Lianhua.nu

Mother-in-law

“Mother-in-law” is such a loaded word. The stereotype in the US (as well as a few other parts of the world) is that mothers-in-law are these evil, conniving women who never think their son or daughter’s significant others are good enough and therefore set out to make as much trouble for those significant others as possible, especially in the case of a mother and son relationship. There have even been numerous reality television shows about overbearing MILs — including one of my guilty-pleasure favorites, Momma’s Boys.

In my relationships, though, I’ve never really had a relationship like the stereotype. I haven’t actually had a mother-in-law, of course, since I’ve never been married, but all of my mother-in-law figures have actually been pretty nice to me, and have pretty much welcomed me as an extended part of the family. (Side note: mother-in-law figures = MILFs? Uhhhh…. I think I’ll avoid that one.)

The first MIL figure I had was Lori. I spent so many afternoons at her house, hanging out with her son and daughter and enjoying her home-cooked dinners, including pork chops, which to this day are unrivaled in my book. She even took her daughter and me shopping a few times, and let me hang out at their house when her son went off to college. (I just reconnected with her a little on Facebook, we’ve been sending messages back and forth, exciting!)

Next was Mama Baker. I can’t, for the life of me, remember her first name, mostly because she kind of insisted on being called Mama Baker. She was Italian, through and through, and relished the fact that I loved everything she cooked (especially her shrimp creole and homemade lasagna and ravioli).

Then came Anna. Over the course of the three years I was with her son, she became my mom-away-from-mom, my Chinese mom. In the end, I actually discovered I felt closer to her and her daughter than I really did to her son. I still email back and forth with her and meet up with them for dinner for special occasions (such as her daughter’s birthday and a special Christmas dinner).

If I could have multiple MILs, I would accept, gladly, to keep all of these women in my extended “in-law” family. They all welcomed me into their hearts, their families and their homes (in the case of Anna, quite literally). While my relationships with them weren’t always sparkly clean and perfect, I never really felt like I wasn’t good enough for their sons and they never did anything to go out of their way and make my life miserable.

Even now, although I don’t really feel as close to Derek’s mom (who is also named Anna) as I did to some of the others (partially because I don’t spend nearly as much time around her as I did them), I feel pretty accepted into the family.

I’m sure that the mother-in-law stereotype does exist — otherwise there wouldn’t really be any way that the stereotype would be perpetuated — but I certainly don’t see it in my life… Maybe I’m just one of the lucky ones? :)

Munnymunnymunny!

What’s the opposite of “money woes?”

For the first time in a very, very long time, I am actually very optimistic about our financial situation, at least for the next few months.

We haven’t been in dire straits or anything like that, we make enough to make ends meet and then have a little leftover. I’m very grateful for that. But I’d like for the big purchases, when they come up, to not put such a hole in our finances. Granted, the “big purchases” I’m referring to are our new HDTV and my new (refurbished) laptop, which are really big purchases, but comfort is always a friend of mine. I get pretty shaken up by buyer’s remorse, too, so even though we’re not too badly off, I’m always a little worried.

So why am I not worried about the next few months all the sudden? Well, this helps:

Yep, I finished my taxes tonight. Well, I started them tonight, too, and they only took me like an hour at most (yay for only having one job!), so it wasn’t a huge victory over the IRS or anything… but, yeah, my taxes are done! And I’m getting a pretty sizeable refund, apparently! When I finished them all up and saw what TurboTax was estimating would be my refund, I suddenly realized that’s what happened to all of my paychecks…

The refund is supposed to be direct deposited sometime in early March, which is excellent because that’s also when I get my bonus from work, woo hoo! I don’t think the bonus will have nearly as big of an impact on my bank account, but every little bit helps, especially when it all comes at once.

There’s also been talk of a pay raise for me since my responsibilities at work are expanding… so that will definitely help as well…

Mwahaha, I’m ready to take you on, student loans! >:] (They go into repayment at the beginning of April, eek!)

Creepy-crawlies

I was pretty much a tomboy for most of my childhood, which I think I owe to growing up with an older brother who I always wanted to tag along with. I never really wore dresses or skirts, my hair was cut really short (think Dorothy Hamill) and every summer I was out playing in the yard, digging in the dirt and playing with bugs.

One of my favorite bugs to catch was the roly-poly, aka pill bug. If you’ve never seen or caught one before, they’re these tiny little bugs that curl up into a ball when they’re scared, kind of like a hedgehog. They’re only maybe half an inch long at their very biggest, and I loved to let them run all over me when I was little (it tickled!).

Since then, however, things have… sort of changed.

I was cleaning the bathroom tonight, and specifically the shower, and the fumes were starting to get to me in spite of the fan, so I decided to open the window to try to air it out a little more.

I unlatched it, slid it open a couple of inches, let out a little terrified squeak and closed it quickly.

Sure enough, there was a little roly-poly on the windowsill. He was just minding his own business, but he scared the crap out of me.

Ten years ago, I would have picked him up and let him crawl up and down my arms, giggling and squealing with delight. Tonight, I had to stifle a squeal of terror.

There have always been some bugs that I’ve been afraid of — roaches, waterbugs, centipedes, some big beetles — but as I’ve gotten older the number of bugs that have absolutely terrified me has increased dramatically. Pretty much anything bigger than an ant is likely to elicit some sort of squeaking noise out of me.

And I don’t really know what happened. Aren’t most irrational fears supposed to disappear as you get older?