I'm glad the weekend is over! It was kind of busy.
Steve went to church with me yesterday. I know! If anyone felt any tremors or anything out of the ordinary in the Omaha area, I'm sure that's to blame. He went out Saturday afternoon to buy brewing supplies - he makes his own beer. Well, he discovered that there's a world-wide shortage of hops. Note to any beer lovers, you better stock up while it's still cheap - I'm not kidding. His favorite brew store wouldn't sell just hops, he had to buy the yeast and malt there too. Unfortunately this store charges an arm and a leg for malt, so Steve and gotten that stuff somewhere else. So, no hops. Then he came home and got on the internet and found out hops are seriously in short supply. I keep teasing him now that that's the only reason he went to church was to pray for the hops crop. I would think he'd have better luck with that at a non-LDS church, but it was nice to have him go with me. The missionaries who come to our house all the time were the speakers, so I'm pretty sure (seriously) that's why he went. He won't go otherwise.
We had to go to the sister-in-law's place last night. It was my niece's 18th birthday and our great-nephew's 14th birthday. They were both born on the 12th - so they share a party most of the time. This is never my favorite place to go since BIL and SIL both smoke like chimneys, but it's family so what are you going to do? Should have stayed home though, I got so ticked at my MIL and SIL, but I kept my mouth shut, so I was in a pretty lousy mood by the time we got home. My SIL's son (father of the great-nephew) moved to out of state last summer with his family. Great nephew lives here in town with his mom. Nephew and great-nephew's mom were never married, she got pregnant in high school... Blah, blah, blah. The nephew is now in his 30's, married to a great girl, and they have 3 children with another on the way in January or February. Well, she's always been a real go getter. Very smart, very pretty, and a great mom. I love the nephew, but he's just not... how to do I put this delicately.... He's NOT an achiever and a go-getter. I can't tell you how many times he's started school, with money he's borrowed from my MIL (his grandma), but then he quits because he finds out he's not going to be a millionaire in a year. He's wanted to be a cop, he's been a security guard, he's worked in insurance, he's been a car salesman, he wanted to open his own photography business... You name it, he's probably tried it. In the meantime his wife went back to school when she was pregnant with their second child, she got a Master's degree in education and she's been working as a teacher for local Lutheran schools. About a year ago she got a great job offer to implement a Spanish curriculum and teach a few other classes at a school out of state. Good money for her and a chance to put her degree to good use. She loves it there, the kids love it there. MIL and SIL can't stand it that the nephew lives so far away and every time something happens it's the niece's fault.
There was bedlam about a month ago when everyone back here found out she was pregnant... You would have thought the world was coming to an end, and it's ALL HER FAULT! Oh yeah, immaculate conception.... Just between you and me and the gatepost, the niece could do a heck of a lot better as far as husbands go. As a matter of fact, she could probably do a lot better by herself, but she believes in marriage and she's working hard to bring in good money and be a good wife and mom.
Well, last night the SIL started in on the niece again, about how they never should have left town until the great-nephew was out of school, and now she's pregnant again, SHE ruined their credit because their house didn't sell and ended up being foreclosed on (yeah, that didn't happen to anyone else in the country within the last year!) For one thing the house wasn't in a very good part of town and it needed some improvements that they didn't make when then lived there, plain and simple. The nephew isn't much of a handyman either... Must be in the genes.
Anyway, they went on and on and on... I finally got up and went outside. I was fuming, but I knew if I stayed inside for another minute I was going to say something I might (or might not) regret. I really like my niece and it really ticks me off that she can't to anything right in the eyes of Steve's side of the family. If it wasn't for her, who knows where they'd be now? She put the nephew on a budget that didn't include a 6-pack of pop every day or cigarettes, so he'd go running to momma or grandma telling them how mean his wife was and wouldn't give him any money. She got him out of the debt he was in when they got married, enough that they could even qualify to get a house, but all anyone sees is how he was so deprived while she has everything... I'm still trying to figure out what "everything" entails, I thought she was living a pretty darn frugal life and making the best of a situation where you can't count on your husband staying employed for more than 6 months at a time. She wanted to stay home when her kids were little, so for 2 years she taught Spanish at a school over the internet, sold cosmetics, and babysat whenever she didn't have t teach in order to stay home and still keep an income coming in, which is more than I can say for the nephew.
Holy smokes - can you tell I was ticked? I didn't mean to write about every little detail, but it just ruined my whole Sunday to go over there and listen to that. I told Steve, too, that we're done buying presents for those SIL's kids too. Her oldest still at home is going to be 19 in November and now the youngest is 18 and we've only received thank you notes for their graduation gifts. Never a thank you for a birthday gift or Christmas gift. That's it. I'm done.
Now, I'll take a deep, cleansing breath and get back to work. I'm trying to be thankful that my family by marriage isn't quite as dysfunctional as my family. Heh.
Speaking of which. I think my dad was supposed to have surgery today. I hope it went well, providing of course my sister didn't have a headache and was able to get him there on time. Or, an even more shocking thought, maybe his wife took him! Don't know and I'm not going to worry about it. Not my pig, and it's no longer my farm.
Good night!
