Gently, there is nothing positive that is going to come from continuing to try to rehab this relationship. She has some serious issues, and she is using you as a dumping ground for her frustration, anger, and insecurity about her life. She will continue to do this because any and all attempts you make to placate her or engage her are seen as openings to continue to use you as her personal punching bag. Also, you mentioned being very happily married, and she has a history of not good partners, rocky relationships. So there is probably some wistful jealousy wrapped up in all of this that she isn't processing and dealing with. I have gone through that before with someone who was going through a nasty time in her marriage, and just got so frustrated and upset because I wasn't in the same boat with her sharing all manner of anger about my husband. I had to let that person go. 40 years is a long time. But people change, people to through things that cause them to sometimes need to break off and start anew. Folks move on, for better or worse. Let her move on. Even if she contacts you in the future, please just let it go, do not take the bait. It is okay. Grieve. She may learn from this or not. If she does, then maybe she can form a new attachment to someone else and have a healthy friendship. Also, I don't know if you are a christian or not, so I will just throw this out there for you, and if it doesn't apply, you can ignore it. "Love keeps no record of wrongs." 1 Cor. 13 She is keeping a laundry list of perceived slights. That means she can't really be a friend. There isn't a loving, supportive friendship when one side does this.

Yup. Both dss that do not work remote are back to wearing masks at work today. One works very much alone for most of the day at the museum so he can take breaks from his mask, and the other does a lot of walking between buildings, and is rarely in the presence of a co-worker during those walks, so he also can remove his mask. They both are going to start eating in their cars at lunch which isn't necessarily enjoyable in Michigan winter, but they really don't want to be constantly catching covid, and neither one has any confidence in the latest round of vaccines though they still went and got them anyway. Dd is hunkering down for two months, grocery pick up, and play dates in the park or at the botanical gardens, no indoor socializing until March. She really wants a break during this season, and not just from covid but all the kid bugs going around. Mother in law isn't going anywhere except one outing to a quilt store with mask, and then nothing else for quite a while. She is slowing down so much. I am nervous about a family wedding at the end of March, but also worried about family relationships if we skip. This one will be really sticky to get out of. Mark thinks the church is huge, but not the invitee list so he thinks we wait until five minutes before the ceremony starts, zip in and sit in the back several pews behind the group, get out right away, and then since there is an outdoor dining and bar area at the reception, stay outside. We will see. His brother has had covid three times!

The scarves for the young adults were a big hit! So that was nice.

Love love love this!!

My young adults host their friends a lot, and their friends take turns as well. That inner circle likes to be together, and are very considerate of one another. All for one, and one for all! That seems to be the motto. So what is nice is we occasionally visit our bachelors, offer to cook for all of inner circle, and kind of make an evening of it. The home cooked mom/dad meal is so appreciated, and they all pitch in on the clean up. To be honest, of all the the people we have ever hosted, this group of young adults are the nicest, most enthusiastic, and most conscientious folks. They give me hope for the future. Someone mentioned cell phones. I do have to say that from 2015-2018, Mark had the most disrespectful, nasty manager ever. He expected his IT workers to be on call 24/7/365, and would yell and scream if they didn't answer every phone call, every work email, the second he sent it. It was exhausting. We still somehow managed to keep our 4H club and rocket team going, but honestly the infringement on the home of some members of management should actually be illegal on pain of such massive, monetary fines, that corporations fear keeping such managers around. Instead this horrible human got a huge promotion. Sick! I can imagine that anyone who works for these kinds of managers does not have a single cell of energy to put to socializing or planning anything. American work culture sucks for so very many people.

I love your ideas!

When you said, "What else can she do?" She was already thinking, "Hold my beer!"

Many hugs! I am so sorry.

LOL. I get that! I Mark was trying to help me get the feast out tonight, and 3 adult kids and their spouses/s.o. walked through the door, did a round of hugging, then crammed into the kitchen to hang out near us. Hey, I love being loved enough for them to want to be around us, but eventually the road block to the table became bad enough I finally had to gently ask them all to take the Glogg and Syllabub into the living room before I spilled something hot on someone. Then they all wanted to help! Love that tooo....but uhm...kids...just maybe get out of the space. That worked out fine. Before I could bus a single plate, they all jumped up and started putting food away and washing dishes. Sweet kids. But, PHEW, please do not congregate between me and the table!

Bandwidth is definitely an issue. As I said, people are spread fairly thin. But when it is, in our case, 80-0, and then when we had an emergency none of these people could be bothered to even pick up a phone or after providing food for 25, 80 times over, were uninterested in even helping to organize a meal, it hurt so much that there just was no point in resuming a social relationship with them. Done. I believe that it really is okay to take a break from hosting even if one does love a good dinner party. Just offer to meet for coffee or at a restaurant dutch. You can't have the long conversations or play games in these public forums, but that is fine. Let up on yourself and see what happens. Hopefully people were accepting your invitations from a place of true friendship, and will be happy with the arrangement, just glad to see you. If not, then at least you know and can make plans for how you want to handle things in the future.

Thanks everyone. I will try to get another photo tomorrow. Before I could do it, Mark had it moved and covered with a 5 gallon bucket. He loves it. But he tends to be my most ardent fan club member so one should not take his opinion seriously. 🤣

I would definitely be okay with a 2024 bingo card that does not appear to have been written by the Cards Against Humanity team!

I will try to take a picture in a few minutes. It is on a 3" thick, cherry wood slab. Very, very heavy. I need to move it to my island now that I have it cleared of all the cookie dough stuck to it. But, I am afraid to move it alone. Mark ran to the store, so I feel like I should wait for his help. Ya those roses! 😂😂😂 The brunekager cookies are cooling and waiting for me to put them away as well.

It is not how I pictured it in my head. I can not frost nor pipe at all. Just no talent for it. The little moose cookies spread soooo much when they baked. They are gingerbread, and the dough was chilled overnight, and still they spread so they are too big. It looks terrible, but after 3.5 hrs of being hunched over at the counter fussing, and fussing, and fussing to try to make it look better, I am done in. It is what it is. The green roses in the picture are in a vase behind the cake, not part of the cake. Despite my aching back, I need to go bake the last batch of cookies.

Maybe we could paddle towards each other! ⛵️⛵️⛵️🏝

See. I consider that a very reciprocal thing. You are doing what you can, appreciate them. I would host you and share your edible plants, but sadly, I don't think you can bring plants to the USA for dinner! 😁

It is no longer a thing. We used to host soooo much, especially when we were still Christians. We had a bible study class that met here every Sunday night from September -May off two straight years, and as the hosts, there was an expectation by the church that we would provide snacks and beverages every single time. And we did it gracefully and cheerfully for two years. Then ds and I were in a car accident, badly injured. Mark told the church that we needed to take a year off. The 25 people (3 singles, and 11 couples all adults) dropped us like hot potatoes. We were never invited anywhere, and when the church was trying to organize some meals, not one of them volunteered. When we left the religion, we tried to make friends through secular pursuits. Again, we hosted A LOT, but never received any invitations. We didn't host with an expectation, but we what we did discover is that most people socialize only if someone else organizes it and pulls it off at all times. Most would rather give up socializing than offer to be involved with organization and execution of get togethers. meeting at restaurants dutch treat wasn't popular due to expense. That is fine. I get it. Everyone leads a very hectic life. However, we were just getting burned out doing it. We stopped socializing and that group of friends dropped away. I have no idea if any of them still see each other or not. It would be sad if they don't, however, I don't have it in me to do the hostess gig anymore. Now that we have three "adopted" couples making our adult kids a total of four bio kids, two amazing kids by marriage, and six by choice I have enough on my plate. My family get togethers are now large enough and complicated enough that I am good. Everyone chips in to help when they arrive, some coming early for the purpose of being my personal elves, and we have a happy time. The two gals who are like my sisters have stood the test of time, and we very routinely talk on the phone, meet for coffee or lunch, to walk a trail together at the park. Sometimes we hit the quilt store together. So ya. In my experience, it just is not a thing.

Wow! That is maddening. Irresponsible of the city, really irresponsible. Sigh. Bureaucrats: "We are in a drought! Everybody conserve water." Same bureaucrats: Wasting water by the tens of thousands of gallons.

I have to start making the Honninghjerter this morning from the 5 week fermented honey dough. I'm nervous about it. So I may have a response to this, for good or for bad, later today. This is some seriously weird cookie dough, but the potential for greatness is there.

Heart, this warms my heart! You are doing so great with the kids. Making memories. Awesome sauce!

That sounds like the best way to spend the holiday.

That movie is great. How I your summer going, Rosie?

We are not having anything dangerous in my part of Michigan. Just weird. It may affect agriculture and Great Lakes water levels in 2024. Snowfall is less than usual, by a fair amount for December. If that trend continues throughout the winter, we won't have the snow pack we need by spring thaw. It could lead to drought, but it is too early to make predictions. It will be 49° on Christmas Day, 54° the next day which is very abnormal. This follows one of the driest Novembers in the last 130 years on the heals of a bit of a snow drought in 2022, the Canadian wildfires in May/June which brought a lot of smoke and ash, and an abnormally dry summer. So we aren't locally experiencing any kind of scary, threatening weather conditions now, but those of us who really follow and support Michigan growers are feeling some uneasiness and hoping this changes very soon. I have been considering new ways of irrigating my summer garden using less water to get the job done. I may put drip hoses in my raised beds under white gossamer fabric to prevent evaporation, and run them exclusively at night on a timer which could lower the amount of water needed by quite a bit. We are on a well so usage is normally not a problem. However, if the future is a drier one, wells do stress in those scenarios. I hope everyone is safe. I worry a lot about our Aussie friends since it is wildfire season there.

We had a bit of a feast. Roast vegetables, grilled lamb chops, homemade bread, and berries. We then went outside and had a bonfire for a while. We used a partially burnt log from last year as our "Yule log". But, we were feeling kind of cold, and Lewis the dog was wanting in, so we are back on the couch watching the Will Ferrell EuroVision movie. I am normally not a fan of Will Ferrell, but this movie is kind of hilarious. Mark has mead (I am not a fan), but he will only have a tiny bit. I have the family room lit with 15 battery led candles and one wax pillar candle. Feels very Hygge in here at the moment.

This week???? Way to many freaking recipes! That is what I am reading. When the holidays are over, I do not want to see a recipe for at least six months. I want to be alone with my gardening books.