That was written last night just as the library was closing, so I ended more abruptly than I intended. Our story was more give and take and a real discussion, less abrupt than the way I ended it here. It seems to me that we have as a society become more self-centred, less concerned with the welfare of others and of the community than was true in earlier generations ... and "locations", possibly, as I grew up on a farm near a village and our village and church was mainly long-term residents, so it had become somewhat like larger, or extended family. As a farmer I learned of the importance of being in tune with the earth and using resources carefully and with discretion, not wasting them. The fact troubles me that while small, single-horse-drawn covered wagons delivered milk, bread and ice to homes in cities, about 70 years ago, that they began building refrigerators about 60 years ago, that a substantial percentage of the ones that they built 50 years ago lasted for 40 years ... but that a substantial proportion of the ones that they build today last for about ten years. I feel doubly troubled: that we're wasting precious resources, of petroleum and iron ore, smelters, cutting and shaping machines and trucks to haul the parts ... including plastics, which are also sourced from petroleum. It took millions of years to produce it, and we've been using a major portion of the earth's supply in the last less than 100 years. It seems to me that our grandkids will be angry with us for our wastefulness, our profligacy. Secondly ... when the engineers, who haven't become stupider in the last 50 years, build a fridge and sell it to me with a smile on their face, that'll last about a fifth as long as they could make it to last ... ... I feel cheated ... sort of like being mugged (without a gun). That's without making reference to all of the pollution and global warming that are being generated by these wasteful ways that we've developed in recent years. And are guaranteed to become more acute, as millions in various parts of the world become more prosperous. Dad taught me that when I was doing a job ... that I should do it RIGHT! (And when I didn't ... I had to do it over again). Plus ... when you work with folks scores of thousands of whom have left their former lives and become refugees in another part of their war-torn country with nothing but the clothes on their backs, as you learn how the small things of life become precious to them, you learn of the value of all aspects of this, what I believe to be God's world, that S/He's entrusted into our hands and expects us to make use of as responsible stewards. ole joyful

Honestly, I think the Buttermilk is a little too yellow for your honey colored cabinets. It's also the same type of pattern as your floor tile. I would use the Caesarstone Chocolate Truffle as it will tie your cabinets together with the floor, having both the rich honey tones and the lighter beige tones of your floor tiles. I think it's a better fit and adds a bit more pattern and punch.

Such things as telling off a mentally ill person do no good. They create negative karma and don't impact the negative person in any way other than to reflect back at them the negative energy they are giving out, which is how their life is going anyway, most of the time. I have already tried that strategy to the max and long-ago abandoned it. There are two issues for me. One is handling an aging parent with mental difficulties. The key is compassionate detachment. It would be the same if you had a younger relative who refused help for something like addiction, etc. Some people can't handle it and completely cut off all contact with the sick person. I have seen that play out in many families. Others get completely caught up in their family's dysfunction. I am treading a middle path, and I think I do that quite well . . . most of the time. My father's sickness frustrates and saddens me, but that is not the source of grief for my mother. It is occasionally painfully ironic, but that is just the tip of the iceberg with him. Mentally ill people do not learn from their mistakes or learn from advice given by other people. If they did, they would not be sick. Sometimes there is no fix, just accept and detach. You know, the old "let go and let god" of AA. I think I was not clear that I am already pretty much in that space as far as self-care goes. That isn't really the source of my grief. It's not just when I'm with my father that this grief for my mother hits me, so I probably shouldn't even have brought up his presence at the dinner. It is just that I so often do or see things I could have done with my mother so easily which would have made her happy, and it pains me to try and still do them, and find it difficult to find anyone ELSE who actually enjoys them the way my mother would. My husband does not, my father does not, and I have few relatives to share old memories with. I do tea parties for work also, and other things for work my mother would have enjoyed. Not the same thing. No one else in my social circle is knocking themselves out to carry on family niceties that include me. So yes, I can do it and I do, but I don't really have a partner in crime and my energy is limited. There are only so many tea parties I can plan. BTW, my whole wedding reception last summer was a tea party in honor of my mother. My cousins helped me do that. Then my cousin died six weeks later. But I still have a lot in common with her daughter and we do whatever we can when we can, but she lives quite far away. It's rare when I can get a friend or family member to visit, most are tied up with kids or grandkids. As a side note, the last time I saw my mother I came over for Sunday dinner, helped her cook and serve and cleaned up from it and left her with a batch of muffins for that next week's tea or breakfast. So I did what I could when she was alive. She never got to finish the muffins, she died from a fall while unloading groceries later that week, she had gotten home at tea time but didn't get that last tea break which would have come after the groceries had been put away. It pained me so to go to a church function at Christmas, one I had attended as a child, and see zero home-made food at the reception, and all paper plates even though the church had a full set of nice dishes--no one volunteering to wash them in the full kitchen that goes unused most of the time now. In their defense, the older ladies who were there were working hard to pull it off, the same group that I see almost everywhere and the ranks are thinning. So it's not just an issue of my mother passing on, that whole genteel way of life is fading away. I belong to some of the social and charity groups my mother belonged to, the ranks get thinner and thinner and older and older, with no young (we're talking 40's or early 50's) people to take their place. Not to mention the professional and community clubs that have just left town already, like AAUW, for example. I can't hardly get a friend to have the time to come over for a nice dinner, even if I could pull one off, most are sandwiching just like us.

One thing we've learned and experienced, and I hope others have too, is that there is a panoply of choices for video communications, all of which are incredibly easy and flexible given good internet connections. We have friends all over the friggin place, including abroad, with whom we've been in more contact than ever before since we can't visit them, as we normally do. We have regular sessions with friends and far flung family too, some multiple times a week. As individuals continue to get their shots, we will continue these sessions anyway because they provide more frequent and more enjoyable contact than visits or phone calls. Just to be complete, in no particular order, we do video visits with WhatsApp, Apple's Facetime, Google Meet, Zoom, and Skype. I'm sure there are others. What we use depends on the location and preference of the other parties. The quality of all is about the same, usually excellent. All are free to get but a few have time limits. WhatApp, Facetime, and Skype do not. A friend in the East has a work-related Zoom account so that's "free" and unlimited for us to use.