Category Archives: Marriage & Divorce
Mother’s illness forces daughter to manage time wisely – Detroit Free Press
Carolyn Hax is away. The following first appeared on Sept. 22, 2004.
Dear Carolyn: Ack. I need some advice here. My mom is being treated for leukemia in a city about four hours away. She’s doing OK, but I’m a wreck. I have an older sister who’s doing what she can to help out, but I really feel like I’m all alone in this. My husband is trying to help, but I can’t define anything he can do besides buy me a new pair of shoes or two.
I just feel like my whole life is chaos – I’m trying to figure out how to handle the (heavy) demands of my job, be there for my mom and have some kind of life that doesn’t revolve around me worrying that my mom is going to die.
– Los Angeles
But she is going to die – maybe not of leukemia and maybe not soon (I hope not, of course), but of something, someday. What you fear is inevitable.
And therefore, all the time you spend fearing death is time wasted, time you could have spent doing something else more rewarding.
Your problem may seem like it’s about your mother’s illness, but it’s really about managing limited time. This was true even before your mother got sick; everyone’s clock is ticking, obviously. The gravity of her situation simply called this truth to your attention in a way that nothing else has in the past.
Read more:
Call it the luckiest of unlucky breaks. So many people come to appreciate time limits only after they realize their time has expired on something – after someone has died, a child has grown up, an era has come to an end. You, though, are learning while you still have a chance to use that time.
So, use it. “Be there for her” by being there with her – and temper your own loneliness, too. Make a conscious choice to pare your life down to essentials, ruthlessly, to free up more time to spend with your mom. Be as strict as possible when you define essentials. Your livelihood, your mom, your marriage, your sanity. That’s it.
Your sanity is easy. No matter what, choose one thing that sustains you, and keep doing it. Workouts, book group, church, ending each day with a bath.
As for your job, you can treat it as the immovable base of your schedule, but don’t just assume you can’t cut back or shuffle your days. Try. You would have to if you got sick, right? And the world would have to keep turning?
Your marriage, you should both use and nurture. Define your husband’s job as running the household, also pared to essentials – keeping the fridge full and the clothes clean and the pets walked and the cars running. (This is in addition to the shoes, of course.) Then, thank him by saving a little bit of your time each week to give him your full, candlelit attention.
Once you’re free to concentrate on Mom, keep only basic goals in mind: either to help extend her life, or to hold her hand as it ends. Either way, enjoy her, now. Use this hell as a lesson, to love those you love while you can.
Email Carolyn at tellme@washpost.com, follow her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/carolyn.hax or chat with her online at noon Eastern time each Friday at www.washingtonpost.com.
Read or Share this story: https://www.freep.com/story/life/advice/2018/12/24/leukemia-family-support/2363026002/
Some Hershey’s Kisses Are Missing Tips and Bakers Want to Know Why – The New York Times
Ugly. Inferior. Cocoa confection catastrophe.
Bakers had sharp words for the Hershey Company this month after buying bags of Hershey’s Kisses, a popular adornment on holiday cookies, only to discover a flaw that was small in size but a giant eyesore: The tip was missing on each piece of chocolate.
Instead of sloping into a rounded conical peak, these chocolates were topped with an unsightly jagged edge.
Prepping for Peanut Blossom cookies and EVERY SINGLE KISS has a broken tip. What gives @Hersheys ? pic.twitter.com/v489v8rlV4
— Yvonne Mills (@yemills) December 22, 2018
Is there nothing sacred anymore? A broken kiss is almost as bad as a broken promise. 😢😢 https://t.co/aqCfkgqnNC
— Ms. D (@meghankathleend) December 21, 2018
A spokesman for Hershey said in a statement this week that the company was “taking this very seriously.” It was not clear how many Kisses were affected.
“We make more than 70 million Kisses a day here in Hershey, Pa., and we want each of them looking as great as they taste,” Jeff Beckman, the spokesman, said. An operations team at the company was “working to improve the appearance because it’s as important to us as it is to our fans,” he added.
The problem was noted by Debbie Sheetz of Greensburg, Pa., in a Dec. 3 post in The Wedding Cookie Table Community Facebook group. Ms. Sheetz shared a picture of her peanut butter blossoms, each featuring a tipless Hershey’s Kiss in the middle.
“They baked ok but not with the nice pointy tip that I’m used to or expect from Hershey,” she wrote, later adding, “I’m still steaming!!”
Other bakers began to respond. They, too, had bought bags of Kisses with missing tips.
What in the name of sweet confection was going on?
On Facebook, Hershey responded to individual complaints from bakers in several states, saying that the company was looking into it. On Wednesday, Hershey used the broken tips to deliver a message about diversity. The social media post showed Kisses of different varieties alongside ones with missing tips: “Warm hearts this holiday season and take the time to celebrate our differences,” it said.
This did not satisfy the buyers of the tipless Kisses.
“American bakers want to have REAL answers: What happened, why it happened, what *exactly* they are going to do about it, and when we may expect a resolution to the problem,” Tamsen DiBlasio, a home baker in Baltimore, wrote in a Facebook post on Thursday.
She was making peanut butter blossoms this month for a holiday gathering when she noticed all of the tips of the Hershey’s Kisses were gone — the remnants nowhere to be found.
“What in the world?” she recalled thinking.
In an interview on Saturday, Ms. DiBlasio said she and other bakers would like an apology “for being sold defective products at top dollar.”
Hershey receives about 8,000 customer inquiries each month, and in December approximately 2 percent were about the broken tips, Mr. Beckman said on Saturday.
Only solid chocolate Kisses were affected, not the filled kisses, which are made by a different production process, he said. All of the solid Kisses distributed in the United States are made in Hershey, Pa., he added.
Hershey’s Kisses were introduced in the early 1900s and have become synonymous with its billion-dollar brand. By 2014 an image of a Kiss had been incorporated into the company’s logo.
Mr. Beckman did not indicate what might have caused the problem except to say that “there are many variables” in the production process.
Ms. DiBlasio, 56, who has been baking with Hershey’s Kisses for more than 30 years and toured the Hershey plant as a child, said it’s a candy that has always been close to her heart. That’s why seeing the broken tips on her peanut butter blossoms made her sad.
“Some people might say, ‘My goodness, just eat the cookie, there are bigger things to worry about in life,’” Ms. DiBlasio said. “At the same time, it’s Christmas and you’re putting your best foot forward.”
Danielle Jonas Says She’s ‘Torn’ About When Brother-In-Law Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra Will Have Kids – Us Weekly
Are aunt duties in Danielle Jonas’ near future? The Moments jewelry designer chatted with Us Weekly earlier this month and revealed she isn’t sure when it comes to when her brother-in-law Nick Jonas and his newly minted wife, Priyanka Chopra, will add to their brood.
“You know, I go back and forth,” Danielle, 32 — who is married to Nick’s brother Kevin Jonas — dished to Us. “I always say like, ‘Oh yeah. For sure. The next year.’ But then, like, I see them sometimes and I’m like, ‘Uh, maybe they will wait.’”
The New Jersey native added: “So I’m torn. I don’t know yet.”
Priyanka Chopra and husband Nick Jonas arrive to attend the wedding of Mukesh Ambani’s daughter Isha Ambani and Anand Piramal. Prodip Guha/Hindustan Times via Getty Images
As for if Danielle and her beau have given the “Chains” crooner and the Quantico alum any advice on marriage, the former E! reality star told Us, “It’s not something to like give them tips on, but I think that they just work, you know?”
She continued: “They both are very career driven and they just know. I think they’re old enough — like, Priyanka is old enough to just know how to handle everything — and I don’t know, they just really work.”
Earlier this month, Danielle attended Nick and Priyanka’s wedding in Jodhpur, India, when the pair — who got engaged in July — wed in a Western ceremony on December 1. The following day, the two married again in a traditional Hindu ceremony and later hosted a third reception in Mumbai on Thursday, December 20.
“It’s been really awesome. We haven’t seen them too much just because they’re still doing their wedding thing, which is crazy,” Danielle told Us of their continued celebrations. “But she still looks great, you know? She must be so tired, but I know that they’re happy and it was really exciting and such an experience.”
Nick, for his part, opened up about fatherhood in a recent interview on Spotify’s “The Rewind With Guy Raz” saying he “definitely” wants to be a dad. He added,“I think that’s a real dream.”
With reporting by Carly Sloane
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