Facebook Fury!

Hey, its been awhile.

Its hard to keep this blog going because honestly, I don't have bad things happen to me every day. I started this as a way to vent while living with my in-laws and now that we don't, I don't have as much ammunition to go off of. But every once in awhile things come up where I remember this blog and that its worthy of posting about.

This may be something small and silly but it bugs me a bunch. The story goes something like this: Someone on Facebook posted about someone doing something passive aggressive to them (did that make any sense? I'm trying to be vague.). Something happened a person didn't like, so that person left a note to my Facebook friend, taped to her door. So my friend pretty much made fun of this person for doing that; to all her friends. Publicly, on Facebook. Now, I can see why it made her feel stupid and so she made herself feel better by belittling this other woman. I also understand that it probably wasn't the most "mature" thing of the other woman to do. If she had a problem, in an ideal world she could've just nicely said something. The thing that really bugs me is that all the people that commented just ripped this lady apart! Saying things like--

--she has issues

--she's a wuss

--she's a coward

--instructions on how to flush her own damn head down the toilet

--telling the friend to poop on this lady's lawn

--calling her an insensitive jerk

--telling her to take a red pen, correct any spelling and punctuation errors and tape it back to her door

Etc., etc., so on and so forth. Thirty plus comments worth!

Okay, so how are these people ANY better than the woman taping the note? In fact, I'd say they are a LOT worse, some of the things people said were AWFUL! And not only are they talking about another human being, someone's daughter, sister, mother, friend--they have no idea that woman's situation! Maybe confronting her was TERRIFYING, just because its not hard for you, doesn't mean it isn't horrible for someone else. Where's the tolerance? Where's the love?!

And the other thing that really bugs me about this situation is that all those people were SO upset only because they were playing a popularity game. This person is funny and popular, she has a very popular blog. The people only totally agreed with her so that she'd like them more. Ridiculous.

So why do we do this? When our friends tell us about someone that hurt them we go all savage about it " WHAT?! SHE DID WHAT TO YOU?! THAT BLEEPITY BLEEP BLEEP!!!" We rip them up and down, and sure it makes your friend feel better but oh my gosh, is it right?! I can't say I've never done that, of course I have. But people are so incredibly judgmental there's just no way to win. If that lady had knocked on her door and told her to her face, do you doubt there wouldn't have been a post making fun of her on Facebook for doing that?

So its been my goal the last year to:

1. Give people the benefit of the doubt. Think their intentions are good, not hurtful. Think about their side of it, not just how it makes me feel.

2. Not let people bother me so much. People annoy me, it seems like everyone around me is an idiot some days. Well, guess what? Its much more their problem than mine and I should just worry about not acting like an idiot myself.

3. Being real. Instead of judging people for what they have, don't have, how they look and what they do; I'm going to just be happy with the great life I have and see people as a way of enhancing that. Seeing the best in people and realizing that NO ONE is perfect makes it a lot easier to deal with dumb. We all do stupid things, we all mess up, we all say things that come out wrong. Get over it and let's stop drilling people for making mistakes.

Whew. I think I got it off my chest.

And if you're wondering, yes, this is my passive aggressive way of dealing with that Facebook situation because I was too big of a coward to say anything there. I know, I know. Stop judging, remember? :)

Poor Homeless People

Stop the presses--

 I'M BACK!!

Wow, I almost forgot I had this blog! Its been like six months since I last poster, gee whiz thats awful!

On the bright side, the reason why I haven't posted is because we finally moved out of my in-laws and into our brand newly constructed house! So I've been dealing with packing and unpacking and setting up and all that junk. Of course, that didn't quite take me six months to do, but we didn't even get to move in until the end of March, and then things have just been busy non-stop anyway.

So to get things somewhat up to date, once we moved out I basically cut off ties with the mother in law. HA! I wish. No, I would never want that, I truly believe family is one of the most important things and I would love to make a relationship with her work. But I did need a little space and it took a couple months before I really wanted to be around her again. And I would say things are a LOT better. Is she still a crazy psychopath? YES. Do I have to live with crazy psychopath every day? NO. That helps.

I can tell she's trying, or maybe I'm just a really great person and forgive easily (that must be it! by golly!) but the horrible things aren't happening nearly so much.  Probably the worst thing thats still going on is that the woman thinks we're poor.

Let me explain. Quite a few years ago when my husband and I were first married, he wasn't making enough money while going to school and we couldn't pay all of our bills. My in-laws basically forced us to let them pay our bills (they really did INSIST and kept telling us that it was a blessing for them to help us out), and even when we told them enough was enough and we were good now, they still refused to stop paying. Finally, we had to cut THEM off. Especially after one point when one of my husband's sisters accused us of taking all of "their inheritance"--did I mention some of his sisters are nut jobs too?

So anyway, ever since that time my mother in law has it stuck in her head that we are poor. How do I know that? Because she ever so sweetly asks me things like, "I was wondering if it would be okay, if I took your oldest school clothes shopping..." and "Are you SURE you don't need anything?! You have to let me know if you need something!!" and if she ever takes my kids anywhere they always come back with a bunch of crap, like new socks and underwear and toys, because we obviously can't afford it.

The other day she asked if one of her daughter's could buy my daughter's school supplies. Her reasoning was at church they were doing a humanitarian project where they were donating school supplies to less fortunate kids. And we fell in that category to her.

Its so offensive to be portrayed as the poor ones in the whole family. I love it so.

Just Try To Top This, Its Impossible!

I haven't blogged for awhile. Besides the fact that I'm mostly blogging about the person I live with (and am nervous about being caught), I just don't have the heart. A lot of the stuff is just petty. I don't mind petty, in fact I hold on to the petty far too long. But when you're feeling so pushed down and squashed, sometimes blogging about the petty stuff just seems like too much energy. But boy do I have a post for you today! Because it isn't always petty stupid stuff, sometimes it really is astonishing the things that happen here!

This is how last night went down, we had dinner ridiculously early like we do every night (at like 3:30--I know, so stupid) and since I'm having a hard time even with all the petty stuff (it really adds up to something huge, ya know?) I really wanted to get out of there. I could not stand the thought of sitting through another horribly awkward, annoying night after dinner, so I texted my husband across the kitchen and told him "WE GOTTA GET OUT OF HERE!" He's a good man who cares about his wife's sanity, so he obliged. We went to Dairy Queen and got Blizzards and then headed over to my parent's house to pass some time. We got back probably around 7:30 to find "the fan" blowing, and something was about to hit it. (Do you get it? The sh*t was about to hit the fan! Come on, you know you love it.) I walk into the bathroom, and see a note on the mirror. And not just like a sticky note, this note has been typed up, printed out and freaking lamenated. Insanity I tell you, complete insanity I'm living with! The note reads "Whomever gets out of the shower last, MUST wipe the shower down!" Seriously. My mother in law knows that I'm the last person to get out of the shower every day. She told my husband when we first got here that she wants the shower wiped down, which I find ridiculous. Absolutely freaking ridiculous. Its not a glass shower, its tile. Who the h-e-double-hockey-sticks wipes down their tile shower EVERY SINGLE DAY? Well, I gotta be honest, and I know its horrible, but I only do it every COUPLE days. Besides the fact, that I can use the excuse that she has NEVER asked me personally do it. Since she doesn't talk to me. Anyway, the whole point is that the note is completely directed at me, and instead of just saying casually anytime of day (since she's. always. here.) "Hey, Addison, you wipe down the shower don't you?" She has to leave a vindictive little note. My husband is in our room, and I go tell him about it. He is pissed, just done with all the garbage and heads out to the kitchen where his mom is. He basically just says, what is this? Do you think we're little kids? This makes us feel stupid! Why can't you just talk to us? And the "discussion" starts.
Its wonderful. Its wonderfully directed directly at ME. We try and talk about things, whats bothering us, why its so hard for everyone to just talk, that it shouldn't be so hard. And you know how it comes back at us? I want ADDISON to do this, I want ADDISON to do that, ADDISON isn't happy, I've talked to all my daughter's (she has five) about ADDISON and they don't understand why ADDISON is so rude to everyone and won't talk to anyone!! (Are you freaking kidding me?! I could go on and on how this is completely untrue and insane, but I won't go into it, its just too ridiculous to even give explanation.) It doesn't matter what we say, she takes our words and makes a complete different scenerio with them. For example, she says "Okay! (in a really snippity way) This is what will make me happy--if Addison would make dinner more!" and I say "Thats fine, why I haven't made dinner more is because we eat so early, I'm still full from lunch and I'm not even thinking about getting dinner ready yet. Plus its hard when we haven't done a menu or anything--like we talked about before--I don't want to just cook up some meat that you have planned for something else...it makes it hard for me to cook dinner." What my MIL takes from that statement: I hate sit down family dinners. (Yes, she is insane.)
Then she starts talking about cleaning. Ugh. You've got to be kidding me. She makes it out like I don't clean at all (not even mentioning the fact that there are five able bodied adults who should all be cleaning, but she's telling me that she just wants me to clean up after EVERYONE, seems so reasonble right?), when I've been basically following my kids around all day picking up behind them and freaking out if anything's out of place. I'm the only person thats cleaned the bathrooms since we got here until last week when the MIL started cleaning them, and quit halfway and left all the cleaners out and the bathroom a mess. She brought that up. "I even started cleaning the bathroom last week and left it, JUST to see if anyone would finish cleaning it." I gotta be honest with you, I looked her straight in the face and told her that is manipulative. (GO ME!) Also by way of manipulation, she made the statement that "Oh well, if it got the point across it doesn't matter how we got there." To which I said, "NO. You can't just do whatever you want and treat people however just to get your way." (YAY! GO ME AGAIN!) For the most part, even though there was obvious tension and upsetted-ness, she was trying to down play it the whole time ("No one's upset! No need to be offended! Its okay! Blah blah BLAH...) Of course there is so much more, but this would go on and on and I bet you're already bored.
To finish up, she went in the bathroom, ripped the note off the mirror and ripped ANOTHER note from off the dishwasher we hadn't even gotten to see yet, and threw them away. I had to go upstairs to put my kids to bed, in which I had a complete meltdown and started sobbing. I mean, completely broke down sobs. It was very pathetic and you all would have felt very terrible feelings towards my mother in law. Meanwhile as I'm sobbing upstairs, my MIL is ripping me apart downstairs to none other than MY HUSBAND. As in telling him: She just hates me! It doesn't matter what I do, she just hates me!

Horrible woman.

My husband was really great and really did try to set things straight, but it doesn't work so well when you're dealing with an unbalanced person who can never be wrong and has no idea how to communicate or be a nice person. So when I came back downstairs, she has the nerve--after ripping me apart--to come over and try to hug me and tell me "I know I'm not your favorite person right now, but thats just the way it is." (!!!!!!) To which I replied, "I don't want it to be that way." and walked away.

Witch.

HAAAPPY Birthday

It was the MIL's birthday yesterday. Oh my gosh, it was so...well, once again: RIDICULOUS! She gets up in the morning and says in the card her husband gave her, she didn't like what he said and thought it was really rude. What he had said was that since they were going to go to a restaurant that gave a free burger for your birthday, dinner was on him! (ha ha! He was trying to be funny.) Apparently, that was really rude. But instead of talking to the guy she's been married to for 50 years, she just fumed over it and talked behind his back. So when it was time for us to go out to dinner, she's acting all mopey and jerky and everyone's all do you really want to go? And she ho hums and says yeah, lets go. So we go. We get there, we get ready to order, the waitress comes around and MIL refuses to get anything. She. Won't. Eat. She won't talk to anyone for the rest of dinner. She's just being a witch and feeling sorry for herself over nothing. Honestly, I would hope by the time I was sixty something years old, I would stop acting like a little child. (And I know what I'm doing isn't childish at all. Whatever.)

Fakey Fakerson

So it continues. Honestly, no really HONESTLY, I'm trying really hard to let things go and to not be so annoyed/bothered/angry/frustrated all the time. Every night I get into bed and just pray that I can let go of all this and move on. And then of course the morning comes and I have to be around everything again and something ridiculous happens. The last couple days have been real winners too. The MIL has been "sick". I put sick in parenthesis because its ridiculous. She is so dramatic! (Now I know where my husband gets it...) Instead of just taking care of herself, or going to bed or whatever normal people do when they're sick, she gets up at 5:00 in the morning and moans and groans and makes faces ALL DAY LONG. She's rude to my kids, she walks around grumpy, its just plain ridiculous. So we've been trying not to be here, because not only do I not want to be "sick", I also don't want to be around her bad attitude. Except I think its really bothering her, because I think she wants attention and everyone to fawn over her and her "sickness" and we're not doing that. So last night we were getting ready to go somewhere and she's all "you're not staying for dinner?" and we're all "NOPE" and then gave her a bunch of reasonable reasons why we weren't, and she's all "whatever!" and then proceeds to ask us if we're going to be there for Christmas dinner or if we're going to my parents. So I ask her what time dinner will be? And she says she doesn't know. And I say well, it depends on what time dinner is if we'll be there. And she just HAS to say "SO, you guys will be spending ALL of Christmas Eve with her family AND ALL of Christmas Day TOO?!" And I'm like seriously? No really, I'm like "well, if we're going to be over here all day of Christmas at some point we're going to go to my family's, thats all we're saying." And she's all Oh, well we'll probably eat around 2:00. She's such a witch.

Epiphany!

Okay then, I think I figured something out. Since things have started getting so hard the last couple weeks, I feel like I just get quieter and quieter. Everyone ignores me anyway so I didn't think it really mattered. But I have to bite my tongue a lot because if I didn't I would start saying snotty remarks--really I would, its that bad--so I'm just quiet most all of the time. So the last couple days I've really had enough, especially with how the MIL talks to my kids. She bosses them around, she won't let me be the mom basically. When I'm telling them to get down or to put something away, she'll cut me off and say "Yeah, get down off there!" And I'm thinking, hello! I'm taking care of it RIGHT NOW. Its constantly and I'm really really done with it. So I think there's been some tension in the air and I think the MIL knows I'm really bugged by her (not that she cares why or wants to take any responsibility for it, but whatever), and you know what? It makes her uncomfortable. I make HER uncomfortable! HA! The irony of that is just ridiculous. Like not even in a funny way. Maybe I should take some sadistic joy in knowing that I make her uncomfortable, except that I feel this whole thing coming to a head and its going to explode like that giant zit on the end of a teenager's nose. Not pretty.  Oh how I look forward to that, I just hope there's some way I can survive this for another two months. Two months and our house will be ready and I can escape this hell hole and never come back. Really positive right?

So Crazy, Its Making ME Crazy

So the last few days have been horrible (what else is new?), and I hate it because its just silly stupid crap but I just can't figure out why she's doing it (she is her: the mother in law). Its stupid stuff like last night, she comes downstairs where I'm working on a project, and says I need to come make my kids something else to eat because they're not going to eat what she's making (okay, side note here; first of all, the whole dinner thing is totally ridiculous because they're old and literally eat at 4:30. FOUR THIRTY. None of us are hungry then, but MIL insists that we all have a sitdown dinner EVERY. SINLGE. NIGHT. But yet, doesn't check with anyone about what they want to eat or anything sort of reasonable. Grrrrrr. Trying to move on.), so since I'm the "wife" (my husband was sitting there doing absolutely nothing) its my role to go make the kids something else to eat. Whatever. I get up there and my father in law is putting chicken nuggets on a pan for the kids, and she literally stops him and says "No, Addison's going to do that!" Like, seriously? What the crap? I don't even know how I'm supposed to take that, what does that even mean? Does she think I'm so lazy that I had better do atleast that? Or WHAT? So then, I'm cleaning up things around the kitchen, clearing the table off, etc. etc. waiting for the oven to heat up so I can put them in, and before its even close to being hot enough, she snatches up the pan and says "I'm just going to put these in here now!" WHAT? Like seriously? Why did she tell me I had to make something and then not let me do it?! What does it mean?! What is wrong with her?! I'm seriously going absolutely insane here. And every freaking word that comes out of her mouth makes me want to scream. I can't even look at her anymore, I hate it. I don't want things to be like this but I honestly don't know how to handle it or what to make of it. Any advice would be much appreciated, especially if you live with a crazy, manipulative, horrible woman.