The Life of Mrs. Miles

SWEETNESS BADGE

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Well, my GOODNESS! I don't know if any of you noticed, but our DAUGHTER commented yesterday... begging for a longer journal entry. Bad lil girlie suggests her 'Mermy' (her widdow wuv name for moi) stay up and pull an all-nighter so she can have something to read tomorrow. Well Sweetie - this is a big compliment to me so I will burn the midnight oil here for a bit to catch you up on what we've been doing.

No photos at this point as my camera and the computer are having a battle trying to upload my photos. sigh.

I didn't make it into the night, so I'm blogging first thing in the morning - before Mom and I whip up some pastry today. Mom makes the BEST - just like the kind you see on the shortening packages. She's promised to show me how, thoug she swears she 'murders' her dough... Mine just never turns out like hers. Miles is being slightly grossed out by watching me eat watermelon with whipped cream poured over it along with a shortbread cookie for breakfast... Hey, have you read whats in some of those cereals?

Mom and Dad arrived on Friday afternoon. Poor folks sat at the Husky Restaurant waiting for us to come home. We'd (is this a word?) given them our cell phone number so they could call us and we could meet them and direct them in safely off the highway, being a busy long weekend of travelers and also because its tricky the first few times getting here. However, in the meantime, we had gone for lunch. We leisurely took our time because we knew they could get ahold of us, however, we what we didn't know is that Mom left the cell phone number at home. Luckily we were not too late - having changed our minds on going for a walk after lunch.


I had fussed the house into order before they arrived. Ok, so as much as I try to stop myself from doing this - its virtually impossible not to. I've wrassled with this for a long time - trying to explain it to Miles, when he sees me stressing about it. He's always quick to remind me that Mom won't mind how it is - and that its more important for us to be happy than to have a clean house. But surely YOU know how it is. I've tried to think of this in ways to explain how it is to Miles.


I think one thing is, that as a daughter-in-law (DIL), we have a desire to show our Mother in Law (MIL) that we are taking good care of their son. When I'm in the midst of my stress/fuss state, I sometimes wish I could really just STOP - just leave everything alone - not because I want a messy house, not because I don't want to not impress my MIL, but because I dislike what it does to me. I know its healthy to want to impress her, but on the other hand, I know I tend to go overboard and I waste precious time I could use to be getting closer to Miles before MIL arrives.


Of course, to Miles - and men in general, I tend to think, they have a much simpler perspective on this... Is this because they won't be the ones spending so much time with MIL? Is it because they don't know what we do? That MIL will notice how we keep the fridge, cupboards, towels, cook etc?


I think its pride, too. My house is my domain and I love to keep it nice. I've mulled this over in my mind, wondering how to explain it to Miles, but after doing so the answers came to me quite quickly and clearly. I realized that I needed only to relate it to something relevant to HIM. It has to do with where we spend most of our time... the places we are responsible for. For example, he wanted to get his office set up quickly, and 'just so' - spending precious hours when he could have been working. I understood, without being told, that because its where he spends a great deal of his time, it should be nice. Also, there are times he will spend hours at his school tidying (I say tidying because they are not allowed to 'clean' - that being the job of the janitors, who even if they don't do it well, we can't be taking their job - sheesh!) At any rate, Miles will take a few hours out and 'tidies' up the school, because he has PRIDE to be there, and wants the school to be a reflection of him, and how passionate he is to make his students feel comfortable. I understand this without saying it... so how come with me its 'fussing' and him its something more noble?


By the way, I am SO glad he is the way he is... I would not change this for all the tea in China.


Back to the visit. Things are going well. All the little kinks are worked out. We drove up to Penticton on Saturday and did some shopping. Judy, I got your birthday present - haha- last one in the entire store, girl! Don't know your EXACT day... you 'lil stinker - not putting your OWN birthday on the beautiful calendar you gave us last year... though I KNOW for a fact its at the end of this month... you KNOW your sweet daughters will tell me... :D


We had a good feast at a Chinese buffet in the city - I'm good for another loonnng while. We've taken walks and had a nice visit with Marie and Roger - our friends with Alpacas. Dad fed the Alpaca's - MIL fed enough animals on the farm long ago when Miles was small, to appreciate this as an 'activity'. There were also hordes of teensy chipmunks coming for feed on the front patio area - and they kept us amused with their antics. I sat on the flagstones next to a big pile of shelled peanuts and they actually crawled under my legs at one point. They make me long to watch some of the Chipmunk cartoons! Thanks, Marie and Roger, for having our folks over and spending time with them. They enjoyed themselves.


We've also done a puzzle. This is the only time I do puzzles and they brought a 'doozer' with them. Some vintage scene one with loads of tricky little pieces to it. Their neighbor, who's a puzzle expert, gave it to them, insisting its "not too hard" His name is dirt in our house now. I'm sure his ears were ringing. The last piece fell in late in the night, before we retired - a good thing because we would not have retired till it was done.


Another funny thing since our folks have arrived. Mom does not tolerate heat well. We live in Canada's only pocket desert - and it can get very hot here, so I made sure to keep all the windows open and the heat off - keeping her comfort in mind. It took two days for us all shivering for Miles and I to discover she and Dad were FREEZING in our house. We had a good laugh about that one - she recounting how every time I would open a window she would 'shudder'!!! Isn't it funny how politeness prevents us from clear communication sometimes?


I will try to post more often for you, sweet daughter, and for all you who have MIL's and FIL's.

I've got a few good tips to share, which I gleaned from the latest Style at Home Magazine I checked out of the library:


If your plants are dusty - you may be choking them to death! They can actually suffocate from dust. SAH mag recommends wiping your plant's leaves with the inside of a banana skin - it smells good and promotes a healthy shine!


If you want to revive the dents in your carpets left by furniture, when you do spring rearranging, simply allow an ice cube to melt in the impression, then use a toothbrush to 'fluff' it back to life!


Wiping lampshades with a dryer sheet wipes away dust and leaves a layer of static-repellent ingredients for protection!

Today in History:

1846 - 1st steamship arrives in Hawaii

1881 - American Red Cross is founded by Clara Barton

1897 - Yerkes Obsrvatory 40-inch refractor is used for 1st time

1927 - Lindburgh lands in Paris - after 1st solo across Atlantic

1929 - Automatic electric stock quotation board installed - NYC

1932 - 1st transatlantic solo flight by a woman landed - AE Putnam

1933 - Mt Davidson Cross lit by FDR via telegraph

1955 - 1st transcontinental round-trip solo flight - sunrise to sunset

Birthdays in History:

0427 - Plato (Aristocles), in Athens(?) (427 BC)

1471 - Albrecht Drer, great German Renaissance painter print maker

1780 - Elizabeth Fry, Quaker minister prison reformer nurse

1844 - Henri Rousseau, French na‹ve painter

1860 - Willam Einthoven, invented the electrocardiograph

1878 - Glenn Curtis, aircraft pioneer

1904 - Fats Waller, jazz pianist composer (Ain't Misbehavin')

1917 - Raymond Burr, actor (Perry Mason Ironsides)

1952 - Mr T.

BARB'S HANDY TIP #265

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