well it turns out i WILL NOT be getting a mothers day order this year... we have bills to pay and decided that the $40 i would have gotten to spend on plants is need more to pay bills.... so i guess maybe next year i can get the plants ive been waiting to get... :(

Sunny, One of the things that my husband agreed to early on in our marriage, is that if one of our kids wants/needs the step parent to do things for them (because the parent can't), then the child has to ask the step parent, not the parent. When my son wanted a co-signer on a car, I couldn't help him because I had just started my own business. I talked to my husband and he agreed to help but I felt that my son should ask him, not me. My son did ask him and got the car with my husband's help. My husband does the same with his daughter. If she wants something from me, she has to ask me. She still asks him all the time and he tells her, 'you have to ask SM'. My sons got angry a while back because they don't like when my husband has an opinion about anything. They think he should stay out of 'our life' but then I remind him that he's my husband and he is a part of 'our life' and I remind him of the things my husband contributes and that they don't mind when he does something where they benefit. They don't like it but they know it's true. What your husband should have told his daughter is that she would need to ask you to cook the food because he doesn't know how or can't do it all by himself. It really is up to the parent to expect their children (even adult ones) to respect their spouse enough to ask for themselves instead of going through the parent. It's much easier for kids to let themselves believe that their parent is doing everything for them and they don't need the step parent if all they have to do is ask the parent who then asks the step parent. Then they don't really appreciate the step parent because they can tell themself that their parent is the one doing everything for them. It's funny that my son will ask me for something and when I say, you need to ask stepdad yourself... he'll decide 'I don't really need it.' He has been giving my husband a hard time and would rather go without than ask my husband, well, that's HIS problem, not mine.

My mother was an awful cook. She fried almost everything, yet she was slender as were my sister and I. She had a 5-6 dish rotation: smothered steak (fried round steak cooked in brown gravy until tender-ish); fried pork chops; fried chicken; fried frozen shrimp on Friday nights (we are Protestant but she served fish on Friday); over-cooked, shoe-leather tough roast on Sunday; and at some point every couple of weeks, the worst spaghetti you’ve ever tasted. There was no such thing as a casserole. Green salads were rare to non-existent. I never could understand the penchant people had for mac and cheese when I was growing up. Here is Mother’s recipe: Cook elbow macaroni until it is flabby. Drain and put in a rectangular baking dish. Beat 2 eggs. Add milk. Pour over macaroni. Top with a few slices of very mild cheddar cheese. Bake until the macaroni is hard again. We had an abundance of vegetables because we had a huge garden (couple of acres) that we shared with the people who worked for Daddy. Mother did not can food, but she froze a lot of vegetables. I ate a lot of fresh tomatoes growing up. We had them for every meal, including breakfast, when they were in season. I would sneak into the garden, find a good one and eat it like an apple! Then there was fried okra; fried field corn (corn cut off the cob and cooked in a skillet with butter or bacon drippings); pole beans; yellow squash; cucumbers, butter beans (harvested when they were tiny) and crowder peas. For such a lousy cook, Mother had very high standards. Vegetables had to be small and tender. Tomatoes had to be vine-ripened unless they were being used for fried green tomatoes, in which case they had to be truly green and hard. Fruit had to be unblemished. We had no processed foods ever. I didn’t know what American cheese was until I was 23. It wasn’t that Mother was purposefully a healthy eater. She just didn’t like the taste processed foods. Mother never baked a cake from scratch, except a coconut cake at Christmas. The coconut had to be fresh (as in ”first you buy a coconut…”) and finely grated by her own hand. Her pie crusts were always from scratch and always flaky and tender. She had 2 pies she made, lemon meringue and chocolate. Biscuits and cornbread were made without a recipe and were always perfect. Mother’s best dishes were her potato salad and her cornbread dressing. I can’t make either one to save my soul. My sister comes really close on the cornbread dressing. Mother was over 90 when she died. She was living by herself in her own home, doing her own housework and cooking her own meals (still nothing processed). She did the light portions of her own yardwork but hired a really good-looking, very buff young man to do the heavy lifting and mowing. We teased her that she found things that needed doing just to get him to come to the house! I suppose my ”rebellion” is not cooking like Mother did. But I wouldn’t mind having her yard man mow my grass. 😉 ETA: My sister just sent me these pictures of Mom. She may have been a lousy cook, but she went some interesting places!

Follow Up: I have been getting daily texts as my mom tries items in her gift ... so far the Strawberry Champagne Jam is the big food winner-- the Louis Sherry John Derian tin was the overall winner (but not the chocolate lol). Blood Orange Confiture - "was delicious on a croissant".. (this was the only one I had tasted myself and i knew it was delicious) Louis Sherry Chocolates - "i have to keep trying them for the surprise flavors" -- when i pushed a little more on whether they are worthy to give again/to others, she said she LOVES the tin but that she couldn't really speak to the quality as her "unsophisticated palate" (her words) prefers Reese's PB cups and Matangos (a local chocolatier .. but very good). I told you she'd be honest! Stonewall Kitchen Strawberry Champagne Jam 🥉- "intoxicating!" "I could eat it with a spoon" To be clear, my mom isn't exactly picky but she has her favorites and sticks to them. She's somewhat open to new things but not at all adventurous. I take this as a win!