Nosy Mouse

This is based off of hearsay. I hear my wife say things, and I get ideas based off of them. Hearsay. Sister it seems feels awkward helping around mom's house, but wants to do more around to help. When Sister first moved back in mom was wanting Sister to be able to work through internal issues and not need to worry about things around the house as much, thereby "disabling" the 'help-around-the-house' mode. There's the basis for some of the rest of this.

Dad, loving as he is, his main chore every day is to make sure that the dishes are done, if he does this his wife is happy, if she's happy she likes to be around him, if she likes to be around him he is much more happy as she's more responsive and snuggly. Husbands' like it when their wife is snuggly, responsive and happy. So, when Sister tries to be helpful around the house and do the dishes to do something to help out Dad gets upset. Sister is trying to move his cheese. Without doing the dishes his wife isn't snuggly, happy, or responsive. Even though by Sister doing the dishes he could then do something else around the house it's His chore and He wants to do it. It's his cheese. So, sister is told "no" 'help-around-the-house' is again "disabled" and sister isn't able to get the weight off of her mind/shoulders/heart about being able to do more around the house to help out.

I'm not sure of the entire situation, I can't be, I wasn't in the conversation between Sister and Wifey, therefore I'm a nosy mouse. From the outside though...

It sounds like Sister wants to be able to help around the house more, feels awkward and like she's not able to, or like she doesn't have permission to.

Permission is a funny thing. We grow up being told when we can or need to do things, we go to school and get told when we can or need to have things done by, we go to work and find the same thing. At your own personal home you can tell yourself when you can or need to do something. At someone elses' home they don't want to ask you to do something they would really like done, and it's uncomfortable asking if you can do something. So, both parties end up being frustrated, wanting more, much more, to be done but neither ever bring it up, and nothing changes, or it might if someone moves anothers cheese or squeeks a bit too much perhaps.

When I was serving in a volunteer position back east for a couple years we had a few leaders that got switched around on us, they're referenced as presidents though not to be confused with the kind of presidents who are elected and seem to either steal and lie or tell the truth but get walked over for it by those who said they would support them. Anyway, the last president that directed the group I was volunteering with said something very profound to us volunteers. See, we had a lot of guidance, a lot of instructions, and some of it seemed a bit distressingly stringent some times to some of the volunteers. As such he said "I give you PERMISSION to be obedient" (obedient to the things we said we'd do, things we'd promised we'd do).

In the past I've found that was was being done is he gave us quite literally permission to act for ourselves. Permission. It's a powerful situation. It's called being ENABLED. A clock might be able to wake you up in the morning, but despite how loud it wants to be, what song it might play or the kind of buzzer it blares it's not going to wake a cockroach if it's not been enabled by flipping the little switch on it. I can tell you from experience that many things in life have been missed by not Enabling the clock to do what it's meant to do.

How this all relates.

Dad, it's ok if someone moves your cheese, some times maybe you just say "thank you" and plan on doing it the next night too, if it's done the next night for you too then you just wait until the person who was doing it doesn't do it, when it's not being done by someone else then it's your job to do it, but if someone else wants to do it, let them. Give them a big hug and say "thank you". It's ok to squeek a tear too, if you're so inclined.

Mom, some times people need to be enabled after being disabled. An alarm clock with the switch still on off isn't going to do much good, pretty to look at, may have sounds it makes if you turn the radio on, but it's still not going to wake you up in the morning without being enabled. It's ok to enable people. "It's ok for you to help around the house, I'll try to understand how you did what you did and accept it if it's not how I would have done it" may be one way of enabling the alarm clock.

Sister. If you're going to move someones cheese let them know where you put it. ;) Some times dad gets stuck on his cheese and if you hug him, tell him you love him, and say that you just want to help around the house some by doing the dishes I'm sure he'd let you and understand just fine that his cheese is still being protected by someone and isn't being stolen away.

Mom, don't steal Dad's cheese in the garage, I can't find tools when you steal his cheese. You can move the cheese together, but he has to know where things are otherwise I can't help fix things either.

Dad it's ok for old cheese to go out to pasture...books on programs that haven't been in use for years aren't likely to be resurrected and keeping the books though they might be cherished memories, if you write down the memories you won't have to worry about losing them, and written down the memories take up less space than a book case in the garage... I'm sure mom would love to help you use Dragon Naturally Speaking if you would rather speak your journal as opposed to writing or typing it. I'm sure your grandchildren would love to read it typed, and maybe even hear sound bytes, that could be a fun thing to add to journals, voice, what awesome technologies we have at our finger-tips now.

But mom, really dad's tool-cheese in the garage needs to be in a place where he knows where to find it (cause where he always puts it away is where I always know where to find it, which means when you move his cheese you move my cheese, and then if neither of us can find it we're both grumpy which means you and my wife both end up grumpy, which is no good. lol)........

Just don't set the cat loose on the nosy mouse...it has point teeth and shiny claws....