The Daily Rant... I Mean Blog to Preserve My Sanity....

[missy]

well when my MIL was getting on my nerves yesterday i took great pleasure in telling her that we'd got her the wine, which ages you, so we then got her anti wrinkle cream to off set the effects and the make up to hide the effects...

that might sound mean, but if you knew the grief she's given me in the past.

we had kept one present hidden to last for our oldest. we even ate before surprising him with it, so he really thought all the presents were done. she knew full well what we were doing, and so whilst my husband whipped upstairs to get it, everyone was in on it. we told him to sit down and wait for daddy to come back down, she then proceeded to insist that he read a book that she'd brought him so that when he got his surprise present, he went back to the book because nanny told him to read it!

and earlier when he was looking through a pirates of the caribbean book we had brought him as it's one of the boys favourite films she decided to go on about how she can't stand the pirates films and didn't like all that stuff. well our boys are 6 and 8 and they love it. you should of seen how disappointed he was.

[JulieSherris]

Yeah, why do the older ones always feel the need to belittle the little ones?

MIL today has been chatting away about her social circle - again.... and yeah, they are the folks she spends her time with, so that's a normal thing for her to do - thing is, I don't know who any of these folks are!
So my stock phrase of today has been 'I don't know who you're talking about'... drives her mad, because she then has to explain that she told me about Enid/Janet/Win when she went to Stockton/Whitby/Clinic/Italy in 1978......

She's taken herself off to the lounge for a snooze now - round 2 of today will commence in approx 1 hour.....

I am still sane....I am still sane....I am still sane....I am still sane....I am still sane....I am still sane....

Julie x

[invisiblepiper]

[IP - glad you find it so amusing - wanna swop for a day? I'd be pleased to!

Hi Julie - glad you're surviving - i did too (stayed in the kitchen out of the way! )..........seriously though - when you read your posts - they are very witty - why not try to publish some? Really - I am not taking the ####
try keeping them for a bit then reading them over (perhaps after the trauma has passed?)

Best Wishes
invisiblepiper

[Millymollymandy]

Ignore what I said about the salt in the cough medicine - brain still not working my husband patiently explained to me that there are a thousand mg in a gram, not a hundred as I was working it out! (it was something like 97mg salt per dose).

[JulieSherris]

IP - I'm glad you survived the day! I usually hate my teeny tiny kitchen, but right this minute, I LOVE it!!
If MIL tries to come in & 'help', I open the dishwasher door - that blocks off the way & she can't get in any further

As for publishing the MIL memoirs, well yeah, but I'm on day number I don't know what, & I'm seriously beginning to lose my sense of humour now.... I can hold the humour for the first 3 or 4 days, but after that, I lose it......

This moring, she's taken to sitting & wittering - what I mean is that she hates silence - so she gabs away about anything & everything, jumping from topic to topic, person to person..... never stopping.... I have started a circle crochet throw so that I can pop my head down & try hard to just let her voice float over me.... boy, it's hard, really hard.
Every bone in my body wants to contradict her all the time - she's so wrapped up in what people 'have' and don't have, what social class they're in & that, it SO infuriates me. I don't/won't unless I can really help it, because I try as hard as I can to not bully her - but, oh.... I've run out of words to describe.......

OK, just looked at the calendar & it's Sunday - the rest of today & just tomorrow to get through, then Tuesday is dispatch day - Oh, thank goodness!!

I must sound absolutely awful to all of you who get on with your rellies...... the biggest problem I have is that hubby feels the same way as me - if anything, he's worse, but he snaps at her & then half shouts at her, although he's not been as bad this year, because I normally stop him in time - so far!

She's said this morning that she can't understand why we want to get in chickens & start growing our own veg,,,,, 'when you can just buy it all clean at the supermarket'.....
Oh, I really need to start drinking again, I think! If only I hadn't stopped........

Anyways folks, I don't want to sound too depressive today - so I shall pop me wellies on & go do a poo hunt in the gardens - whilst I'm out there I'll try & find my sense of humour again.... it's probly hiding under a holly bush somewhere....

Not long to go now!
Julie x

MMM - don't worry about losing your marbles - I'm sure they'll come back when the silly season has finsished!

[Green Aura]

Julie, it sounds like you're holding up amazingly well.

I've not done quite so well - on Boxing day I took to my bed after a stupid argument with my daughter - mother jumped in on her side, as usual and made it all worse. As I've got flu (or a really bad cold and chest) it probably did me good but it really p1$$£d me off pretending to be there cos I'm ill instead of just bloody mad!

It seems to me (talking about my mother now) that she just talks for company and it doesn't really matter if you listen or not. It's like watching all the dreadful soaps - I'm sure she started watching them for some noise in the house and now finds it hard to break the habit even though there's no shortage of noise and company.

The thing I keep reassuring myself with is that this is not inevitable, it is just bad behaviour - my dad and aunts and uncles were never like this!

[invisiblepiper]

Good grief Julie - I think she may be related to my mother..................
Hang on in there - you are doing so well!

My father was also priceless on Christmas Day when he informed me in his 'I know everything' tone
that i really ought to do something about the garden - as I could really grow vegetables and suchlike..........he had just eaten home grown tatties,apple and rowan jelly, parsely which had survived the frost, and sprouts - ehm - from the garden! AAAAAAARGH!

Two days to go - my kids have permission to sedate me if I ever get like this!

[Millymollymandy]

Has anybody got perfect parents or inlaws?

[Milims]

Oh Julie, first of all you are holding up really well! You clearly have the patience of a saint! This is the first time I've sat down and read your rant - and it's wonderful! Quite honestly you could write scripts for a sit com you have such a style! Don't forget we are all here to give you virtual hugs whenever you need them!

[prison break fan]

Sounds like we have all had a bloody marvelous Christmas!!! pbf

[Rosendula]

Has anybody got perfect parents or inlaws?

My 'inlaws' are great. It makes it quite difficult for Richard to understand my family and how my parents could be so horrible. I'm really pleased for him that he gets on well with his parents and sisters.

Sounds like we have all had a bloody marvelous Christmas!!! pbf

Hmm. Let's see. We've all taken it in turns to have colds and flu over Christmas, with my most achy day being Christmas day. So yes, I should really be saying have had a bad Christmas, but if I did I'd be lying.

This was my first Christmas without my parents (for anyone who doesn't know - where have you been? I dumped them last year - 1st anniversary today). It's been really peaceful and lovely not stressing about the thought of having to visit them. They used to have a 'party' every Boxing Day at their house, but gradually all the relatives stopped going until in the end it was just us. There was still all the painful 'music' and the party 'food', and my parents would be get rapidly drunk and very loud and be constantly insisting that we should have another alcoholic drink - even Richard who would be driving us home, and more 'food'. So it was lovely not having to put up with that and all the forced small-talk and awkward silences.

Also lovely - as my teenage daughter pointed out - was that all of the Christmas presents that we received were really nice, and we actually wanted them. We didn't receive any of the 'bargain' shop cr4p, smellies that give daughter eczema, oily, rusty tools (yes, one year they gave Richard a screwdriver set that was rusty and covered in oil), Neslte chocolates (for daughter who has been boycotting the company for several years), or ugly trinket boxes, ugly clocks or ugly ornaments. And of all the presents we all received, there was only one small thing that we received in duplicate and that was a jigsaw for Katie. Usually, I get told off by Richard and my eldest two for letting it slip to my mother what I have bought someone for Christmas, because she immediately goes out and buys the same or similar - for the same person. The amount of Christmases we've had where the kids have received 2 watches, or 2 toy pianos, or 2 necklaces or whatever.

So yes, we've been ill, but it's been a WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS for us. Sorry, I don't mean to gloat, but it was probably the nicest Christmas I've ever had in my life.

[Milims]

Rose - yours sound like ours! I dumped my folks just before christmas last year and this has been the most peaceful christmas I ever had. My mother stressed so much about how perfect everything had to be that christmas was ruined every year. When I was about 9 she had me running after her like a loony and I ended up putting my hand thru the glass in the greenhouse door - I was more concerned that I'd broken the glass than I was about the fact that I ended up in casualty having stitches! It was like that every year. Then her piece de resistance (pardon my french!) was last year when she completely undermined me with my kids, went behind my back and humiliated me, caused my kids to lie to me and then bad mouthed me so much that I had social services sitting on my sofa accusing me of not loving my kids! That was the final straw! We haven't spoken since - and christmas has been lovely!
I certainly hope that I never behave like that with my kids. If I do my kids have permission to shoot me!

[Rosendula]

Gosh, Milims, social services? That must have been difficult. My father's the one with the big, bad mouth. He never has a good word to say about anyone, but thankfully everyone knows what he's like and they just nod politely until they escape (wondering what he says about them behind their backs). Unfortunately, my mother can only be likened to a ventriloquist's dummy. Years ago she was quite like Orville - poor little Orville and all that. Then, when my father retired and they spent every second of every day together she turned into Emu! The thing is, she's so oppressed by him that she can't even see it. She'll agree with everything he says, even when she's seen the evidence to the contrary with her own eyes - it's like she just completely erases everything that doesn't fit in with his thoughts.

Oh well, my name might be Mud but at least I don't have to hear about it anymore

[Sally Jane]

Then her piece de resistance (pardon my french!) was last year when she completely undermined me with my kids, went behind my back and humiliated me, caused my kids to lie to me and then bad mouthed me so much that I had social services sitting on my sofa accusing me of not loving my kids! That was the final straw! We haven't spoken since - and christmas has been lovely!
I certainly hope that I never behave like that with my kids. If I do my kids have permission to shoot me!

Dear God, sounds like you're well rid...
It's real pot luck what kind of relationship you end up with with your parents, but I do envy those who have lovely mums. I was actually terrified of mine until I was about 30. Now I only see her once or twice a year, and only for half a day at that. Thank goodness we don't have to spend an extended period of time together at Christmas like so many others, or I'd be back on the bottle in no time!

[prison break fan]

I think it is all very sad, this family thing. If anyone out there would like a substitute Mum or Granny to write to, I would be very happy to be that person. pbf