A late wedding gift.

I haven't talked to my MIL in 5 months. Right after moving here, I called to let her know our new address, but before I could even tell it to her she went on and on about her own life, not asking about how our move went, how my new job was going, or about our new house. I ended up emailing our address to her.

About a month ago we got a wedding gift in the mail from MIL's cousin. MIL called a few times asking if we'd gotten it, but it turns out that she gave her cousin my husband's old PO Box address, not the address I emailed to her. My husband told her he closed the PO Box account and she claimed I never emailed her our new address. I went to my sent items, pulled up the email I had sent her and forwarded it to her so she'd have it again and then we got the gift, albeit 2+ years after we got married.

My husband was so annoyed by the constant phone calls asking if we'd received it, that he told me when it came in to just mail it back.  I didn't and the day after we received it, I sent a thank you letter and another email to my MIL telling her that we had finally received it.

Moving Away from MIL! HOORAY!

I haven't posted in awhile, and a lot has changed.

From December 2012 until June 2013, my husband worked in Texas, while I stayed in Florida at my job. I finally got a great job in Texas and moved June 2nd. During his absence, he only came home 4 times. Each time, MIL wanted to see us, but always on her terms. The first time he came home, we moved into a 400 square foot apartment. She didn't help us move. My husband and I decided I would live in a small, simple apartment while my husband was away and wanted to get away from a bad neighbor situation. Most of our stuff went to POD storage.  That same weekend, we sold all of my husband's landscaping business equipment which had been kept at MIL's house.

The second time she came for Easter dinner to eat and left after about an hour. 

The third time we went to a funeral for MIL's best friend's husband and worked an open house for historic homes that her church holds every year. She was incredibly annoying this trip because we had to see her twice and from the funeral to the family visitation afterward she rode with us and couldn't give us correct directions, interrupted the conversation we were having, and just generally embarrassed us.

The fourth time he came home, we packed and moved from FL to TX. She didn't help us pack or load the truck, though my wonderful mother did. My mother helped us unload our POD, pack up our house, and flew to our new city to help me unpack.  In fact, the day we spent loading our moving truck, MIL called and said she wanted to meet us for dinner.  We were on our way to dinner and called and told her where to meet us.  We had already told her we planned to go at 6. She said she had to go to Dillards first to return something and then told us we should go eat dinner somewhere else, a place she wanted to go. We had been packing all day, were leaving the following day, declined a going away party offered by friends, just so we could have that last night to eat dinner with our mothers who came to town, and she wanted to tell us where and when to have dinner.  

She finally shows up as our food is being served, asks/says a bunch of dumb shit about "how busy she's been" and then allows my mother to buy her dinner. Afterward, we go back to our apartment that we're moving out of, she stays for about 10 minutes, and she tears up saying goodbye. It was ridiculous.

Giving and Taking Away

This happened about a year ago, but this post was in draft form and I'm just finishing this story now.

A few days after our 1 year anniversary, my MIL's refrigerator broke. We happened to be going down to her house that Saturday and she was at work by the time we got there. My husband was told by her to take all the food from the freezer and refrigerator because she wasn't going to be able to save it all in ice chests and couldn't get a new refrigerator delivered until Tuesday.

Later that night she called my husband and said, "Why didn't you take more, I'm just going to have throw all this away". There was chicken in her freezer that was still rock hard. I didn't think we needed to take every single thing from her freezer and frankly, based on the past food experiences with her, I didn't really want to take any of it.

The next day, Sunday, she came up to visit us. I had thawed some of the frozen shrimp from her freezer and cut up some crudité. She asked if we were enjoying her food and then opened our fridge and freezer and said, "Oh wow, you took that?" like we stole it from her. I told her we could store all the food for her until she got her fridge installed and hold it until the next weekend. She said, "oh no, that's okay I gave it to you" but then a few days later she called my husband and said she would be in town that Sunday with her friend and was going to "get all her food out of our freezer".  Really?!

All that summer she would make it a point to stop by our house on Sunday afternoons so we could cook for her. She's always show up late and then complain that the food I make isn't healthy enough, that my kitchen is too small, my knives aren't sharp enough, etc.  That particular Sunday that she told my husband she'd be stopping by, my husband was working. She called my cell phone, which made me think she was close by. I quickly left the house and went to Old Navy.  She called again when I was in the parking lot and the conversation went something like this.

MIL: Hey, I'm at your house, where are you?
ME: I'm out shopping.
MIL: Well, you knew I was coming, why aren't you home?
ME: Shawn said you were coming, but he never told me a time and he's working. You can call him if you want.
MIL: I have a friend with me, and we were going to eat with you and get the food out of the freezer.
ME: I bagged it all and left the back door unlocked so you can go in if you want. I gotta go, bye.

MIL did call my husband at work but he didn't answer or call her back until much later and she gave him an earful about how disappointed she was that we weren't at home waiting for her to come by.  

SOOO often she tells us "I do so much for yall". I fail to see how this has ever been true.

50 Shades of Vehicles

Last Thursday, my husband and I were talking about how his mother hadn't called him in awhile. "She must be pissed about something" he said, to which I agreed. "She's probably still mad that you didn't go to the Olive Garden dinner", to which I didn't agree. I said, "if she doesn't talk to me, then she's mad about the Olive Garden, but I've already seen her since then and she was fine, it must be you." 

On Saturday, my husband was back at his mother's house because he works there every other weekend. He called and said, "the new truck (Honda Ridgeline) is gone and a new Honda Crosstour is in its place." The whole weekend she never said anything to him about her newest vehicle because at some point she has to realize what a lunatic she is. Who buys a car for 2 weeks. Doesn't she even test drive before purchasing?

Anniversary

June 4th was my husband and I's one year anniversary. We had a nice dinner, and got a very sweet card from my parents and got a card from one of my husband's cousins.

The day after, my husband was on the phone with his mother who said, "it's almost been one year since I talked to my sister." My husband said, "it was one year ago yesterday". MIL said, "Oh, well you made it a year, you'll make it forever". She said the same thing when we had only been dating for 6 months, 1 year, and 2 years, etc. She finds a phrase and sticks to it.

50 Shades of Stupid

My husband works in his hometown every other weekend doing lawn maintenance. He keeps his lawn equipment at her house and during this last tropical storm, several tree limbs came down on her property. When he showed up to her house the first thing she said was, "you better have brought your chain saw with you or you can leave now. it's your fault these limbs are in my yard." He said "BIL was just here and could've cut some trees down and the chain saw has been here all along."

Then she told him she traded in her older truck and new Acura TSX (bought less than a year ago) and got a new truck. When he was less than thrilled to hear about her wasting more money and wasn't interested in looking at the truck, she cried and cried about how sad and lonely she is. Wah!

BIL & SIL

My husband's brother (BIL) has been in Afghanistan for the past year and came home a few weeks ago. This is only part of the reason they didn't come to my wedding.  BIL and SIL from hell are moving from Alaska to Pennsylvania in August and came to visit two weeks ago. YAY!

Flying into a big city between her family and my husband's afforded them the opportunity to still drive many miles and to visit as many people as they could. Visiting my MIL and husband was scheduled for the end of their trip. They got to town on a Tuesday and MIL set up a dinner for family and friends that live nearby. Dinner with her is always at the Olive Garden, which I loathe entirely. My husband didn't want to go as he and his brother haven't been close since he got back together with SIL.

A little history...

Last deployment (09-10), SIL met BIL in Hawaii during BIL's vacation time where she professed she no longer loved him. When BIL arrived home, she met him at the airport only to give him his car keys and to inform him that she had already moved out and in with another dude. She also, supposedly, emptied their shared bank account. Months later, he took her lame ass back. All this was secondhand information from one of BIL's friends, who happens to live in the same town as my husband and I.

So the dinner happened, I didn't go, and my husband said it was awkward as he thought it would be.

I did, however, meet them for lunch on Friday. SIL gave me a full hug and I felt her bones. She looked rail thin. BIL gave me his half hug, per usual. My husband and I hadn't seem them in a year and a half and the last time we saw them we had just gotten engaged. There were no congratulations from them and as my husband and I had drove separately to MIL's house to see them, they waited until I left to give my husband a Christmas present.

BIL's friend also joined us for lunch and dominated the entire lunch with tales of vacations to Europe. I think I rolled my eyes a few times and my husband hit my leg under the table a few times. Didn't BIL just get back from a year in Afghanistan? Weren't we all family and the friend the outsider? Listening to him go on and out about how he won a trip to Paris, for the 2nd time, just made me want to gag.

SIL and BIL left the next day, and as expected, we haven't heard from them. Supposedly they're coming for Christmas but we hope to avoid them entirely.