Stone Soup by Jan Eliot for March 23, 2025

“Prevent” is probably too much to ask. Ameliorate maybe?

“I just hope to prevent disease.” RFK Jr. has a dissenting opinion.

Prevent pestilence as well

A goal that is worthwhile, I am surprised that ‘Grandma’ is adding some ‘sage advice’ from her years of experience or maybe she just realizes how futile it is ! ! !!

You also don’t have all the minions that Stewart has to help, because she wouldn’t be able to cope with real life.

Been there, done that: From dreams of Insta-perfect to hoping I won’t get arrested for the state of the pig sty.

I have a sign up in my house “this place was clean yesterday. Sorry you missed it”

And from last week’s story, you failed at THAT!

You should all be pitching in to help Val! That includes Holly and Alix!

NO control, a mom that watches instead of teaching, kids run amok due to lack of discipline, a sister and kid that don’t belong there – yup chaos and stupidity.

Well.. one can hope, I guess.

RELAX…this is not meant to be a life guide…geez

My mom gave me one bit of advice when my son was born. “Remember, kids are washable.”

It often takes a certain amount of chaos to inspire creativity.

I know how she feels.

I used to work at keeping our house neat, clean and nice – while also working full time as accountant plus part time in handcrafted business with husband. Not fortunate enough to have had children. I managed to have a cleaning schedule and keep it.

Then husband had to quit his job/retire early as he was too overwhelmed at work. (He was director of a children’s day mental health agency which also was their school. State Ed would come in and tell him the agency had to do something – they would spend the money and set up whatever they had been told to do – then State Mental health would come in when it was running and say “YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DO THIS -GET RID OF IT!” Or vice versa. And it burned him out. )

Agreement was that my life would go on as before and he would find things to do on his own. That lasted a year or so and then we started spending more time together. Then lunch out every day I did not go out for work – despite “This will not be a vacation – we CANNOT eat lunch out every day!” (Now back to 3 days lunch out weekly.)

Having one’s husband home all the time is like a having a giant child at home – who is the one bringing in/brought in most of the money and feels like they don’t want to be in the house all the time and doesn’t like to go out alone.