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3204. Magoseph - 8/25/2005 11:52:04 PM

Now my son tells me that they are not going to do the inside work themselves because their time is worth more financially to them than spending it finishing the lake room.

3205. judithathome - 8/26/2005 12:12:59 AM

Heh...that was my thought when you said that...I wouldn't do the finishing work on any room for all the tea in China. It's a big pain and I would feel totally comfortable letting the pros do it because, after all, that is what they do. They know all the tricks and shortcuts and they have all the tools already.

Now, furnishing the room and decorating it? I there 100%!

3206. Jenerator - 8/26/2005 3:03:56 AM

My husband is the type to need a project, and I am lucky that he can do most anything - framing, sheetrocking, wiring, plumbing, etc. It's just getting him to finish a job that's the hard part.

Our next project is to tear down the garage that's on a different foundation than the house, but attached at the roof, and to build a new two story garage/guest room in its place.

3207. PelleNilsson - 8/27/2005 6:36:24 PM

This is our oldest orchid. It is ailing - this may be its last flowering.

3208. judithathome - 8/28/2005 8:23:48 PM

Well, that last flowering is pretty spectacular. As they say, to everything there is a season...looks like yours has had a long and happy one. How old is it, anyhow?

3209. alistairConnor - 8/28/2005 9:59:55 PM

I've always wondered if Europeans are more efficient workers.

France, which surely has the most paid holidays and probably the shortest working week, has the highest (private sector) hourly productivity rate in the world.

The work's there, you do it.

3210. arkymalarky - 8/28/2005 11:18:50 PM

I do much better on the job with a good amount of time off. In teaching, it gets oppressive for teachers and students to spend too much time in class, and extra class time becomes counter-productive after a certain point.

3211. arkymalarky - 8/28/2005 11:22:27 PM

My goodness, what a beautiful orchid!

I can't believe sluggish connection loaded it.

And I can also see Mags' pictures. The addition looks great, and I know your son's family will really enjoy it.

When we built our house we thought we'd do some of the work ourselves. We did very little, and no painting at all. It just wasn't worth the grief while we were trying to work full time and deal with Mose's activities, etc.

3212. thoughtful - 8/29/2005 5:44:38 PM

Pelle, that orchid is beautiful!

My denny the dendrobium is pushing up another shoot...hope to have some flowers of his to enjoy before too long.

I cleaned out a bunch of plants...my plant room was getting so overwhelming I could hardly fit in. It's much nicer and neater now, but I just hate throwing out plants.

I have a burro's tail...though it's not so full and rich as this one. They're a neat plant but if you touch them, the petals fall off like mad, so once you place it, you have to leave it. But the petals will root themselves if placed on the soil, so I trim it back and grow some more. THey were from a gf's mom over 30 years ago...managed to keep the thing going.



3213. Jenerator - 8/29/2005 6:46:23 PM

Beautiful orchid, beautiful picture Pelle.

3214. Ms. No - 8/31/2005 4:05:03 PM

Mago, that looks great! What a wonderful place to relax.

3215. Magoseph - 9/1/2005 4:28:38 PM

Yes, thank you, Ms. No, it is nice and it will be pleasant to entertain there because of the facilities (gas and implements) to barbecue just outside their door on the lake side--at least, this is what I understand. They are contemplating a second floor--just the place to put their aged mother in time, so they say winking at each other. You know, I forbid myself to impose my very old age to such a nice couple. By then, I hope that I will have enough sense left so as not to saddle them with a crotchety-and-mean-character, which if I am anything like my mother was before her death, I may just have eventually.

3216. Ms. No - 9/1/2005 5:42:57 PM

But how much like your mother have you ever really been in your life?

My mother has been begging my brother and I for years to tell her at the first sign she develops any of her own mother's less attractive habits. Now, certainly, she shares some similarities with her mother --- hell, we're family, we're all somewhat alike --- but they are fundamentally different people. She's not going to be annoying or difficult in the same ways my Mamaw was.

She'll be annoying and difficult in her own special way.

When I told her that she was less than thrilled, but truly, she'll never be as difficult as my Mamaw because she's more invested in the idea of being a fun and capable and youthful person. She's a more positive person overall than my grandmother was --- not that I didn't adore my grandmother, I did, but she could be a pill.

What makes the elderly a pain in the ass? The same things that make anyone a pain in the ass: rudeness, incessant complaints, whining, cruelty and overall crotchety-ness that stems from being physically and/or mentally/emotionally unable to keep up with the world.

Some people are more adaptable than others and they continue to grow rather than be left behind the times.

I sincerely doubt you'll ever be the kind of senior to sit complaining on the porch about how the world of the day is inferior to the world of your youth.

3217. judithathome - 9/1/2005 5:57:37 PM

I sincerely doubt you'll ever be the kind of senior to sit complaining on the porch about how the world of the day is inferior to the world of your youth.

Ha! Magos may not ever be but I am already there! Just last night I was bitching to Keoni, while we were on the porch, no less, that back when I first moved to this house as a child, it was never this hot at 10pm at night.

3218. Magoseph - 9/1/2005 6:13:32 PM

Your post is very encouraging, Ms. No. I do have the fear of becoming my mother in my old age. My brother believes she became just like hers the last years of her life with one difference, however, and it was that my mother did not die of a sickness—she died because she committed suicide soon after she saw a TV program that depicted in graphic details the ignominies of getting very old. We learned later that late in the night, she went up to the landing of the floor of the retirement home, dragged a bench there for people to rest between climbing floors, opened the window and jumped from the fourth floor. It has been horrifying for us for a long time and we could never talk about it much until lately.

No, I am not much like my mother and never was. As a matter of fact, I left the country because there was no way to escape her influence and the grip she has on the family having inherited quite a lot of money from her folks. I did not want her to know where I was for a few years, but she found me eventually. She was careful not to meddle in my life here after that, but managed anyway a few impositions on my time in using her right to see her grandchildren more often than was desired by me.

Than you so much for your post. Ms. No.

3219. Ms. No - 9/1/2005 7:56:11 PM

Just last night I was bitching to Keoni, while we were on the porch, no less, that back when I first moved to this house as a child, it was never this hot at 10pm at night.

But were you also yelling at the neighbor kids to keep off your grass?

3220. Ms. No - 9/1/2005 7:58:59 PM

Ah, Magoseph, no one in the world can wound us quite like parents.

3221. judithathome - 9/1/2005 8:59:17 PM

No, not on the lawn but I frequently shake my fist at the teenagers speeding on the street. You know how short my street is, MsNo!

3222. Ms. No - 9/1/2005 9:26:29 PM

That would make me nutty. We had that problem -- not teens but rush hour traffic using our neighborhood as a shortcut. Eventually there were enough complaints that the city installed a stop-sign and then posted a police cruiser on a side street to bust people for running it. Hell, I'll bet the revenues from our one little stop-sign could've financed the last mayoral race.

3223. SnowOwl - 9/1/2005 9:45:44 PM

One of my husband's major complaints about me is that instead of growing more like my mother I've grown to be more like my father.

My mother was a darling woman who never complained, despite being is severe pain from crippling arthritis, who saw only the good in people and whose entire life was spent in caring for others. When I was quite young, my best friend (a Catholic girl) described my Mum as "saintly". Of course, at the time I scoffed, but as I got older I began to realise just what she meant, and how true a description it was.

On the other hand, my Dad was a self-described "bad tempered old bastard".

My husband thinks he got short-changed.

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