(View from the office patio today at lunch when I went outside to warm up!)
After we came back from camping, we stopped by NC to pick up my MIL. She is down for a visit for a month or so.
We set down some ground rules last year (she has to help out, not just sit around and be waited on) that make the visit easier for all of us. She can still be a bit difficult – you don’t really have a “conversation” with her – in general it’s more like a cross between 20 questions and an interrogation, not to mention her tendency to come across a mega critical (“Are you going to paint the toe kick and shoe molding?” “It’s already painted.” “Really???”).
Here’s the big thing: I know I mentioned our plan to come back and eliminate some junk out of our diet (beer and diet Pepsi for me, diet Mtn. Dew for hub). Which we have been doing, although the going has been tough a time or two. Well, MIL is having to radically change the way she eats as well.
My MIL keeps a super erratic schedule – sometimes she will be up for 2 days and then sleep a whole day, so her eating doesn’t conform to any sort of routine (which is a problem in and of itself). She has been doing pretty good getting into a routine at our house.
Typical foods for her might be: instant oatmeal (maple and brown sugar), grilled cheese sandwiches, toast, tv dinners, cottage cheese and canned peaches, coke, pretzels, boxed cookies (such as vanilla wafers, graham crackers, fig newtons), ice cream, pistachios, milk, and fat free creamer for her coffee.
I’m sure you see the problem, even if I don’t tell you that’s she’s an obese diabetic. Needless to say, we don’t eat that way. She enjoys the food I’ve been cooking, but she’s obviously been craving some of the junk (besides that bag of crap she brought along in the car).
The other day she rode with me to Aldi to pick up some milk, and when I got to the checkout she had picked up a loaf of white bread. She said she was craving snacks and my response was “Suck it up. We’re having cravings too.” I told her she would have to pay for it and I praised her to the skies when she put it back.
I don’t know if any of the habits will stick (they didn’t when she came for a long visit last year). But we’ve been talking about it. I know she doesn’t like to cook for herself, but eating like an unrestricted 5 year old isn’t doing herself any favors. And I won’t contribute to it, although she is an adult and can buy herself that kind of junk if she wants to.)
Diet pepsi hasn’t been too hard, but hub is really having a tough time getting off the mtn. dew. We didn’t go off the rails while camping, but it is definitely harder when you are eating out of a cooler with no electricity! It’s good to be back to our normal eating routines and I’m glad we decided to not allow certain stuff (soda) back into the house.
