plus I worked the call center where people called and cussed me out because they had a bad experience at Sam's. So all in all, not a happy time for me) But anyway, I was told while I was there that the home office in AR controls the thermostats in all the stores, nationwide. That's really hard to believe but maybe it's so.

Thanks, Dawn and everybody for your patience with me. I'm still feeling bad and I will probably lay around all day today, although I had planned to make muffins for Christmas baskets for some of Jesse's teachers. This is his last year and there are three of them who've had Jesse every year in HS. I'd like to do something special for them this year. Maybe I will have him tell them that they're getting their present from us AFTER the holidays. I'm sure they wouldn't be happy to get muffins with cold germs on them. The coughing has started and I just hate that part of it.

DH had to run out to Lowe's yesterday and on the way home, out of curiosity, he drove by DS' house. His car was there and his old pick-up was gone. He doesn't drive his old pick-up to work because it is old and not dependable, and is a gas hog. He just uses it to beat around town and visit his local friends and us, and to haul stuff with. So it kind of looks like he did lie to us about having to work. I guess it's possible he took it because of the weather, but the tires aren't very good so I doubt that. He leaves for work at 2:00 and gets home around midnight. I kind of wish DH had driven around to DS' friends' houses to see if the old pickup was parked there, and maybe got out and walked up to the door.

He's done stuff like this before and we've found out the truth accidentally and just blown it off and not said anything. I'm thinking it's time for a frank discussion with him. Not only am I severely irritated with him, but it kind of hurts my feelings that a) he apparently has so little regard for us that he'll take advantage of us like this and b) he thinks we're so stupid that he can make up anything and we'll believe it. By spring, he will have entirely forgotten about doing any painting, will be annoyed at being reminded, and will not do a good job. Oh, and I'm thinking seriously about adding the amount of last month's payment on his debt back in, as a "missed payment". THAT's a whole big story -- he convinced us to buy him a little cheap house and then he found out he was in trouble because of a credit card that supposedly his ex-wife had run up before the divorce, so we paid his half for him and then found out the ex wasn't the only one who had used the card, and then he needed a new roof on the house. Now he wants to blow insulation in his attic and his boss wants him to start going to school but he has to lay out $600, which will be reimbursed later. He keeps laying down hints and I'm not going there. One time I told him if he'd start cooking at home and quit eating out so much he could probably save enough money to go to school on. Plus he can't quit trading cars.

When my parents were alive, we kids would go over and do stuff for them like this for FREE. We would've been insulted if they had tried to pay us. Even though DS knows he is in our will and will receive half of everything that is left when we die, he thinks he needs to be paid for big jobs. He is sort of robbing the other heir, now that I think of it. DGS, who is the other heir, does do things to help us but he doesn't do the big jobs because he hurries through everything and the job is always sloppy. So if it's something like painting, forget that. I hate to send him up on the roof or on a ladder because he thinks he's "bullet proof" and takes chances he shouldn't.

And this all kind of scares me. We're not getting any younger. More and more, we're running into things we just can't (or shouldn't) do anymore and we have to depend on someone to help us. I guess the time has come to find a good handyman.

Beth, I brought paint cards home and really spent a lot of time figuring out what color I wanted. When we bought the house, it had blue vinyl siding on it, but it was light blue and I didn't like it very much. There are so many beige, white and gray houses on our block, I didn't want to go that way, either, and I hate brown. Our rental house across the street is yellow. So it was down to a choice between red (which would absorb a lot of heat in the summer and would probably fade) or peach (which DH didn't like) or blue. I couldn't go green because the roof is a kind of blue-ish gray and wouldn't have coordinated well. But I like green -- especially the evergreen shades.

Ilene, sounds like a difficult situation. But you'd probably do best to use some "tough love" on your son. I know it's hard to actually make the calls and apply it, since life isn't so cut and dry as we'd like.

One of my brothers has two adult sons who tend not to want to grow up. I hurt for them all.

The cold hit our home, just North of Tahlequah, around 4:30 PM. I had just gotten back from a hospital visit and taken a half hour nap. It was so mild that, when I headed out, intending to do some chores, I had to remove my sweat shirt and left it in our shop. At one point I noticed that the wind had blown our canoe over, down by the pond. So I walked down there to straighten it out. GOOD GRACIOUS!!! There were fish dimpling in the pond! So I walked back to the shop and grabbed my rod, thinking of dinner. I got only half way back to the pond, when WHOOSH! The wind rushed in from the North and the temperature dropped at least 15 degrees... ALL AT ONCE! I got to the pond and stuck it out for 15-20 minutes, without a sweatshirt, until I'd caught enough fish for dinner. By this time, with all the clouds, I could hardly see my line. Plus we were getting sleet. My daughter had returned from a trail ride, wearing only jeans and a tee shirt. She was COLD! So she swiped my sweatshirt!

When I headed back to the yard Jerreth called me to help put some things away (heavy/bulky items)... and by the time we'd done that, it was really sleeting and blowing and DARK! I told her, "That's it. I'm NOT going to clean fish in the dark and sleet." So I parked the bucket by the shop and went inside for the evening. (I found I had a coating of ice on the back of my shirt, when we got inside.)

Well, this morning I went out to care for the animals. It was probably 15 F. or colder, and that bucket of fish had at least 4" of ice on it! One fish was frozen into the ice. But the others were still swimming around. So, I put the bucket in the shed, to thaw, broke the ice and hope to have fish for dinner tonight! Life and weather in Oklahoma are never boring!

George

Hi Y'all,

I typed a long response and then lost it. Ilene, I think George is right, it is time for "tough love". We went through something similar with my parents and sister, and a little 'tough love' finally corrected the situation. I have more to say but....

Ice and freezing rain are now falling here and accidents are happening on the interstate, and the fire pagers just went off. Gonna be a long night here, so I'd better go start baking cinnamon rolls and muffins, and make a big pot of coffee. It is starting to go nuts here....I was ready for it today, with tortilla soup and taco soup made (huge pots of each). I bet we use the soup tomorrow, or maybe for a midnight meal to warm up the frozen firefighters. So, off to the kitchen I go.....

Y'all stay safe and warm,

Dawn

Yeah, Dawn and George, I think you are right. Dawn, I'm sorry I missed the benefit of your long post.

Right after he left home, many years ago, he borrowed some money from us and then didn't pay it back so I wrote him a letter telling him that, though I would always love him, I didn't feel I should have to work for my money twice (the second time in collecting it from him) and that I expected timely follow up on his part and that otherwise there would be no more loans extended to him for any reason. He came over and apologized and paid what he owed.

I really don't like loaning him money because I feel like he ought to be able to stand on his own two feet. But seems he can never do that. If he doesn't borrow from us, he goes to those payday loan places, even though I've told him what vultures they are. I don't understand why he can't manage his money any better than he does. When we loaned him the money to pay off that credit card, it was on the condition that he hand over his check book and all his debts and I would manage his money for him until he was out of debt. He was scared because there was an attorney involved with the credit card company and so he readily agreed. That didn't last very long because he withheld information from me and got mad at me every payday because he felt I didn't give him enough spending money. Finally it got to the point where it just wasn't worth it to me to have him treat me like I was robbing him every two weeks. So I gave him his folder back and told him not to tell me anything more about his financial doings as I was through. Then he started missing payments, and I finally told him if he missed any more payments I was going to put a 'for sale' sign in his front yard and he'd have to move. Since then he's been timely on his payments.

I think, rather than a full confrontation, where I will forget half of what I want to say to him, I will write another letter. He seems to absorb it better, and if it makes him mad he just stays away for awhile. I just hate having to do this.

This is Tuesday and we got 1 and 1/2 inches of snow last night. There is a fine mist coming down out there that is expected to last all day. They called off school in most of the counties around us yesterday, but our schools were open. And although Bartlesville and Caney Valley Schools in our county closed today, they did not close Dewey or Copan. It's really slick out there. DH drove Jesse to school and will go pick him up. I would've just kept him home but it's the end of the semester and there are tests that Jesse can't afford to miss taking.

I am still feeling bad, the head cold has now become a chest cold, but I'm taking stuff so hopefully it won't be much longer. I'm not quite so grumpy so I must be feeling better. Dawn, that tortilla and taco soup sounds wonderful. I'm really grateful for all that chicken and turkey broth I put down in the freezer as I'm making a lot of soup lately.

Oh, and my cabbage and some of the romaine did make it through the last freeze. I have it all covered and bags of leaves on top so who knows if it will survive this. I won't be going out to check on it till the weather warms on Thursday though. Will let you know then. I just wasn't very well prepared because I had been so busy working on that rental house.

I think I'll get some of that beef broth out of the freezer and make some veggie soup today. Y'all stay warm and well. --Ilene

Ilene,

Without going into as much detail, for fear of losing it all again, I'll just relate what happened with my sister. She married young (at 18) and had two children before she was 21, and was married to an abusive person. The marriage only lasted a few years.

My parents then pretty much supported my sis and her children for the next 15 years. Oh, she always worked, but she never seemed able to live on her income. My parents were not wealthy by any means, but they worked hard, paid cash for everything and saved religiously for their retirement. Then, after dad retired, they spent much of their retirement money on my sister and her kids. At various times, she lived with them, lived with us, lived with her in-laws (while still married to the abusive spouse), etc. My parents helped her buy several cars over the years, bought her a house (for which she was supposed to make regular house payments back to them), "loaned" her money that she did not always repay, etc. I do not think it would be an exaggeration to say they gave her money every week for years and years. I believe they did it mostly because of the kids--they didn't want the kids to go without.

Finally, though, as my dad's Alzheimer's got worse and my mom had to face the prospect of a future without him, I think she finally realized that their savings were depleting pretty quickly and that she couldn't keep supporting my sister. She told my sister that she was keeping a running total of how much money my sister and her kids borrowed, and that they were expected to pay it back. I have no idea how well that worked, although I know at some points in time my sister was making regular payments to them. Finally, after my brother (the oldest of the 4 of us) started handling dad's and mom's banking for them, he and mom put it into the will that my sis' debt would be substracted from any eventual inheritance she might receive from their estate. At that point, everything changed and my sister stopped frittering away their money.

My sister got her act together, moved out and set up her own household and became (finally) responsible for herself and her kids. I think, ironically, she seemed much happier after doing that, Ilene. It was a relief for the remaining three kids because we were afraid she'd use up mom's money and that mom would be left destitute. And, what aggravated us other kids wasn't the issue of money, per se, but rather the total dependance upon them and, also, the feeling she was taking advantage of their kindess.

My sister knows she'll never pay back all the money she borrowed, and she fully expects an inheritance of nothing or very little. But, for well over a decade, she was supported by them while the rest of us supported ourselves (as adults should) and she understands that she essentially received her "inheritance" while our parents were still alive.

So, Ilene, tough love worked in this case. Once she understood that the "Bank of Mom and Dad" was tracking her expenditures and expecting reimbursement, she stopped spending like there was no tomorrow. She finally grew up--even though she was probably close to 40 years old before she stopped depending on them financially. And, don't get me wrong--I love my sister dearly and am proud of the person she has become. The money was never an issue between us kids--we knew it was our parents' money and that they could choose to spend it however they chose. The issue was her irresponsibility....and, we kids used to say to one another "she'll have to support herself when they're gone, 'cause I'm not gonna do it".

I think my parents always meant well, and my sister probably did not intend to take unfair advantage of their kindess. I think that it just was too easy for her to take their money and I don't think she ever thought she had to actually pay it back. Once she realized she was running up a huge tab, she stopped doing it. And, I want to repeat, she seems so much happier now. You know how they say children need limits, Ilene? Well, she needed limits even though she was an adult with kids of her own, and once those limits were established, she complied with them and seemed to thrive. It was VERY hard for my mom to lay down the law to my sister, and I think my sister resented it at first, but it all worked out.

So, I believe in tough love, and I wish they'd done in sooner in this situation and saved everyone a lot of grief and frustration. At least, though, they did it. And, my sister and her kids are still a major presence in my mom's life and see her several times a week, so it didn't ruin their relationship. In fact, I think they are closer in some ways now than they were before. And, I also want to emphasize that my sister was always very kind, loving and helpful to my parents--she appreciated that they helped support her and the kids, and she was always willing to do anything and everything they needed. Still, it was better for everyone that she moved out, established her own household and became self-supporting. Sometimes, it just takes some adults a bit longer than others to completely grow up.

Dawn

Dawn, I hear what you're saying. In fact, we have a daughter that was exactly like that. We, like your parents, spent thousands of dollars getting her out of one scrape and then another. We bought Christmas for her boys every year because she would say she could not afford to and then she would spend her money on a gift for some no-good man that wouldn't be in her life in a month. It was horrible. We kept her in used cars so that she would work, she never paid us back and she would drive them into the ground and then expect DH to come and rescue her every time it would quit on her. Then she developed a friendship with another woman with small children and moved to Tulsa with her, taking my grandsons with her. We drove 50 miles every Friday night to go get our boys and then again on Sunday night to take them home. Jesse chattered happily in the back seat all the way to our house, but was always somber and quiet all the way back to his home. It tore me apart to see my grandchildren suffer. She called me in the middle of the night one night, saying her current BF had spent her rent money on drugs and she had only a few days to get out and could we come take the boys? The apartment was filthy, it smelled of the cat litter box. Jake was eating cereal out of a box that had roaches running out of it. There were dirty dishes, dirty clothes, pages of un-worked homework and I don't know what all, all over the place. I was so angry, I said things to DD that I had bottled up for a long time. We took those boys home and we had them for two years with hardly any contact from her. She hooked up with a young man who moved her to Wagoner, and they wanted to "be a family", so we took the boys to them. But it didn't work out and we finally, to make a long story short, talked DD into letting us adopt the boys. They were ready for 5th grade by then and both carrying baggage from struggles with their mother. She made a panic call to me one last time, when she was left without a place to live. I said to her, "Honey, what are YOU going to do?" She sounded kind of surprised and said, "I thought YOU'D do something..." So I gave her phone numbers of homeless shelters near her. It was hard to do. She told me later it really hurt her feelings, but she does acknowledge that it was probably for the best. She is not named in our will except to state that she has already received her share.

Meanwhile DS is watching all this. I kept telling him, it was because of the grandkids. He has made remarks that indicated he didn't approve of our helping her and since he has never had children he had no understanding of the situation. He always acted like he thought he was better than her because he always paid us back what he borrowed and would come and help us when we needed it. He conveniently "glossed over" the times when I had to threaten him to make him come through on his payments and he ignored the fact that many (but not all) of the things he did for us, he got paid to do it.

So I am working on a letter. If I try to talk to him he'll say something that will get me off the topic or he'll get mad and go home in the middle and I want to say everything I need to say. At this point I have three pages but I've gotten off on a tangent and I need to edit it and stay on track so my meaning isn't lost. I just hate to have to do this, and it makes me mad at him for putting me in this position. Dawn, I appreciate your taking the time to relate your family story. I know several grandparents who have told me similar ones. I guess the situation is pretty common. I will probably have to repeat the process again, with Jesse. *sigh*

This is Wednesday morning and they have closed Dewey schools, finally. We didn't get any further precip, but I guess the roads are iced over.... I don't get it. But Jesse's glad to have the day off. Friday is the last day of school before Christmas break. I think it would be a good day for him to clean up his room, eh?

Ilene, I can feel for you on this. Like Dawn, I have a brother who my parents support.

Richard is 36, will turn 37 in February. He got married the first time about 15 years ago. They had a son together and she had two children from previous relationships. Well, long story shortened, the marriage ended, she has the child. He's not allowed to see him, our family isn't allowed to see him. My brother doesn't pay the child support he's ordered to and is a deadbeat dad. After he moved from Texas to Oklahoma with my parents following the divorce, he began getting into trouble a lot. He was 20 at this point. My parents have paid many fines, court costs, probation costs,and restitution along with supporting him because he will not keep a job. He was doing drugs and still is, to my knowledge. He continued to live with my parents supporting him until about 5 years ago. Well... he doesn't live with them any more.. the support though... my parents dealt with their home being surrounded by police looking for him, police at the door at all hours, etc.

Well, after I moved to Chickasha from Texas, my parents decided to buy another home. So I bought the one they had from them. I was making monthly payments and when I moved from Chickasha, I owed only $6000 on it (another story, well, part of it will be told here..but not all in interest of not deluging everyone with my previous life). In this time, my parents had bought my brother about 5-8 cars, which he tore up.

So, about three years ago, he marries this woman he'd known for three (yes, that's 3) days and had only met face to face one day before he married her. They moved out of state for about a year and seemed to be doing okay. Then they suddenly move back here. Well, they were bickering with her mother about the custody of her other two children, which her mother had been raising for the last two years. DHS got involved and removed the two girls from her mother and my niece from them. I helped my mother become foster parent for my niece and the two step-nieces. My parents are older and not in the best of health. So with three children ages 5,2, and 5 months, they needed me involved on a daily basis because of my parent's health. Eventually the two older girls were given to their biological father in Arizona. Which wasn't entirely a bad thing in my opinion. Those two, particularly the oldest, were very much in need of discipline, which as foster parents we were unable to give. This child at 5 years old would slap an adult in the face. Along with throwing the most horrible tantrums. And that's just the mildest of her behavior. We couldn't spank, nor do anything but put her in a time out chair... but not in a corner.. for a minute per year of age. We could not physically restrain her, so if she didn't want to sit in the chair, she wouldn't. But I digress...

So, we have my niece, who was at this time, a year old.

My mother is desperate to keep her and understandably so. So she's paying my brother's rent behind my daddy's back. She's providing all of their living expenses. They still aren't working their steps to get the baby back. And they're getting kicked out of another house because my mother was giving my brother the money to pay the rent because she couldn't be seen to do so. Not only because of my daddy, but because of DHS too. But he wasn't paying the rent, he was buying weed and meth. Well, about this time, my husband at the time and I were having lots of problems. He was addicted to gambling and porn and I had put him out. I had excused myself as my niece's caregiver. My now ex-husband started stalking me, shining floodlights in my windows at night, threatening me, trying to have my children taken by DHS, which wasn't going to happen and was rather foolish on his part since DHS was in my house on a weekly basis because of my niece. Well... one night he really snapped about 8 months after I put him out and he tried to kill me and ended up stabbing himself in the throat when the police cornered him. You'd think he'd go to jail after leaving the hospital, right? Apparently not. After my daughter and I turned an aisle in Wal~Mart and came face to face with him, I decided it was time to move. So my kids and I moved to Edmond where my best friend lived and my ex didn't know anything about where we'd be. My three oldest kids were going to stay in Chickasha and continue paying for the house there because they all three had jobs there and my second to oldest was in his Senior year of high school. (The third child was my 28 year old niece that I raised with my children). This is where we get back to my bother... so, my house is there and my kids are living in it and paying the remaining owed on the house as monthly rent, making the same payments I had been. Well, my mother decided that instead of paying my brother's rent, she would just give him the house I'd been paying for. I wasn't using it, right? She had the utilities shut off there, then my niece that I raised, who was named for my mother and myself, her first name being my mother's, tried to get the utilities on in her name again, she told them that they were trying to steal her identity. So they were investigating and would not turn anything on there. So, the kids had no utilities, and I move them up here with me. I was going to sell the house, which was in my name for taxes,for enough to cover what I owed my parents, plus 20% of the profit as a thank you because they'd held the note without any extra interest, though I'd paid the interest on their new home as well (they sold me the house for the price, including interest, on their new house and used my payments and them adding double payments (resulting in triple payments each month) to pay theirs off faster, but I was still paying the full interest, didn't mind because it helped all of us out) and the rest would be mine for what I had put into the house. Well, my mother called me on a weekly and then daily basis for three months. She and my brother ran off everyone that I sent over there to view the house. Apparently my brother was already squatting in it. Well, I finally signed the house back over to them.. with no profit. I just got tired of dealing with it. She move my bother right in, provided utilities and groceries for him, etc. Telling DHS that he was buying the house from them. I was finished with the whole thing at this point.. and have only spoken to my mother twice in the past 9 months.

I love my parents very much. I just get really tired of seeing him use them. See, my daddy isn't my biological father and I've never expected to have any of their estate when they pass. Now don't get me wrong, he's always treated me as his child and always told me that I would share equally. He's raised me since before my birth. But he has a daughter from his first marriage and my brother is his. I've always been able to make my own way. In their will I'm, at last knowledge, executor of their estate, but have already told them that I would prefer not to be left anything and that I will not fight with my step sister and brother over things or money.That I would administer the estate and manage the trust so they couldn't just sell everything off and blow it, but would not fight with them over anything else, including anything left to me. My daddy gave me his name and his love. That's my inheritance.

The last time my mother called me it was to cry because my brother had turned against her yet again (this was a month before my wedding and three week before my second to oldest son's graduation). Blaming her for everything that's gone wrong in his life and that she's taking a second child from him. I listened to all this for about 45 minutes. Never once did she ask about any of my children, or my wedding plans, or my son's graduation. I hated to be callus, but I told her I didn't want to hear it as this is a repeating thing with him. And that if she couldn't call with some interest in how my children and I are and how my new marriage is going (yes, they've met Cliff, but couldn't take the time to get to know him well because they were so caught up with my brother) then to please not call. I'm the one she comes to when she wants to complain about how badly my brother treats them. When she wants someone to step in and be the one to say "No more" and clean up the mess but then she turns around and does it again. So, I live my new, very happy, very peaceful life here and they live theirs there. I still love my parents.. and even my brother. I just can't stand seeing what they allow him to do to them.

Sorry that got so long. There was so much unsaid, even so. But this gives you an idea. I have tried many times to convince my mother she's doing no one a favor in allowing this to continue... in enabling it. And I've reached a point in my life that I can't continue to use all my time and energy cleaning up the messes created by this awful symbiosis. I've spent most of my life doing so. My parents have helped me occasionally, but they have ALWAYS been paid back every penny plus some as my thanks for doing so. I use tough love with my own children. To the extent of packing my oldest son's stuff up and being very serious about putting him out if he did not have a job in two weeks after he graduated from high school. He had one in a week and his own place a month later and has been on his own two feet since.

The last I heard from them was when she called crying that day. In the whole of that call she never asked once about my children.. her grandchildren. Before I asked her not to call unless she had some interest in how we're doing, I mentioned the time for Jarret's graduation to be told she couldn't come because she'd be in court again on my niece's custody. She'd be right down the street from where the graduation was held and it was about 2 hours after court would end completely for the day. And was told that she could not come to my wedding because my niece would be on a visit with her other grandmother (in OKC) and she needed to stay nearby because the visit ended at 3... my wedding was at 5 and 30 minutes away from where the visit was to be.

I'm not trying to whine here. I'm a grown woman and handle my own life. Just please realize that if you have other children, whether they expect to inherit or not, it is painful to them to see you have to deal with something like this as well. The way I see it, I am estranged from my parents by my mother's choice. I didn't ask her not to do what she does. All I asked was that if she calls, to do so with the intent of visiting and learning how my children and I are doing. I pray for them all every night and worry every day, but doing so is much easier to bear than hearing my mother cry every time I talk with her about someone who leeches from her and everyone around him.. and she allows him to do so.

So, please, don't be so upset about needing to be tough with your son. And if you have other children, I know it can be painful to them to see their parents taken advantage of. I wish my parents would understand that.

Kathy

Kathy, bless your heart.

This reminds me of something someone at work said to me one day, when we were all discussing trials and tribulations. There was a pause in the conversation and she said, "You don't realize it till you get to know people, but almost all of us are 'walking wounded' in one way or another."

I love to hear Dawn and George talk about their parents and grandparents because there is such love and warmth there. How I wish I could've had that. It's fun to live vicariously through them sometimes. I was estranged from my birth family, because of some dirty politics, when my kids were teenagers. I suppose I could've fought it and come out on top but I just didn't have the stomach for it, so I walked away and let them say whatever they wanted to about me. My kids kept in contact with them for awhile, but grew tired of the way my family roasted me in their presence and eventually quit having anything to do with them, as well. My sibs later on put my parents in a nursing home without my knowledge. When they died I found out by seeing it in the obits. The whole mess hurt for a long time, but I'm good now. I know now that some people are so hollow they just have no love to give. I celebrate, every now and then, that I was able to break away before I became one of them. Some people do not understand. They say, "HOW could you choose to abandon your FAMILY?" And I always say, "Go to your knees and praise God that you have family that you would never WANT to abandon." I do still have my cousins, who saw things as they were, and a niece and an ex-brother-in-law who experienced some of the same lynch-mob treatment as I did. I'm grateful for the family that I have left.

I just have the daughter and the son. They are in their early 40's. The grandsons we adopted were the daughter's only children and one of them has gone back to her, not wanting to follow our rules. He turned 18 last month and has never had a job. He has failed nearly every class he has taken at school since the 9th grade. I struggled with him while I had him with me, trying to keep him in school and doing his homework. He was a class clown and a smart-alec to his teachers. When, at 15, he started slipping out his window at night and hanging around a married woman whose husband was a trucker and gone a lot, I called DD and told her he needed to go. So she came and got him. I still cannot look at him without feeling anger. That amused look that's always on his face, how he wears his clothes, what he wears, how he wears his hair. He looks like Bozo with a little Don Ameche mustache. It all just makes me mad.

Our son was married for awhile. His wife was a real piece of work, she was a daddy's girl and her daddy was a frightful bore. She didn't want to have children, then got pregnant by a man she was messing around with at work. Before they got divorced she had had two babies by two different men. It's a long story. Ah, maybe it is true that that which doesn't kill you will make you strong.

It sounds to me like you have gone above and beyond the call of duty. I applaud you for finding ways to break the chain. And no, I don't think you were whining. I really just want to reach out and give you a great big bear hug, Sweetie!

I am still working on that letter. I'm telling him I'm adding that payment owed back onto the spreadsheet, that if I ever strike a deal like this with him again, he will complete it before his loan payment is due or he will need to pay it and I will credit it back to him when the project is finished. I'm telling him I will not loan him money again, and that we know he didn't have to work all weekend. I'm reminding him I can still put a "for sale" sign in his front yard if I want to. We had the house in his name and ours until we discovered he wasn't really interested in cleaning up his credit. Then I had him sign a Quit Claim to keep his creditors from making any claims against it. I'm even considering telling him I'm thinking about making some changes to the will. ....Though that's kind of manipulative, don't you think? I really don't want to hold that over anyone's head. I would love to teach him how to manage his money but he just doesn't want to learn. He keeps telling me, "I'm not YOU, Mom". Well shoot! How bad would that be? Two me's? LOL

Ilene, it's very true that most people can be considered "walking wounded". It's what you do with your experiences that matters. Some people wallow in them and use them as an excuse for not doing or being better. Some pick themselves up and use those wounds as motivation to succeed. I hope that I am one of the latter. :)

My children and happy and healthy. I have a new husband who cherishes me. We have a rather peaceful life. Cliff and I are so much alike in our thoughts, opinions and wants it's unreal. He's my best friend in the world and I'm so blessed to have him.

I haven't seen my parents since shortly after I moved to Edmond July 2007. There have been no calls since just before my wedding. Which is fine with me on many levels. I'm not a person who cares much for drama and since I've not had it in my life day in and out, I've come to realize that my mother is all about the drama. It's emotionally wearing. And I was worn out. I enjoy the peace I have now. My husband and children fully support this decision. My children know how their grandmother is.. which is a sad thing.

Honestly, in my opinion, I would probably mention changes to the will, something like Dawn's parents did with his debts to the estate being deducted from the inheritance before he receives anything. It's not manipulating, it's ensuring your other children's inheritance.

HUGS,
Kathy

Ilene,

Hang in there, girl, and stick to your guns. Write your letter, say what you have to say, get it off your chest, and "force" your son to be a man and face up to his debts. In the long run, and there might be rough moments along the way, it all will work out! An adult child who "mooches" off his/her parents is pretty much like a 2-year-old toddler....desperately needing for limits to be set. I also think it can be a great learning experience for Jesse because he will understand your son has been taking advantage of you and that such behavior is unacceptable.

Kathy,

You know, I think you are a remarkable woman. You have been through so much with your family and, yet, here you are....whole, intact, thriving and always such a happy, cheerful presence here. Knowing your love of gardening as I do (and yours, too, Ilene), I bet there are times when gardening as been your "stress relief" and has helped you deal with it all.

I think everyone has family issues of one kind or another, and once we recognize that, we don't have to put up a pretense of having a "perfect family" or having lived a "perfect, storybook life". It is so much easier to just be real and say "this is how it is".

How blessed we are that we can share our love of gardening here.....but, more importantly, we can share what is going on in our lives. When one of us is having a bad day, or week, month or year, we can say so and we know we'll receive love, encouragement and support from our on-line gardening family. We aren't just growing gardens here on this forum, we are growing gardeners and human beings too. Ain't life grand?

Dawn

Dawn, very true! Gardening has been not only my sanity in a sometimes insane world, but for my children as well. It's our therapy,stress relief and our get away from everything time. Have you ever noticed how much easier it is to get an important conversation going with your children in a casual manner while gardening? It seems that you can get to chatting and they feel more free to express their worries and fears while gardening. It's also a way of showing that out of very little comes abundance and life, that everything starts small.

And thank you for the compliment. I've always felt that there is a reason why we deal with the things we do, the important part is not missing the lesson it teaches. There have been some rough times in my life, but if I let it overwhelm me, all that would teach my kids is to lie down and give up.

I also agree that we're growing more than gardens here. It's a wonderful thing to have this outlet as well. When I was in junior high school, I had a really wonderful councilor who taught me to write things down, any thought that occurred, problems, etc. Then go back and read them through later. It not only helped me to express those emotions, but gave me a way to go back later, once the "pressure" had been vented, and possibly see a solution. Here, we have lots of people helping us look for that solution. And I like being able to get the feedback. Sometimes I feel petty for what I'm feeling, it's nice to have others identify and be able to tell me that no, I'm not being petty, whiney or feeling put upon, I have justification for how I'm feeling. That in and of itself goes a long way to finding a solution. Because then I can stop worrying about whether I'm being petty or not and concentrate on the issue at hand.

I prefer to have a happy outlook on life. There are enough people dragging around forgetting the good in their lives while they focus entirely on the bad. I don't believe we were created to be miserable. Besides, being able to smile in the face of adversity is a wonderful thing to have. Everyone has problems from time to time. That is one of the great equalizers in this life. Being able to bear it with good grace and a smile for someone else is true wealth. Besides, there is no way I would ever want to be confused for my mother, who bemoans everything, downplays what she has in order to gain sympathy and material things, and really enjoys the drama of being beleaguered. I love my mother, I just don't like her very much. And I very much want to be a different impact in life than she is. I want my children to learn to stand under adversity, not wallow "joyfully" in it, as she does.

LOL, if more people would garden and join GW, we could put the psychologists out of business!

Kathy

P.S. My DH keeps telling me I need to buy my Mom a really big wooden cross, that way whenever she's feeling beleaguered and unappreciated, she can just climb on up and nail herself up for all the world to see. Not meaning to sound blasphemous, though he really is serious :P and borrowing a line from the movie The Ref

Amen, Dawn!

And Kathy, you are 100% right. Wallowing in hurt just gives the person who hurt you a second victory.

My big breakthrough (Oprah calls it an "aha moment") was when I accidentally happened upon a sermon that Joyce Meyers was giving on TV. At that time I had never heard her before. She is Pentacostal, I am Protestant, but the message crossed all lines. She said, "Most people who hurt you didn't set out to do that. They weren't even thinking about you at all. They were just doing what they do, and you just happened to get in the way." and I realized that that was the case where my family was concerned, and Kathy, I think it is for your family, too. My family always had to have someone to hate. My mother was always picking on someone and all my sibs and my dad, too, were afraid not to follow suit lest they become next on the list! While my dad's mother was alive, she was most often 'it'. From time to time, 'it' was my eldest sister. I found it interesting that when I became 'it', my eldest sister stopped all contact with me, as did the others, including of course the one who started it all in the first place. So I have done my birth family a service, 'scapegoat style' and I consider it just that. Now that my parents are deceased, my sisters are ruling their families just as our mother did. Sad, so sad.

Hugs to you all, have a great day today! --Ilene

Kathy,

Oh, this is just scarey because your mom sounds like my mom! So, you see, I do understand fully and my feelings about my mom are very similar to yours.

Ilene,

I love the "aha" moment and agree with what she said. Your mom sounds like my MIL, and I just had to pretty much decide to ignore everything she said after it became apparent that nothing I did was right or ever would be. I basically told DH "She's your mom, you deal with her". Once I quit trying to please a person who could not be pleased, my life became much less stressful.

Too yucky today to garden, so I'm working on my veggie grow list for 2009. I want to see some sunshine today--instead it is foggy, moist and cool. At least the temps are above freezing though! And, because I liberally scatter seed EVERYWHERE for the wild birds, I have dozens in the yard right now...I could stand at the window and watch them forever.

Dawn

People who behave like that are really miserably unhappy people. They want people to love them but they're so darned hateful, no one can, so they force people to act like they do by using whatever powers they have available to them. Mom used guilt, shame and fear of being kicked out of the family. She eventually ended up with Alzheimer's, although I think she was mis-diagnosed. I think all that hate she carried around with her just burned up her circuits. The last time I was summoned to go see her she really dished it out, and finished by saying, "You're driving me CRAZY!" I told my aunt (dad's sister) and she said, "The only person driving Aldine crazy is ..... Aldine." I never went back after that. I felt bad for Dad and I knew he didn't feel the way she did even though he didn't dare say so. He could never go anywhere without her so there was no getting him alone without getting him in trouble. I heard from a cousin that she started hitting Dad and I guess that's why my sibs put them both in a nursing home, in separate rooms. I would've visited him there if I'd known, it was less than a block from where I worked, but I didn't find that out till I read his obit. She never knew he died. She had a stroke and died about a year later. When I heard she had Alzheimer's, I thought that would be an improvement for her to not be able to remember who she hated or why. Somebody just please strike me dead if I ever get like that.

Too yucky for me to get out, too. But Jesse went to school and when he gets home at noon we're going up to school and I'll help him distribute goodies. Lemon blueberry muffins for each of his two lab teachers and his family living teacher. They've all had him for several years so there's $$$ in their Christmas cards. I think they'll be pleased. Then a dozen brownie cookies and a dozen Pride of Iowa cookies for his man teachers, for the principal, and for whomever's working in the office this week. Then half a dozen of both of the same cookies for each of the two school counselors. This being Jesse's last Christmas at school I wanted them all to know we appreciate them. Although that one man teacher, I'd just as soon leave him out as he's been a 'you-know-what' for both classes that he's had Jesse. But oh well it's Christmas. I'm just glad Jesse didn't get the teacher I locked horns with last spring semester. I swear, I WOULD put coal in his goodie bag. He was such an up-tight little snot.

My neighbors are getting jam but not today.

We've been having a little trouble with Sonny, our dog. He doesn't seem to like his dog food. Instead he begs, tries to get into the compost bin because I threw some spoiled rice in there, eats the cat's food if we don't get it put up in time, and goes outside with her and EATS HER POO! Yeccchhhhhh! I'm so totally disgusted! He also will help himself to anything left on the coffee table if you have to get up and answer the door and last night I heard him rustling around in something. He knows better. He knows what no means. After he's done it, his eyes get really big and round and he looks from side to side as if we're going to beat him or something. Sheesh! So today, I dumped his dog food bowl outside on the ground. The birds are LOVIN' it! Cardinals, Bluejays and Sparrows. Lots of Cardinals. I gave Sonny a clean bowl, put a good scoop of dog food in it and poured on some of the water, warmed, that was left when we boiled polish sausages for supper last night. I let that sit for a little and stirred it and it made some brown gravy-looking stuff (I didn't know this brand would do that but it did). I put that down and Sonny ate the whole thing. Maybe by the time the sausage water is gone he will eat it with plain water. He's otherwise looking healthy. We had his teeth checked and they're ok.

The neighbor's siamese is still camping out on my front porch, even in this bad weather. She huddles up close to the door and literally falls into the house when the door is opened. I want to let her in. But I want her to go home worse.

I agree completely. My mother uses whatever she can find to "manage" everyone's lives. I think part of why she allows my bother to do the things he does to her is that she enjoys the control. She also enjoy being pitied. I know my Daddy doesn't agree with the things she says and does. Actually, they argued over the things she did to me. But in the end, I can understand that though he stood up to her over it, he still let well enough alone because he lives with her day in and out. My view any more is that life is too short to let it take up my time. I hate knowing that we're estranged, but it's her choice and I don't think my request was unreasonable. And my life is much more peaceful without all the drama.

Any my children do still have grandparents. Cliff's family adores them and enjoys them without expectations or reservations :)

Kathy

After reading this thread, I feel both sorry and greatly blessed. I am sure that Heavenly Father saw my limitations and knew that I just couldn't handle problems like you ladies have had. I have been so blessed in my life. My Mother is 97 and a bit of a drama queen, but is such a nice person. My sister's biggest fault is that she is afraid someone will do something FOR her, instead of letting her do something for them.

I have never had to deal with drugs or get a child out of jail, although we have bailed them out financially a few times when things got tough. LOL I had one that was a bit of a poor student and I wondered if I would ever get him through high school. Now he has a double masters and is working on a PHD. Who knew?

My heart goes out to those of you dealing with such serious problems. Hang in there and I think it will get better. I pray that I will continue to be blessed because I know I would be too weak to handle some of your emotional trials.

My life has not been totally without trouble, but I have been fortunate in just being able to walk away from it and not look back. I really love my life. I have a few health issues to deal with, but that is OK too. I have good kids that are all grown, and a wonderful husband.

I hope that all of you can enjoy your Christmas season and have a happy time going through all of those seed and plant catalogs. It is bitter cold here and everytime I walk outside I think about how good Mexico is going to feel. LOL