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Maxwell 20: Fun just dies


samurai_sarah

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23 hours ago, Black Aliss said:

It's a midwestern thing. Although most people now refer to it as lunch, where in years past, the mid-day meal was always dinner, and the evening meal was called supper

It's not a midwestern thing to eat the big meal in the afternoon.  People all over the world do it, as well as people all over the US.  Come to the Northeast on a Sunday, and you'll find the majority of Italian Americans have their big meal in the afternoon.  They do it every day in Italy.  More people would do it every day here too if they didn't have to work.  It's healthier because the food digests better. 

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Why do they need to point out the dog was not in the room during testing? Are they afraid we’d think the dog would give the kids the answers? 

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2 hours ago, danvillebelle said:

I sometimes wonder if part of her helplessness is due to her back pain possibly being waaaaaaay worse than she ever dares mention.  Lord knows Stevehovah would never allow her any pain meds.   Chronic back problems only get worse with age.  

 

Something is wrong with her.  It doesn't take helpers to make soup.  I don't understand how she can climb a mountain but can't make dinner by herself.  It makes no sense at all to me.  Does she make up the back pain to get out of doing things she doesn't want to do?  If she has the fortitude to climb to the top of a mountain with back problems and no pain pills, then why doesn't she have the fortitude to make a pot of soup?  It's bizarre. 

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2 hours ago, danvillebelle said:

I sometimes wonder if part of her helplessness is due to her back pain possibly being waaaaaaay worse than she ever dares mention.  Lord knows Stevehovah would never allow her any pain meds.   Chronic back problems only get worse with age.  

And it's an extra shame, because from what I've heard from several people with chronic back pain, the one activity which does help is yoga. Which we all know Teri will be allowed to do over Steve's cold, dead body. 

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3 minutes ago, theologygeek said:

Something is wrong with her.  It doesn't take helpers to make soup.  I don't understand how she can climb a mountain but can't make dinner by herself.  It makes no sense at all to me.  Does she make up the back pain to get out of doing things she doesn't want to do?  If she has the fortitude to climb to the top of a mountain with back problems and no pain pills, then why doesn't she have the fortitude to make a pot of soup?  It's bizarre. 

It could be depression. It can make even the little everyday things seem overwhelming.

Still, they are either:

- so isolated and tone-deaf that they don't realise that if you're going to shout off the rooftops that Jeeebus cured your depression and you are now an inspiration and mentor that people should model themselves on, it may not be the best of ideas to do blog posts like that, which are equivalent to just shouting "this is getting worse, I need meds".

- trolling us. Sarah is actually engaged to her long-term girlfriend, who works as a surgeon at planned parenthood, the other kidults have had their own flats ever since they left for college, the only reason John waited to marry Chelsy is because he didn't want the wedding to clash with his career as a professional athlete playing team sports, NR Anna is actually a top-shot partner at a fancy law firm and Nathan developped an artificial intelligence programme to write their blog posts for them using a limited set of random words. (Sweet! Neat! Invest-in-kiddos! Random bible verse in the end!) - it's mostly just a fun project for him to do with his kids, Abigail did a paper about it for her gifted pupils class that they all hope will get her into a NASA summer programme for kids. At family gatherings, when the kids are outside playing with unrelated children, they and their friends pass around a few joints while reading FJ aloud - they all find our outrage very entertaining.

It's only called Bible time because that thin Bible paper is the best thing to use when you're rolling your own, ahem, cigarettes - regular paper just doesn't cut it.

It's getting to the point where I'm not ready to exclude the latter.

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2 hours ago, danvillebelle said:

I sometimes wonder if part of her helplessness is due to her back pain possibly being waaaaaaay worse than she ever dares mention.  Lord knows Stevehovah would never allow her any pain meds.   Chronic back problems only get worse with age.  

 

If I had to hazard a guess, as someone with chronic back pain and depression (fun! neat!), it's probably a combination of both. Chronic pain and depression feed off of each other, and it's difficult to treat one without treating the other (lookin' at you, Steve).

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49 minutes ago, Odd1Out said:

Why do they need to point out the dog was not in the room during testing? Are they afraid we’d think the dog would give the kids the answers? 

Free Ellie!

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1 hour ago, theologygeek said:

It's not a midwestern thing to eat the big meal in the afternoon.  People all over the world do it, as well as people all over the US.  Come to the Northeast on a Sunday, and you'll find the majority of Italian Americans have their big meal in the afternoon.  They do it every day in Italy.  More people would do it every day here too if they didn't have to work.  It's healthier because the food digests better. 

Sorry. I should have said that "in the United States, it's a midwestern thing". I've lived in Boston and I don't recall any Italian Americans eating "dinner" mid-day except, of course, on Sunday.

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4 minutes ago, freejugar said:

why don't you use fresh vegetables and garlic? you get up at 5 in the morning to do fuck all!

I used to freeze the surplus vegetables from my garden and then the following spring realize I hadn't used most of them. So I started making mass quantities of vegetable soup during the peak garden months and freezing that in meal-sized portions. No more work than freezing the vegetables*, and we have delicious Italian-style vegetable soup at least once a month all winter long.

*acknowledging that Teri's frozen vegetables more likely came from Sam's Club than from her garden, but now that she's retired from teaching maybe she could try growing some of their food!

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1 hour ago, Black Aliss said:

Sorry. I should have said that "in the United States, it's a midwestern thing". I've lived in Boston and I don't recall any Italian Americans eating "dinner" mid-day except, of course, on Sunday.

I think I would know, considering that I am an Italian American from and in the Northeast.  We don't do it every day because we have to work.  It's not a midwestern thing in the US.  Many people of European descent eat their big meal in the afternoon. 

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23 minutes ago, Black Aliss said:

*acknowledging that Teri's frozen vegetables more likely came from Sam's Club than from her garden, but now that she's retired from teaching maybe she could try growing some of their food!

i would love to see if Teri would find gardening pleasant.  i don't have depression, but on high-stress days where i feel like my world is spinning out of control, i try to make time to play in the dirt for an hour or so, and my mood improves a lot.  Teri has that gigantic back yard; if her kids can clean up the woodpile in a blog-worthy manner, maybe they should consider tilling a few square yards for Teri to plant things (like some garlic, so she can give up the garlic salt).  then if she tries cooking something she grows, she might feel better about the task.

Come on, Steve, do something nice for her by encouraging her do this.

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@catlady, and if her back gives her trouble, she could plant things in containers elevated on pallets to reduce the strain.

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Spoiler

elevated bed.jpg

and her home-renovating sons could build her some of these elevated beds which would be even easier on her back.  they're approximately table-height.

 

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1 hour ago, catlady said:

i would love to see if Teri would find gardening pleasant.  i don't have depression, but on high-stress days where i feel like my world is spinning out of control, i try to make time to play in the dirt for an hour or so, and my mood improves a lot. 

There's some evidence that at least one strain of bacteria, Mycobacterium vaccae, that is found in soil appears to stimulate serotonin production, mirroring  the effect that SSRIs have on our brains. The Lord put that bacteria in the soil for a reason, Teri!
 

 

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Not defending anyone, but Depression really takes it out of me. I won't say how long I've put off a few things, but I get it that Teri may "need" helpers to get up, get going and finish. Finishing is the hard part here.

Then there's the Gothard aspect--never do anything your children can do for you AND no alone time. "Many Hands Make Light Work" AND children must soak up the "wisdom" of their parents. So, making clean-out-the-freezer soup with a crowd of helpers meets the criteria.  :)

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I have back problems and need help with putting a roast in the oven or straining a big pot of pasta. But this afternoon I managed to make a pot of lentil soup. It included nothing from the freezer, no pork roast broth here. I did use beef broth and added some fresh broccoli. I also vacuumed, cleaned my bedroom,and got a bag of clothes together to donate. Fun day here mini spring cleaning! 

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2 hours ago, Candydandy said:

I have back problems and need help with putting a roast in the oven or straining a big pot of pasta. But this afternoon I managed to make a pot of lentil soup. It included nothing from the freezer, no pork roast broth here. I did use beef broth and added some fresh broccoli. I also vacuumed, cleaned my bedroom,and got a bag of clothes together to donate. Fun day here mini spring cleaning! 

Would you be able to climb the same mountains that Teri does with back problems and no pain pills? 

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5 hours ago, ViolaSebastian said:

If I had to hazard a guess, as someone with chronic back pain and depression (fun! neat!), it's probably a combination of both. Chronic pain and depression feed off of each other, and it's difficult to treat one without treating the other (lookin' at you, Steve).

I'm starting to wonder if a large part of Sarah being unmarried is Teri being terrified of having to cope without her support and Steve not wanting to be left having to deal with it. This way he can do whatever the hell it is he does exactly without having Teri's needs interfere. 

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My husband and I divide chores by what each of us enjoys/hates. So I do most of the cooking. Generally, my husband is enthusiastic about what ever I make but he always used to look dismayed and unhappy when I mentioned I was making soup... but then he would practically lick the soup bowl clean he liked my soup so much. I finally asked him what was up with this behaviour. He said his ex wife would make awful soup - it was a bland watery mess. He called those soups "bone soup" and dreaded them. When I would say I was making a soup to use up the leftovers he just assumed it would be the same awful tasting soups his ex had made. Properly made homemade soup was an epiphany to him.

I've taken to calling Teri's cooking "bone soup" because it sounds like a bland mess as well. No wonder they find it so easy to fast. 

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My mom was always a fan of what she called the one pot method, but I tend to think of as the dump method. Just dump a bunch of veggies, a few seasonings, maybe some leftover chicken or ham, maybe some beans, maybe some pasta, into a pot with water or broth, and boil. Never really that hard, always filling, always good. Since it was just the two of us, she'd make a big pot and it would last for a few days. 

My MIL is a fan of what she calls garbage soup, which is basically taking all the leftover veggies left from cooking earlier in the week (a half an onion that didn't need to be used, a zucchini that might go bad, the ends of some celery, some carrots, whatever was around) and boiling them in some broth. It's pretty good and very filling. 

Both made these dishes without needing any help or having to plan ahead or anything like that. It really just doesn't take that much thought and effort to make a decent soup. I mean, you might expect more effort in a restaurant or by someone that truly loves to cook, but if you are needing a quick and easy meal, soup should absolutely not take that much time and effort. 

If Teri hasn't figured that out by now, then she is an absolute failure as a homemaker. 

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1 hour ago, theologygeek said:

Would you be able to climb the same mountains that Teri does with back problems and no pain pills? 

You wont find me  climbing a mountain and I'd be too afraid of falling to even try. Not sure about her pain level but I take Aleve.

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5 hours ago, IReallyAmHopewell said:

Not defending anyone, but Depression really takes it out of me. I won't say how long I've put off a few things, but I get it that Teri may "need" helpers to get up, get going and finish. Finishing is the hard part here. 

If Teri’s depression is so severe that the above paragraph would apply to her, then Steve is an even bigger douche-bag for doing nothing about helping her get genuine treatment. We certainly don’t know the extent of her condition, but if she truly needs full-time help to complete basic daily tasks, then she would need more professional help than Stevehova is allowing. 

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Out of curiosity, has the blog ever talked about when Terri's back pain developed? I just keep thinking about what an asshole Steve is if he made his already suffering wife go through five more pregnancies. (Not that he's any less of an asshole for making her go through five more pregnancies with depression...ugh, either way, he's an asshole).

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