u/Ovidhalia

I am trying to remove a useless half shelf in a pantry cabinet. There are no visible screws or nails anywhere on the outside and the shelf is solidly attached. I could not budge it. I used a rubber mallet and tried gently banging it upwards and it moved the whole cabinet. I’m worried about tearing the side or back of the cabinet if I don’t do it correctly. Any advice on how best to approach this?

I tried posting this a while back and then was going to let it go as the frustration died down a bit but we had a family dinner Saturday and the issue came back up again. Background: BIL has a 15 yr old daughter (B) from outside their marriage. Never once denied her. She’s his 1st born. B’s been in our lives since she was a baby.

Love ‘em all so no bias when I say B’s spoiled. The biggest problem is B has a huge issue wasting food. She will load up her plate eat less than 30% then throw the rest in the trash. Every time. I brought this up to my sister and BIL multiple times. Nothing done. I have no issue with her eating as much as she can but she overloads her plate then throws what’s left in the trash. When I brought up this during family dinners, her parents excused it as her not “liking” left overs and that at least she cleans her plate (throwing what’s left in the trash and rinsing her plate to put in the sink). I asked why don’t they pack it up as leftovers for themselves and was told “we’ll do that from now on.” They didn’t.

The dinner before last, I organized everything (I usually do) and when we sat down for dinner, I handed my niece a plate. She said “oh” and took the plate. I told her she can always get seconds once she’s finished. A day after I got a text from my sister saying I humiliated my niece because she was the only teenager who was not allowed to make her own plate and that I treated her like she was “greedy.”

I don’t mind her taking as much as she can eat. In fact, at one point the family was worried she had an ED and was loading her plate to mask how much she was actually eating. But it wasn’t that. She eats but she’s also not overeating. She just overloads her plate and wastes what’s left. She even did the same thing with the cake, which I didn’t serve her. Took two slices to start, ate one slice, scraped the frosting off the other slice and threw the remaining cake in the trash. Not wasting food is something that was greatly instilled to all of us as kids. So my reaction is just instinctual.

This last dinner, I said nothing but my BIL kept making passive aggressive comments anytime any of their kids went into the kitchen to get something, even drinks, like “did you ask your uncle first,” “make sure you uncle is okay with that,” “make sure you didn’t take more than you’re allowed,” and BS like that. I didn’t want to talk to him and start something so I asked my sis and she said “well, this is what you wanted right?” It has never been about permission. Now I feel like they’re making me the bad guy to my nieces and nephews.

So honest question, from an outside perspective, was I the asshole in this situation?

TLDR - My niece wastes food and her parents won’t do anything about it so I refused to let her serve herself at a family dinner. Her parents say I singled her out and humiliated her.

The problem: I have very bad motion sickness. Have my whole life. It’s one of the reasons I avoided cardio as I got older. While on the treadmill I have tried:

Watching TV.

Staring straight ahead (at a wall). This is the worst because in addition to still getting motion sick, the time seems to drag forever and honestly I end my walk faster.

Closing my eyes and just listening to music. I only tried this once and actually threw up afterwards from the nausea.

I’ve tried putting a mirror in front of my treadmill, drinking ginger tea pre-workout…

The motion sickness is bad. I usually get a headache and very bad nausea. If I’m not lucky I get a migraine too and then it puts me out of commission for the rest of the day.

Should I just give up on treadmills? Elliptical also do the same. I was hoping I could use the treadmill to help build the habit of walking everyday because I have a very hard time staying consistent when only walking outside because my work schedule doesn’t always allow it. Anyone else with really bad motion sickness found a way around this?