I've seen this with children and adults. With young children it can be excused, but not with older kids and adults. I've even seen adults act like bratty kids asking why this present was bought for them, tossing it aside, etc. Crazy!! Thankfully, ds was always a good gift receiver, although he had many other issues with holidays and birthdays, being on the spectrum. In my large family it could get crazy opening gifts, but the kids always thanked the giver after opening a gift, and at the end there was a round of thanks and hugs for all.

She is absolutely projecting personal issues onto your husband's situation. I've dealt with this before, and it caused a lot of problems and had me spiraling into a worse state of mind than before I started counseling before I realized what was happening. So many people switch counselors - it can be difficult to find one that clicks, but working with one that makes your husband and you feel uncomfortable and attacked is really not a good option.

I live with my mil, and usually everything is ok, but there are boundary issues at times. Luckily dh and I are on the same page as far as our nuclear family being him, me and our son. We have our own spaces in the house. Occasionally we have drama spillover with sil, her kids and ex and that can make me feel like I want out! We just had an issue with this recently, and dh was made out to the be the bad guy in this situation. Mil uses him as a shield against sil, and I understand why she does it, (sil can be a raving lunatic with no boundaries) but it makes life unpleasant at times. I'm hoping sil moves far away after her youngest graduates. I think you need to have a long heart to heart with your husband. It doesn't sound like your feelings are being taken into account, and that needs to change. There's a time and place for big family gatherings, but it doesn't always have to be that way. Time should be carved out for you, your husband and your kids to be together without the rest of his family. I'd go insane in your shoes!! I'm an introvert, and it seems to be getting worse as I get older. We try to make the effort to do things with just us, and it helps us deal with all the rest.

I was making a business call last week, and the person who answered called me my love, sweetie and hon all in the first minute of the call, lol. I thought it was a little odd and amusing, but it didn't bother me.

That was one of my favorite Christmas gifts ever! That and Dusty and Nugget with all the cool accessories.

My quiet house in the morning before everyone gets up. My morning tea followed by my morning espresso. Crisp autumn air, the leaves on the ground. Why is everyone so quick to rake them up? I love the way they look blanketing the ground in fall colors!

I have never been able to find a planner that works for me. The original Franklin Covey planner came close. I can’t stand having big planners with lots of pages nowadays. My husband bought me a Remarkable 2, and it has changed my life. I know you said no bullet journaling, but this is what keeps me organized and on track. I designed a basic one month template that I just make a copies of every month. I have one for just work. We have 2 businesses so I need that to be separate. I have another one for personal pursuits, housework, etc. I also have separate notebooks for finances, reading notes, various educational pursuits, etc. I have various templates for forms I use for work that I make copies of every month to fill out. It’s cut down on my paper use drastically. I love the way I can organize everything so I can easily find what I need. This wasn’t cheap, but it was so worth it. It’s basically my digital brain, lol.

I used to love O’Keeffe’s, but I’ve developed an intolerance to urea. I recently bought Palmer’s Cocoa Butter Formula 48 hr moisture and it works really well. I use a good amount on my hands and wear cotton gloves overnight. For a general non-greasy body lotion I like Jason Sensitive Skin body lotion. Cutemol is good for really dry skin - it’s thick so a little goes a long way. For feet I love Ancient Greek Remedy Organic Foot Balm. It comes with a pumice stone, too.

My son's neurologist often would run 1 - 2.5 hours behind. I started making appointments for the first appointment slot, but so did everyone else. Over the pandemic he went to virtual and hasn't gone back. We like this so much better than going in to the office!! My endocrinologist kept me waiting for 3.5 hours. When the nurse came in to take my blood pressure, she told me it was dangerously high. I told her it was because I had been waiting and waiting and being told he would be right in. When he finally came in, he spent a total of 90 seconds with me. I'm not exaggerating. My blood pressure was probably much higher after that. That was the last time I saw him.

I used to in the beginning when we first moved in together. He broke his foot, so I started doing it and kept doing it for a long while. Then Keurigs happened, and that became a thing of the past. Somehow I started bringing my son coffee to get his butt out of bed, and now that has become a thing. He calls me and asks for coffee, and I bring it to him. Otherwise he falls back asleep for hours when we need him to work. This is something I need to fix lol. My father-in-law used to set up mother-in-law's breakfast dishes, make her tea, call her to wake up every 30 minutes until she finally got out of bed, set up her lunch, etc. Most of it was cute (not the constant wake up call) but it would drive me crazy if dh did that for me.

The only time we may have dirty dishes that aren't washed after a meal is if we are having a really large dinner, like Thanksgiving for example. I will wash what I can after the meal, take a break, wash some more, and if there are still a lot left, I will soak some in the sink overnight. Others will stay to the left of the sink. They are washed as soon as I get up in the morning. I will occasionally leave a pot soaking overnight, either in the sink or on the counter to the left of the sink. There are never dirty dishes after that, ever. If dishes were my husband's responsibility and he didn't do them, I would probably do them the next morning. But he would never leave them for days. Nobody in the house would.

Normally I don't have hair loss issues with my thyroid at those numbers. I get slight hair loss if my TSH is high. After I gave birth and after a miscarriage I had really bad hair loss for about 6 - 8 months. I wasn't diagnosed at that time, but a neurologist who had seen my son asked me if I had thyroid issues because my eyes were kind of bulging at the time. I think it was maybe a weight loss issue - I weighed 22 lbs. less after his birth than I did before I got pregnant, but maybe I was hyperthyroid at the time.

This type of bs infuriated me when ds was younger. I remember one instance that still upsets me when I think about it - I had just left my mom's house, and realized I forgot something. I ran in to get it and walked in on a conversation my sister was having with my brother on how spoiled my son was and how I don't discipline him enough. 😠

It's really hard to tell who is a scammer lately. A few months ago I had what I thought was our utility company call and ask for immediate payment to avoid shut off. We are behind since Covid, and they almost got me. They had the same exact hold music and messages. They wanted us to go to 7-11 and use some kind of payment method available there, don't remember what it was. I put them on hold and called our utility, and they said it wasn't them. Don't feel bad, it's getting harder and harder to tell!

We have recessed lighting in our basement, I guess it's the housing with trim, and we just replace the bulbs as needed. The bulbs aren't flush with the ceiling, but I found lights that screw in like bulbs but sit flush with the ceiling. The size is bigger than what you may want in a kitchen, but there are different sizes.

I have a longing for my dream house that I found when browsing on Zillow a few years ago. It just came back on to the market at almost 2 million, so it's way out of my reach, but it's such an amazing house for entertaining, and the backyard has one of those pools with the slide and waterfall, and lots of backyard, set back from the street, upstairs laundry room, big basement with rec room and gym. I daydream too much about this house lol. There's a video still online that I watch periodically because I just love this house. Maybe I'm a little obsessed.😁 I also have a longing for a consistently clean house, but I have such trouble keeping it that way with the constant energy drain from autoimmune diseases. I am constantly embarrassed when someone unexpectedly needs to come in the house and it's extra messy on that day. It always seems like we're in the middle of a bunch of projects and stuff is where it shouldn't be.

I think your compromise is perfect for a first time sleep over, but I would have her drive instead of you driving.

I guess it would be called an outer stringer? - just a straight board really, that the stairs were nailed in to, instead of an inner stringer where the treads would rest on top of. So basically the nails were supporting the treads, and those rusted off. Luckily there were no injuries when it collapsed.

I check to make sure the reviews are not fake on Google and other sites. We tried Angi for a few quotes, and many of those companies I don't even see on Google. I stopped using them after we were getting such high quotes without any reviews beyond what was on Angi. The one thing we put a stop to when we moved in with mil and fil was using friends of friends, etc. Most of the work we need done now is remediation from work done before we moved in or before we started getting involved. Our front steps collapsed because whoever built it (the husband of a work friend of mil) didn't use stringers. We have water damage in our ceiling upstairs and our front porch ceiling from rot in our roof that could only be seen from the damage it's caused inside. When the roofers showed us the damage this morning we were shocked at how bad it is and surprised the ceilings weren't worse. We also have issues with plumbing in one bathroom, done by a different husband of a work friend. These people are all licensed contractors, too!

I don't know the size of the fence we wanted, but we got 3 quotes, and one was so inflated it was crazy - $15,000 compared to $5000 and $6000 from two other companies. We've been finding that for everything we've been getting quotes for. We're having our roof done now, and the first quote was $30,000, the company we're using is $12,000 - 14,000. Bathrooms we were quoted $30,000 for each bathroom by one company, $5,000 - $12,000 each for the company we're using. We get at least 3 quotes for everything!

Beeping because you're obviously super special and in a hurry, and the person ahead of you took 3 seconds to move after the light changed instead of immediately hitting the gas. The two towns next to me sound like NYC rush hour once school gets out. It's trafficky, we're all stuck in it - deal with it!! The people that take calls while their phone is connected to their car, and everyone can hear the conversation, even if the windows are rolled up. Worse are the ones with their windows rolled down and the volume up so loud!!

Based on all of the answers here, and not wanting to get into trying to get both of them using an app they've never used before, we did manage to get her friend's direct line at the rehab facility, so she's going to buy an international calling card today. Her friend will be there for a few weeks after suffering a serious fall and needing surgery, so mil wants to be able to call a few times a week. Thanks everyone!!

This may be a dumb question, but my uncle seems to think that my mother-in-law needs to get an international calling card to call a friend's cell number while she is in Italy. I thought it would be the same as if she was in this country. Am I wrong? This person is in a rehab facility in Italy - I think we would be incurring charges on her end if we call her cell. I don't have a number for her room, or if she has a phone in her room at all, but I know that mil would need a calling card for that, or I would have to add to our home phone plan to handle international calls.

I have to be very careful which soaps/body washes I use. Someone recommended castile soap, and I've tried a few brands of unscented. They don't cause any reactions or dry out my skin. I currently have this on subscribe and save: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075TWC1XB?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details. I use it for my hands, body wash in the shower, shampoo when I ran out of my usual brand, I squirt some in the toilet to give the bowl a quick clean, use it for dishes, etc. I wish I had found it at the beginning of the pandemic, because I destroyed my hands between frequent handwashing and not realizing that my body does not tolerate urea, which is in many lotions.

You can also use this as a soak, which we do for soiled garments or sheets. After soaking I give it a rinse, use something for stains if necessary, and throw it the washing machine.