I had a snarky post all written out, then the circumstances changed for the better. Yay. But I’m still going to snark. Hubby and I were invited to his niece’s wedding (the one who will barely speak to me even if I directly address her) and were planning to go. Neither of us were thrilled about it given her attitude toward me, we’ll be dealing with the craziness that goes along with having all his siblings and our families including four kids under age 3 crammed into 2 houses, and that only his mom and stepdad bothered to come to our wedding,. The final straw was realizing the wedding is the day before Mother’s Day. A really cool outdoor arts festival always falls on that weekend in our town. Our county has little to offer culturally, so I look forward to it each year. I missed it last time, because I was wiped out from new-mommyhood, still pumping milk every few hours, and didn’t feel up to strolling around in 90+ temps. I’ve been looking forward to this year’s festival for months now and didn’t want to give it up.
When we realized the wedding was on Mom’s Day weekend, Hubby called his parents, conferred with them, and decided we’d postpone the visit a week. We probably won’t be missed at the wedding and will try to visit his middle sister, who we wanted to see, later this year. I do feel guilty about that. She’s the one both of us get along with best and we haven’t seen her younger child (who’s approaching a year old) nor has she seen Peanut. We rarely visit at the same time, so we only see her once every couple of years or so.
Another factor in the decision, petty as it may be, is that we got word from Hubby’s mom that the niece wants to trade part of her property for part of his. Hubby’s mom divvied up the family land last year and deeded a parcel to each of her kids and to the two girls. Niece ended up with a road-front chunk. Hubby got a chunk at the back, bordering forested land owned by a paper company on one side and a creek on the other. Honestly, as long as the creek doesn’t flood, I think he got the primo location. Niece isn’t happy with her land and wants to trade out and acre of road-front for and acre of his land. He and I discussed and came up with a unanimous HELL NO! We’d eventually like to put a small cabin on the property and use it as a vacation home…if we can ever pay off enough debt and save up for it. We like that it’s roughly 3 acres, meaning we can put a house smack-dab in the middle, away from any other structures. My opinion is that Niece is being greedy and spoiled. She, at 21 years-old, has been given 3 acres of land, to do with as she sees fit. Hell, Hubby was 32 when he got the land and we felt like we hit the jackpot. If she’s so spoiled she needs to look a gift horse in the mouth, so be it. I hope she’ll be too chicken to bring it up with Hubby (it appears she was trying to get Hubby’s mom to lobby on her behalf, which she refused to do) and will let it drop. My fear is that she’ll get Hubby’s youngest sister in on the lobbying act and we’ll never hear the end of it.

Gotta love the family drama.