Very Old, Very Healthy Diabetic

...or die trying.
I was diagnosed in 1998 at the age of 33 with NIDDM or Type 2 diabetes. I come from a diabetic clan. I even married a diabetic. Are you on the diabetes road, too?
This is my goal: to become a very old, very healthy diabetic by day to day choices regarding eating, exercise and medical management. Walk along with me...

Friday, March 16, 2007

Medium Old Diabetics


This is a photo of me and my mom, also taken at my grandparent's home in February 2007. (And that box-like thing in the foreground is a music stand with a hand-made light. It is not a box of stuff.)
I show you this picture because of the garage. What's the connection?
Well, the few comments that I got on the garage post, besides Uncle Pesky who says that that my mis-organized garage aint got nothing on his barn("yers is all in boxes!"), were either 'yes, my garage is full of my kids' stuff' or 'my stuff is still at my folks' home."
Well, this photo is of a woman who avoided that fate. My mom, 'E', has worked hard most of her life to keep her stuff organized. She had cataloged most of the boxes in the attic. Mine were clearly labelled with 'L' and my brother's were clearly labelled with 'W'.
She decided, at some point, perhaps when she and her counselor were working on the idea of healthy boundaries, that when her kids were old enough to live on their own, they were old enough to be responsible for all of their own stuff. Yes, meaning ALL of their own stuff.
She would come visit me, in my tiny blue 14 x 16 foot room, and bring one or two boxes, clearly labelled 'L', up on her handcart in the elevator of my building. As she found stuff that was mine, she would set it aside and ask me to take it with me when I left after visiting her.
I think this was very wise of her, and perhaps should be adopted by wise parents in many settings. Okay, so she waited until we were out of college, but not much beyond that. (Allison, you must show your parents this post. George, Scott & Chrissie, take notice. Yes, George & Scott, eventually they will move out.) Of course, it does mean that the stuff has got to be organized; #1 child's stuff in only these boxes, #2 child's stuff in only those boxes, etc. And you will probably need to be persistent and loving in your moving of the material into the proper home.
You may have to set a time limit. Such as, "Darling, you still have five boxes in the attic. I'll set them in the entryway for your Thanksgiving weekend visit. Anything that's still left in my house by Mother's Day will be going into the garage sale."
Of course with deadlines like this, it helps if you said it like this when they were in grade school: "Lori, I'm going to be going into your room at 3 pm on Saturday. If there are any books, toys, or clothing on the floor and not in their proper place, I'm going to throw them in the garbage." And, it helps if, when they were in grade school, you followed through and actually threw the items away. (In our case the items were only confiscated for a week, which was what she said, but she followed through and kept these consequences for us. At one point, she had to threaten to remove all the books from my room-except the Bible- if I didn't clean my room. I cleaned. I cleaned desperately. I loved my books. I still do, including my Bible.)
So, this is part of why I have all of my stuff in my garage, rather than hanging out at Mom's.
Wise Mom.
Thank you, Mom. I love you, even if you did threaten to take away all my books.
Dr. Parts and I will work on the garage again tomorrow. We got through weekend #1 without damage to our marriage. I have confidence that our continued shared work toward a shared goal will continue to strengthen our marriage.
I also have Percoset. That's for afterwards.

Labels: , , , ,

4 Comments:

  • At 3:53 AM, Blogger Chrissie in Belgium said…

    What can I say? - yeah I guess you are right! Don't be too soft on your kids! It is just that there always seem to be GOOD reasons for allowing stuff to stay a little longer. Extenuating circumstances, lets put it that way! I will not explain them all here. On the bright side, slowly but surely our garage is emptying.....

     
  • At 1:53 PM, Blogger Minnesota Nice said…

    If we lived in the same city maybe you could rent me some garage space to store my yarn........tsk tsk.

     
  • At 3:16 PM, Blogger Scott K. Johnson said…

    I'll probably feel like I've been given a gift of a few hundred square feet when all the kids stuff is gone.

    Hope you are doing better with the pain stuff. Pain sucks.

     
  • At 10:52 PM, Blogger cc said…

    umm... yeah. i WOULD have left a comment comparing your garage situation to our storage situation, but that would have been inappropriate or offensive. as in, my dad is a pack rat and has a sickness involving the inability to throw away even the smallest seemingly insignificant packaging, box, magazine, newspaper, curtain rod or bicycle wheel. that's right. it's not pretty. same with my granparents.

    which makes the house inherited from the grandparents, and past down to the parents, pretty... inappropriate. i'm not just talking wall to wall here. i am talking FLOOR to CEILING. well, at least in the storage space.

    oh well, if i ever have kids i will certainly take your advice and threaten them weekly based on the state of their room. lol.

     

Post a Comment

<< Home

(***)