Life in My World: The In-Law Visit

First - let me start off by saying David's mom is a good grandmother and she really does give so much to us and to our girls. And she has been to visit us 3 times now where as my dad has only made it here once. And when we stay with her in Austin she makes us feel so welcome even though I know it is alot for her to host a family of 5 in her two bedroom house.

That said, she and I are so very different and the longer David and I are together, the harder it gets for us to co-exist for long stretches in close proximity. I think perhaps both of us have simply quit trying to win the other over. Perhaps she is truly pleased that David chose me for his wife but there are times when it definitely feels like she thinks he merely settled for second best and wishes Catherine HAD introduced David to Jerri instead of me. (Of course Jerri will be the first to tell anyone, David would have suffered a severe stroke and or heart attack by now if she were the one he was married to)

Carolyn always compliments me on the job I am doing raising our girls and she usually compliments me on at least one meal if not several and she appreciates the little things we do to make her feel welcome and comfortable. But it's the backhanded compliments and the veiled criticisms that really get under my skin.

Things such as:
The girls look wonderful. Allison does seem to have a different coloring though. Really, she looks almost green. Is she feeling well? Is it her allergies and her asthma that give her that skin tone?
and

You know, the older I get the harder it seems to be to lose weight. Are you finding that to be true too? What have you been trying to do about it?

and

Really, if you just saved up the $400 for Jenni Craig and just tried it, I KNOW you'd lose at least five pounds in the first week.

and then there's the house. Carolyn is an interior designer and a really good one. She is talented and I am just not good at picturing possibilities in my mind. BUT - her taste is leaning more and more towards the contemporary these days and that is just not me. I know, it is all the rage and I know that the upper echelon is decorating their homes this way. But, have you met me? If you have, then you know I really don't give a fig about what everyone else is doing. I am stubborn and pig headed about pretty much everything, not just my decorating style, and you are certainly not going to sway me by telling me "everyone else is doing it". Add to this she is a "see it, get it, do it" kind of person where as I am a "think about it, look at a bunch of different choices, think about it some more, and then maybe do it in small increments" type of person. There was just bound to be conflict! She was here 4 days and on paper she re-did our master bath, our family room, and the half bath. I foolishly asked her for advice on the master bath room. I hate it, I want to re-do it so badly. BUT I want to re-do it for as little $$$ as possible. I want it to look nice, but I don't want to spend a fortune on it. Not being a fru-fru frilly kind of girl, I don't spend an overabundance of time in my bathroom. She came up with a whole new plan which sounded do-able in the future but then she shopped for it. Most of her shopping was online but we did spend a few hours at Home Depot one day getting prices and measurements for a bathroom we can't even begin to afford to do right now. (not to mention the cabinets and counter tops weren't even the style or the color I wanted) And the she and David took a trip to a nearby lighting store to look at light fixtures for our dining room and entry way. Again, the entry way light is ugly and we do need a new one but ... not right now.

On Monday I sent David with her while I took the kids to their swim lessons and they went to a cabinet showroom, a granite place and a flooring showroom and they came home with a sample tile for the bathroom which -again - we can't afford to do right now. She shopped online endlessly. Lighting fixtures, a new sink and cabinet for the half bath, vanities and mirrors for the master bath. The stuff for the half bath nearly sent me over the edge. We haven't even finished the redo of that bathroom that was started two years ago!!! The plan was to take the wallpaper down (check), repaint the walls (check), hang a new mirror, towel ring and toilet paper holder (check, check, check) and then paint the exisiting vanity white and put new hardware on it (still not done) Now she wants to rip out the vanity, refinish that wall, and then put in a pedestal sink. No, no, NO! I like the vanity I have. I have all the beach towels and swimsuits stashed in there!

One good thing she made happen was she finally got David to hang the blinds she gave us for our kitchen window our 2nd Christmas here. We get alot of morning sun through that window and if you are facing the window at breakfast you pretty much need sunglasses. I have no idea what David's aversion to hanging them was but they are hung now and they look great!

(Okay - not the best picture, I think my flash is still off from when I took that picture of my new hairdo)

However, this then spawned talk of the windows and door in my family room. I do not like it how it is now but I am making it work. We currently have a big huge entertainment center for our TV and it will only fit on one wall in the family room. There are 3 walls. One has the entertainment center, one has the fireplace, and one has two big window panels flanking a door that goes out to our deck. The door opens into the house, not out onto the deck. SO - this means there is pretty much only one way to arrange the furniture we have:

I am not a fan of how it is arranged but it works ... for now. And I found the window panels for a great price on eBay so the glare on the TV isn't as bad as it used to be.

What I want is to get rid of the entertainment center and get a flat screen TV and mount it above the fireplace. She says it would be too high but I say we can tilt it slightly down if we need to. Then I want either a sectional or a sofa and love seat combo. The sofa would go along the wall where the entertainment center is now and the love seat at a right angle from that, looking towards the fireplace and the TV. I want a shaggy area rug and a new coffee table and then maybe a chair or two elsewhere. I also want to get rid of the window panels and door and replace them with this sliding glass door (but in white).

If I have a sliding door in there I can put a sliding screen as well and then in the Spring and the Fall I can open up the door and get a nice breeze. If I have a sliding glass door I don't have to leave for room for the door to swing open into the family room when I am arranging my furniture. She then tells me how designers don't like sliding glass doors b/c you can't put blinds on them. I foolishly mention that you can tell by the holes that there were blinds on the existing windows and doors at one time.

She then decides we should put some back up. I say I don't want to. I say why spend the money on the blinds if I intend on replacing that with a sliding glass door. And I tell her I really like my curtains. She tells me that the blinds would block even more light and more of the cold air. I say I still don't really want them. She then asks if I would want them if they were a Christmas present. ARGH!!!!! I don't want blinds!!!!!!!!

And she moved the area rug in the living room. She said it looks too small now that we have hardwood floors in there and we need a bigger one. She suggested I put the existing rug in our entry. I say I really don't want it there. It wouldn't be very functional and it would get trashed. She proceeds to measure off the rug and the entry way and tells me it would fit perfectly. I tell her again I don't want it in the entry way. I explain how it will be simply ruined when the rain and then the snow comes. She tells me I can roll it up and store it in a closet when that weather hits and then put it back out when the summer is here again ...... Anyway, my rug was like this: