Your Questions About Gardening

Easter questions… How to handle this situation? What would you do?

As a Mommy and Aunt I find myself at Easter time having fun as most women do gathering Easter Baskets up, thinking and re-thinking of what will go in who’s this Easter. Hubby and I always have a HUGE Easter egg hunt at our home, hiding eggs thru our walk-thru garden. My kids are easy. My toddlers love candy as well as ‘home-made coupons’ from the Easter Bunny, A Fishing Day with Daddy, A day at the Playground, Movie night, ect. Along with the eggs hunt, we do the traditional baskets with eggs and a few little extras. I also put together baskets for my younger nephews and nieces. My sister-n-laws also do the same with my kids, not that it is required but we have fun doing this for the kids. All except for my hubby’s brother’s wife. She always takes what we give my niece, but rarely says thank you and my little ones get nothing from her. This year I am ordering all the little ones Pottery Barn Baskets with their names on them. I am going to fill them the same as always. My question is… Should I order my little niece one as well? Or should I skip by her because of her mother? Quite frankly I am not even sure if when my niece gets the things we give her she even is told who they are from…

What would you do?

A confused Lyn
Oh geez… I just re-read what I typed and it sounds like I am a terrible person. I am not, I realy, really try my best to totally give to everyone. Those who know me, know this. Secret santa gifts, donatons to children without, treating family & friends yearly on vacaction. I used to not have so much, now that I can, I do for all. My problem is more my SIL, I guess. She can afford, and it is not that my kids need anything in return, but a smile and thank you would not kill her. I guess I have to accept this is the way she is and she is never going to get any nicer.

I’m trying to find a children’s animated film I saw a long time ago.?

I’m pretty sure it was made before the 90’s and I don’t think there was any dialogue, just music. It was about this little girl(I’m 99.99% sure it was a girl, it could’ve been a boy) and her grandpa and these playful, imaginative adventures they had. The opening sequence was her all shrunken down in their garden or something, and her grandpa saves her from a spider. Towards the end they had an adventure where they rode a whale, or were fishing and caught a whale- something with a whale. Then the grandpa goes to sleep and won’t wake up; seems the whale adventure was too intense for him and he passes away. Next thing you know the little girl is going to a park or something where there are other children and it fades out- end of the film. I don’t know the year, director, animator or anything that would’ve made it easier for me to narrow this down. Any ideas what it could be?

What to do in this situation with my brother (Long Read)?

There’s four of us, I’m the youngest (20) and my older bro lives with us at the moment (he’s 28)..

He’s very intellectual and he used to be a really lively, happy guy, always had something to do to crack a witty joke and make everyone smile. Always looking forward, believed anything could be done and he always got all the girls and everything. Now he’s stuck at home with a crap job that he hates with a passion.. he used to work on cruise ships but he doesn’t want to do that anymore (he worked in the casino where his skills lie) and he’s worked in casinos practically his working career. But now he’s given up on that and is working at a crappy local garden centre which pays next to nothing and he hardly gets any hours. He still complains about work even though he works every other day for like 4 hours! He’s so negative it’s beyond belief (well so are my parents most of the time) and he’s constantly unhappy – I mean I understand if he feels depressed but I’ve tried so long to help him, I’ll be nice to him and try and ask him questions or just crack a joke or anything just to make his day a little easier and his snaps in my face and I do little things for him to try and make him happier but it seems he just add that to his ego and won’t ever do anything back or thank me for it.

He won’t ever talk to any of us at the dinner table and only says something that’s always angry or really taking the piss. Me and him used to talk about loads of stuff for ages and now while I’m talking to him I can tell he is not interested one bit he just locks himself in his room. Or the only time he will say something is to criticize and that always leads to an argument.. every night we expect this and every night it happens – even if we don’t try to talk or even say anything he manages to pull it off.

I even got some luck with some extra money to help the family out since we’ve been going through a hard time these past few months and I said I would give him some cash and then he started arguing with me and slammed the door in my face! He started telling me how I don’t do this and that and I said here I am going to give you 250 pounds to help you a little and you’re talking about how bad I do at things. All I was doing was trying to help him out since we are both broke atm.

So my question is, what can I do? It seems the only time he is interested to talk or listen to me is when he’s stoned and even then it’s hard. My parents recently found out he’s still smoking weed these days so they want him out of the house the next time he gets paid which hasn’t made things easier.

I’m a bit depressed myself to be honest but I understand that I always have to keep my head up and good things will come eventually so I try to keep happy – Even my mum said I’m an extremely happy person for the position we are currently in.

I would just like to get my old bro back, I am worried the current one will disappear and never be seen again or end up doing something stupid.

It feels like I’m missing a friend these days when he’s acting the way he is, the way he’s treated me is not acceptable and I’ve explained countless times and he puts it right back in my face. Anything I say I plan to do or something positive he snares or laughs and it used to really annoy me but now I used this as an extra push in the hope’s that I will have success.

Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks for your time.