Love in Deed (part 2)

It's all very fine and good to plan to "love in deed" in the future, but I have a family to love now. Somehow that isn't nearly as romantic!

I have, however, been contemplating what I can do for each member of my family.


The father
Keep the table cleaned off. We hardly ever eat at it, but he's always had this thing about wanting tables cleaned off. I don't know why tables are any more important that other surfaces, but they seem to be!

Make more meals "put together" rather than just fend-for-yourself leftover operations.

Watch my tone of voice when I speak to him. He simply does not "get" the whole concept of the role of tone of voice in communication, nor any other type of nonverbal communication. When he is doing the speaking, tone of voice is immaterial and when anyone derives meaning from his tone of voice, well, it's clearly all in their head. However, he seems to notice other people's tone of voice and to derive meaning from that, and to be particularly sensitive to my tone of voice, and in such cases it is most certainly not all in his head. Sigh. But, despite this egregious flaw of his, I really ought to be more careful so that I don't annoy him or send him messages I didn't mean to send. This one's going to be hard because when he is in a lot of pain from his injuries, he is hyper-sensitive. LOL Pray for me, please. I am not particularly good with oral communication anyway and "tone of voice" is one of my problems.


The mother
Organize her and Dad's laundry when I put it in their basket rather than just stacking it in any ol' way, so that it will be easier for her to put away.

Learn how to cook rice in our rice cooker so that she doesn't always have to be the one to do it (rice is a constant at our house).

Stop forgetting to "show up" for such dreary tasks as looking blueberries and shelling beans. The poor woman gets stuck with those jobs for hours, and I really don't mean any harm. I just don't think to do them.


The brother
Organize his laundry in his basket.

Always make sure he has food to eat. He has a lot of allergies and can't always eat what the rest of us eat. He hasn't starved yet, but sometimes the food gets scarce!

Help him pick potato bugs. Maybe? Waaaaahhhh! Well, I'm sure he'd appreciate it. Or help with some other such gardening task he seems to have a greater commitment to than anyone else does.