I usually keep Mondays for myself, but decided to go see what I could do for my mom. As you may have guessed, not sure if I sprang it on you, my #2 brother has moved back up from Florida. I won’t use his name here, but he’s come into my mom’s house and turned it upside down, thinking he’s ‘helping’ her. Mom has a lot of things in her house-she’s a buyer and hoarder. We all are to some degree-look at people who don’t move for many years and you know we are keeping too much. But mom has enough of everything to give everyone in our hometown a gift of something in her house. #2 is being rash, and to clean up a big house takes more than a few weeks. Mom never invited him to come into her home and start all this (brother #1 hasn’t become involved). Older folks aren’t use to a big upheaval and my mom looked so bad today, I decided to take her out to dinner, which I did. She really enjoyed it. And I wanted to run into Macy’s (next door to the restaurant in the mall) to look around as I don’t have one near me. Well, mom goes and tells brother #3 that I took her to dinner and Macy’s and almost as soon as I walked in the door tonight, #2 calls to lecture me about taking mom shopping! She happen to be with me, she didn’t act like she wanted to buy anything, so what’s the problem? What do you think? I don’t think she’ll be shopping that much anytime soon. I was with her (she usually went on her sprees solo). Most of our family is being effected. My sickly uncle, me and now Bri was yelling to get off the phone. He can’t take hearing about this everyday.

I’ve been trying to watch my eating better. I had tapalia fish on salad at the restaurant-skipped pasta! If I had been home I would have tried a new recipe-arugula, cannelini beans and pasta for dinner from Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food magazine (I’ll have it Tuesday). My goal is to try one or two new recipes a week that are lower in fat. Mom and I also ran in Trader Joe’s grocery store and I was getting some low fat snacks. I got some chocolate meringue drops-no fat, low sugar-very yummy.

Please keep my little mama in your thoughts and prayers. I hope we can all treat her with the love and respect she deserves (and live in the present, as the past is being brought up so much) to help her get her place in shape.

BTW, almost broke my left big toe last night because Cosmo the kitty had kicked up a throw rug and my toe got caught right in the big bend of the rug and got bent back. It’s a bit sore, but I really want to do some serious walking this week.