old vs antique

There are things I have noticed spending time with my newly acquired MIL who will soon be 94 years old that there are very very profound differences in preference.  I hate Jello.  I do.  My kids would eat the finger jello I made for them only if I spent 8 hours making it in 6 different rainbow flavors and it stood up to 150 lbs per sq inch!  If you put walnuts and celery and mayonaise in it - I would need to be 40 days starving in the desert before it would cross my mind that that was food - and even then I would choose the crickets.  Live.  Sorry.  Preference.  I hate that shit.  She is completely baffled why it is not the first food I want to rub my face in every morning!  It sits - as she slowly eats a tablespoon a day of the 45 gallon tub she made awaiting my return from our Thanksgiving vacation home to my parents.  BAFFLED she is that I don't want to bathe in it!  UGH - There are walnuts.  And celery.  Now I like celery - Not so much the walnuts.  BUT it's jello.  UGH!

But it's really not about the Jello.  It's about acceptance.  It's about who we are - in time - and who we want to be with and be connected to.  I won't lie.  She's hard.  She was a spoiled brat.  And still is.  At 94 (almost) she's a spoiled brat.   I really don't mean disrespect - it's just a fact.  She expects to have her ass kissed and her stuff taken care of.  If she helps with the slightest thing she wants full on THANKS.  I wasn't raised that way.  If you helped - you were lucky you had someone to help.  I remember being hungry.  Not just as a kid.  I remember being poor.  Shit, it was yesterday!  That stuff stays with you.  I was never a member of a country club (not that I would mind you - but just saying)  She's had a pampered life.  Good for her.  That I don't have a problem with - it's the carry over - the entitlement that frankly pisses me off. 

I have a nephew from my first marriage that was born with a silver entitlement in his mouth.  He lived his entire life (and still probably will beyond that) expecting the universe to give him something he did not earn - work for - or enter into - but just was his because he DREW BREATH!  I never ever got that.  He was a pretty much waste of O2 as far as I could see.  DID freaking nothing for his mom - did nothing to earn  a dollar or help in any way - but HE WAS OWED THIS HUGE DEBT FROM THE WORLD AT LARGE!   I was like "huh?"

I went to college on almost 95% me.  Yes my parents paid $3000 for me to go to a private college.  And I am so thankful for that.  BUT the other 37,0000 came from my hard work and effort.  My husband's kids walk around with their hands out like dad is a wallet.   Sorry.  My dad was (is) a great guy always offered a spare $20 when he had it  - which was every time I saw him - but I never ever saw him as my ticket to ride.  Not so much Roger's lazy POS's!  They are more like their mom than him. SHOCKING I know.  So - I'll let this end here before I totally piss off the universe with my tirade.  Let it just be said.  Parts are parts and people are people and there are brats that are 94 and good people who are 6.  It's who you are and who raised you. 



Finger jello that takes too f'n long to make but my kids will eat!  Take a small quart container and do a smidge at a time of each color

grape
blue
lime
yellow
orange
red
peach

do a package of each with only half of the boiling water and none of the other water
mix in a separate container and then add an hour or two at a crack

the longer it takes you to do this the better!

pudding in between is cool too!  looks like layers between the colors :D