we've caught ***3*** mice in as many days. all around 2am in the morning, under the coat rack. i hope we don't have a nest of them. i don't know how to get rid of them. ugh. mickey was so nice to have woken me this morning, like his brother/sister did yesterday morning. now i can't sleep, so i decided to do some online shopping and ponder a bit.
i used to wonder why some people don't want to have anything to do with their families. i thought about this sometimes during holidays. i'm really close to my family (enmeshed is prolly a better word) and couldn't fathom not spending christmas or thanksgiving with my parents or my grandmother. but after spending time with my in-laws this (last?) evening, i can't understand why people can't bear their family, spesh at the holidays.
before i continue, i just want it known that i'm not a mercenary type person who has to have lots of presents. in fact, i enjoy watching people open my presents more than opening my own gifts.
anyways, my in-laws always want lists of what we want for xmas. usually for us it's dvds, cds, books, odds and ends that we want but don't have the time or money to get. this year i asked for gift cards from my favorite knitting places, plus online and brick store retailers. i knitted a lot of my gifts this year, plus filled in the cracks of different things that caught my wimsy.
so we're opening presents at my in-laws, and everyone has piles and piles of boxes. i had one tiny package (which i thought was a calendar) and a couple of envelopes (hubby also had a couple of envelopes plus a book). it took me ***5*** minutes to open my stash - which as predicted were the gift cards i requested (the packet was from patternworks, apparently they send a folder with the cert, a catalog, and a recipe card). so i had to sit and watch everyone else open all their stuff. pretty awkward. and MIL tells me, well, that's what you wanted, we didn't know what else to get you. or, my favorite, we give you money so you can get what you want. (which came in handy - we cleaned up pretty well on money, which will go towards our anniversary trip). but how fucking hard could it be to throw in a dvd, so i had SOMETHING to open?
and now's my petty part. i swear my in-laws spend more on each other and my SIL than they do on me and hubby. i know this makes me look bad, but for YEARS we'd get this little pile of packages - the books, dvds, etc - and that's it. FIL's pile was TALLER THAN HIM. it doesn't help when you do your last minute shopping at cvs and the dollar store. (this drives me nuts. they buy the boy's stuff there - cars and stuff - then they fall apart and i have to deal with the consequences. could it kill them to step into a toys r us sometimes?)
to make matters worse, hubby gave me a shitload of dvds and cds and these beautiful beeswax candles. and i don't care what hubby says, i still think he got me more things because he KNEW i wasn't getting anything from my in-laws. yeah, why load up on amazon purchases and the candles only 2 weeks before xmas when you finished your shopping before thanksgiving?
but i digress. i'm getting tired and more bitchy and i should end this post. i feel bad posting this knowing full well that someone in my family can read this, but right now i don't give a shit. i'm bitchy and tired and it galls me to know end that i slaved away at my gifts and you can't fucking spend 5 minutes getting me a present to open. and the fact that you KNEW i feel bad about it.
oh yeah, and my gift certs. the patternworks one, i can afford the pattern, but NOT THE YARN. what will i knit with?
oh yeah, another thing. christmas dinner with my in-laws means hogmaw. that's filled pig's stomach (insert gross comments here). i eat the filling (which is potato and sausage). MIL said they had one left over, so they were going to freeze it and we'd have it for our birthday dinner in the spring. (now this is how pissed off i was, even prior to the presents). i gave her a look and said, "i can't believe you're making us a meal that i don't even LIKE. isn't that the purpose of a birthday dinner, eating your favorite meal?" so hubby sticks his foot in it and says "that's okay, we'll make you a box of mac and cheese and you can share it with the boy." so i say back, "well, i shouldn't complain, considering we didn't have a party this year." (seriously. hubby and my birthdays are right next to each other, and my in-laws couldn't take the time to buy us a cake this year).
okay, i need to hang this up now. sleep deprivation really does a number on my blog.
