Sad

Everything that happened last night is really bothering me. It could be a coincidence but I was feeling pretty sick most of this afternoon, to the point that I had to go and take a nap. I felt really queasy. Maybe it was nothing to do with 'the situation' but I don't think it was helping much either. I really feel quite low about it, which is surprising in a way because it's on a par with how I felt when I fell out with my Dad and this isn't my real Mom we're talking about - yes, she's my mother-in-law, but she's not my actual Mom. Anyway, it's taken me by surprise just how upset I feel about it all. Hubby is feeling the same way, I can tell by the look in his eyes.

I chatted with my BIL on Facebook earlier and he said that his Mom is being "fucking retarded" and that if she speaks to him about it he'll tell her that she's the one causing the problems, so that's good I guess. Hubby is going to call his Dad at work in the morning and tell him that we need to go and speak to him - I really don't think he knows about this, and he's gonna start wondering what's up when we don't show up for the next few months or however long she wants to drag this out. We're both in agreement that her saying we're only welcome now once a month, rather than once a week, is enough to keep us both away indefinitely. Neither of us would feel welcome there now as things stand, so we won't be going. I think that my FIL will be very interested to hear all of this - of course we're aware that talking to him could backfire, he might well know what's been said and there's a chance he agrees with her, but we both want to hear it from him if that's the case. I seriously doubt it, but we'll see. I really don't believe that he knows what she said about our dogs - he loves them to bits and looks forward to seeing them, there's no way he doesn't want them to be there when we are. I still think my MIL was grasping at straws when she made that statement - she said it to hurt hubby (or us - surely she's not stupid enough to think that hubby wouldn't tell me, I'm his wife FFS) and when I spoke to my Mom this morning she said it sounds as though there's some jealousy issues and for whatever reason she's taking exception to the fact that hubby has his own life now. I mean, it's been many years since he moved out of their house, he's been self-sufficient for a long time, long before we got together, but something she said to hubby last night just smacks of jealousy: "You've got your own life now, it's time to pull back" or something along those lines, well that just makes me think that for some reason she's jealous that he doesn't need her as much now. It's sad really because she's his Mom, of course he needs her, and so do I. If she wants to push us away she's doing a bloody good job of it, and as my BIL said, this kind of thing can't really be undone.

What the hell?!

We went for dinner at the in-laws' house this evening, and I thought that we had a nice evening. However, on the way home hubby told me that his Mom had been mad at him over something that happened when they came for dinner last Friday! Basically, hubby's brother and parents came for dinner at our house and his parents are Jehovah Witnesses (JWs) so they say grace before meals. Well, last week hubby and his brother started eating while they said grace. I sat there quietly waiting for them to finish saying grace before I started to eat. I didn't think any more of it, nothing was said, nobody seemed to be the slightest bit bothered by it. Well, tonight after we ate at their house (and all observed their saying of grace) she took hubby into another room. I assumed they were talking about house stuff or something. She actually was telling him how offended she is that he didn't wait for them to say grace before he started eating. She said it's even worse because he did it in front of me, and he's basically showing me it's OK to disrespect his parents. If she'd actually paid attention she'd have realized that I waited for them, so hubby's actions didn't influence mine. Also, her other son did exactly the same thing as hubby and she said nothing to him. She told hubby that they don't want to come to our house again because of it. He tried to reason with her and told her that he didn't try to stop them from saying grace, because he wouldn't do that, but he didn't want to say it. Also, it's his right to not be religious - just as it's their right to be religious. She kept going on about how he was so disrespectful and how he should respect them, which by the way he does, and he said that they should respect our choice to not be religious. Of course she doesn't see it that way. Then she threw in his face that she doesn't like us taking our dogs to their house! This, after hubby's had Suzie for 15 months now and has always taken her with him when he's gone round for dinner which is usually once a week. When we got Gracie we called and asked if it was OK to bring both dogs and she said it was great! So now, she's completely changed her tune and apparently we're disrespectful for taking the dogs with us. Also, she said that we're only invited once a month now instead of once a week. Talk about blowing everything out of proportion!

When we got home, hubby called his brother to ask him if he'd been given the same talking to - no, not at all, nothing was said to him! Note that when we've all been over to my brother-in-law's house, the same thing has happened - hubby and BIL haven't observed grace. So why is it OK in BIL's house but not ours? As I said, nobody stopped them from saying grace. I do feel as though it should be optional, we're not in the least bit religious so when we're in our house we shouldn't be obliged to say grace.

Another thing that's pissed me off is that for the past 3 or 4 weeks, she's brought up my weight. It started when her brother and sister-in-law were in town and apparently her SIL said that I'd lost weight. Now bear in mind that I'd previously only met them once before - at our wedding - for that one day. So, the following week she brought it up when we all went out for a buffet - she asked me, in front of everybody, if I was trying to lose weight, because I didn't eat an excessive amount. She said that her SIL had said she thought I'd lost weight. I was really embarrassed by her saying all this, I could feel my cheeks going red. I said that I wasn't on a diet or anything. Since then she's brought it up a couple more times, including tonight. She said, "Have you lost weight?" and I said "I don't know, we don't have any scales..." and she said again that her SIL thought I'd lost weight - I said, "She only met me once before" and she said "Yeah, she'd only seen you in your (wedding) dress before, not normal clothes" - I was having to bite my lip because to me that sounded like she was saying I looked really fat in my wedding dress. Gee, thanks a fucking bunch! Then, she added that she didn't think I'd lost weight. The whole time I was just wanting to say, "Why the hell is this even up for discussion? Just because I'm not skinny doesn't mean that my weight is a topic of debate for anyone to get involved in! What are you trying to say, exactly, when you repeatedly bring this up? Are you trying to make me feel like shit?"

Of course, I didn't say any of that. I hadn't even told hubby any of this, and as I said it's been going on for weeks now. When he told me all this about how she thinks he's so offensive etc. etc. I told him and let's just say, he's not very impressed with her.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not skinny by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm also not morbidly obese. I have some meat on my bones and I could do with losing some weight, but not too much. Anyway, the whole time she's known me I've been about the same size - so why is it an issue now? I don't like to be too touchy about things like this but when someone repeatedly says something like this and it's completely unwarranted - i.e. she brought up the subject, not me - it starts to feel a bit personal and to be perfectly honest I am getting offended now. So, rightly or wrongly I've asked hubby to tell her how I feel about it next time he speaks to her, whenever that may be. We won't be going round in the foreseeable future, because frankly even if they do invite us over neither of us would feel very comfortable there at the moment. It would be really awkward.

Regarding the dog situation - I really think she was grasping at straws, because hubby made a valid point. If she really was pissed off with us bringing the dogs with us every week, I'm sure she would've at least hinted about it sometime before now. Also, my father-in-law loves the dogs to bits and I'm sure he looks forward to seeing them every week. They have loads of different dog treats in their cupboard - and they don't have a dog! And we're seriously supposed to believe that they honestly don't want us to take them round there? I can honestly say that my FIL would be very disappointed if we stopped taking the dogs with us. Anyway, either way, we won't be going round anymore so I guess it really doesn't matter.

I would like to hear my FIL's take on the whole situation, though - she made out that it was both of them who were seriously offended, but he said nothing and acted perfectly normally the whole night - and he's not the kind to keep his mouth shut if something's bugging him. In fact, I think he would likely have said something at the time. The fact they stayed at our house a couple hours after dinner says to me that it wasn't as big a deal as she's making out. But, if she wants to push her son (and me) away, then so be it.

Rain!

It's a wet, grey day in Phoenix! It's raining on and off, and it's supposed to continue that way for the rest of the day and into this evening. It actually makes a nice change, really. Most of the time it's warm and sunny with blue skies, so a grey drizzly day is quite refreshing!

We had a lie-in this morning, Suzie woke us up at 6.30 so we put the dogs on the bed with us and they eventually went back to sleep. We got up at 9.40 - positively late for us, even for a weekend! It was nice, but I do feel a bit groggy now because of waking up and going back to sleep a couple of times. Oh well! It's not as though we're doing much today. I think it might be a movie day - there seem to be a few decent-ish movies on TV, so that'll keep me occupied for a little while!

I need to go to trusty old Target at some point, poor Gracie has allergies at the moment and she's scratching lots. She's on Benadryl 3 times a day (luckily we got the Target own version which is exactly the same, only $4 for 100 so that's great!). Anyway, we're also having to put shirts on her to stop her from scratching herself too badly - her skin was getting raw where she was scratching, so it does help to put a shirt on her. I think I'm gonna buy a pack of baby shirts from Target, she's gonna need a few because all the scratching inevitably results in holes. There's no point spending $15 on a dog shirt, when I can probably get 4 or 5 baby shirts for around that price. Well, I haven't looked into the prices, but I'm sure they're a lot cheaper than dog clothes anyway! She probably needs either a 12 or 18 month size, I'm thinking the 18 month will be better because it'll fit looser. Pugs are hard to buy clothes for because they're broad shouldered and dog clothes that are meant for their weight range and length are usually too small around the shoulders. Ordinarily it wouldn't be an issue because we don't dress them very often, but Gracie seems to feel the cold a lot more than Suzie and with her scratching because of her allergies, it's the only thing we can do to help (apart from the Benadryl of course). Gracie actually seems to love wearing clothes too, she gets all wiggly and happy when we get them out for her. Suzie? Not so much. Apart from the gorgeous pink polka dot dress she wore to our wedding, she loved that one!

:-)

Gosh, the past few days I've spoken to lots of my friends... Wednesday I talked to Taj, who arrives here on April 22nd, and I also talked to my Mom and Dad for a while to tell them about the house and my unexpected tax rebate. My Aunt Dorothy also called, so I spoke to her for a bit too. Thursday I talked to Tamzin, Debbie and Rochelle. It seems to happen like that - I don't get to speak to anyone for ages and then in the space of a couple of days I speak to loads of people. I kinda would prefer it to be more spaced out but hey, what can you do? I guess it just happens to be when people are free - I'm free most of the time, but they're all busy!

Oh - good news, the government shutdown has been averted. Hopefully there will be no disruption while Taj, my Mom and my stepdad are here! :-)

Good news!

Wednesday evening while we were at the dog park, we got a call from our realtor to say that our offer on the house has been accepted - the listing agent has confirmed that any other offers they might receive will be treated as back-up offers, so unless we back out we should get the house! Yay!!!

Of course with it being a short sale, the bank has to approve the price (again). It's all a bit silly, but that's the way it is. Hopefully they won't mess us around - we just want to buy the house, after all! Right now they're not getting any mortgage payments on it, so hopefully they'll just be glad to have a genuine offer from someone who is definitely good for the money (us!). We'll see, anyway.

Some not so good news - there's a US government shutdown looming, which if it goes ahead will start at midnight tonight. All the national parks would close, including the Grand Canyon... Well, we have 2 sets of visitors coming in the next month and we're supposed to be taking them there. My friend T arrives 2 weeks today, and we're supposed to be going to the GC on Sunday April 24th... My Mom and stepdad arrive on May 3rd and we're supposed to be going to the GC on Friday May 6th... Fuck! Now obviously this shutdown (if it happens) will cause a lot of other problems, but I know T, my Mom and stepdad would all be really disappointed if they couldn't go to the GC. Sure, they will probably be here again sometime so could visit it another time, but it's gonna be one of the highlights of their time in Arizona. So I'm really hoping the shutdown either doesn't happen at all, or that if it does, that everything is up and running again before April 24th!

This morning I felt like absolute crap... I don't think I slept very well last night, and I had a lie-in this morning for a while but kept getting disturbed by Suzie so when I got up at 8 I had a really bad headache and also period pain. Great! Well, it was my day to clean the house (I aim to do it Monday, Wednesday and Friday but this week I did it Tuesday and was supposed to do it again today). Well, I really didn't feel like doing anything at all. I forced myself to, though, because I would've been really disappointed in myself if I'd left it. So I changed the bed linen, did the dishes, cleaned the kitchen, cleaned the dogs' water fountain, tidied the house, dusted, polished, vacuumed, mopped and then I cleaned the bathroom. After all that I had a nice shower - I sure needed it by that point! I feel much better now that the house is beautiful again! :-)

Then I made us lunch, and now I'm relaxing after taking some painkillers which seem to be kicking in now, so that's good.

Oooh, we have cupcakes! We got them last night at Albertsons - they were $1 for a 4-pack, so we got 2 packs! How bad is that?! Sooo good though, yummy cupcakes! :-)

A surprise!

We're still waiting to find out if our offer has been accepted - all signs are good, there are no other offers and since we've offered asking price and we're good for the money we should be OK, but until we're told that for sure we're not getting too excited.

I logged onto my online banking this morning to check my UK account and found a nice surprise - I got an impressive tax rebate! I had to send the tax office a form saying that I'd left the country, and it said "you may be eligible for a tax refund" - well, I got a lot more than I ever expected! I called them and found out why - my last employer had me on the wrong tax code for the entire 3 years I worked there, so I was overpaying quite a bit in tax. Anyhow, it's probably better to get it now because I don't have a job and with us buying a house (hopefully!) we could use all the extra money we can get. I also owe hubby money from when he paid off my loan for me before I moved here... So I won't be keeping much of it, but it's still good! The money can go towards our deposit for the house :-)

House update

OK, so now we're waiting to find out if our offer on the house has been accepted. I can't stop thinking about it! It should be accepted I think, we offered asking price and they previously had a buyer who "wasn't able to perform" (makes them sound impotent! haha) so I think they'll be glad of the offer really.

Our realtor just called and told us they're trying to get ahold of the listing agent to check that they've received our offer (they should have done, but so far the realtor hasn't been able to speak to them). Obviously this is going to be a waiting game and I imagine it'll be quite stressful at times, but hopefully we'll be lucky and not have too much trouble. We're aware that it's going to take several months to complete, and with the house being a short sale the owner's mortgage lender will probably take a while to agree to it (we're hoping they'll be reasonable but who knows?!)

Our realtor told us to be cautiously optimistic, which I think is how we both feel anyway. We're excited but anxious, because we know nothing is set in stone yet and it may not go through. We'd be really disappointed if we didn't get the house, because we both love it to bits, but I'm trying to keep in mind that if for some reason it doesn't work out, there will be other houses that we'll love too. Still, I really hope this is the one!!!!!

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I've been busy again today, got up before 6 feeling like crap (didn't get enough sleep!) and made us breakfast and coffee, took the dogs for a walk, did the dishes, tidied up, did laundry, dusted all over the house, vacuumed everywhere but hubby's office, mopped all the tile floors and finally cleaned the bathroom. The house looks fantastic again, yay! :-) Then I made hubby some lunch, and now here I am goofing around on the internet... again.

I think I should make myself some lunch now!

Maybe, just maybe!

We may just have found our house! I don't want to say too much but in the morning we'll be putting an offer in... Hopefully we'll be successful! It's a gorgeous house in a great neighborhood, it doesn't need any work doing to it and it's a really good price. Fingers crossed!