It’s been about a week since our wedding gift opening.

Nan & George came over for a meal.

Not five minutes into tossing the salad, Nan started to walk towards my home office as her eyes glazed over and turned into selfish puppy-eyes & perked up ears, “can I see the book?” she asked making a small square with her hands.

I honestly didn’t know what she was talking about.

“What book?”

“The book, you & JC have the wedding gifts listed in.”

“Oh, the NOTE-book. We finished our thank-you notes, so I tossed it.”

“Really.”

“Yeah, we didn’t need to keep track, just thank people who gave us something.”

“Well, I wish you would have saved it because I’d like to know what’s approriate to give to them in the future.”

Far me it from me, you’d give freely, no strings attached.

xo

Lillian

Today JC & I had our parents over as we opened our wedding gifts.

My sister came, too – she commented that she’s never see JC so tan. He does look hot.

Contrary to Nan’s description of our living room, it was not flooded with gifts. There was a good sized stack, however.

Mom & sister wrote down who gave us the gift and what it was, so we could follow up with thank-you notes.

Nan mentioned that she’s like to see “the book” once we’re done with it, so she can see “who gave how-much.”

That’d be a big N-O, Nan.

You don’t get to weigh the value of our friends and family by the expense of the gift they gave us.

Seriously.

Lillian

Today was one of my bridal showers. This one was thrown by my aunt and sister.

As soon as Nan walked in, I could tell she was trying to put on a show.

She walked in with her hair teased high, a empire-waist hot-pink and lime-green large-print floral dress she “just got.”

“Hi, Nan – nice to meet you! What a great dress!” one of my guests said.

“Thank you, it’s my “Stepford Housewife” dress.”

The room’s noise faded away as if it were the next room over, as I processed that thought.

Holy-mackerel!

Do you even know what a Stepford Housewife is?!

Polished, conservative, gorgeous, entitled, a domestic goddess, who could be a high-powered executive, but chooses to stay home – you are not!

Might as well dress a Ohio farm girl up in Miss America’s evening gown. Too ridiculous.

Today we met Nan & George at the Olive Garden.

Nan asked for dark, red wine because she’s “trying to like it” even though she prefers Koolaid (White Zinfandel).

I am not sure whether “she’s trying to like it” because I like it or because of her theory that red wine is good for your health.

Since when was drinking good for you? It’s a VICE. DUH!

Speaking of vices, I’m getting tired of them teasing me about not liking vegetables. I enjoy salads. I hate green beans. Get over it.

xoxo

Lillian

Autumn – a yellow lab mix we got from a rescue

I’m going to meet JC’s parents today.

I’ve been warned that George is crabby and used to be in the military.

Nan is supposed to be really nice.

They travel a lot and are retired.

I’m going to wear a sweater, a jean-skirt and my brown wedge shoes. Think that will be ok?

xoxo

Lillian

dedicated to my incredible husband, who somehow survived childhood.

So when we announced that we’d be moving closer to JC’s work, his parents went into panic mode.

They started making snide remarks like “we’ll let you get settled into your house, then we’ll come move next to you” to “It’s too bad you have to move so far away.”

“Well, it’s good for us – it’s close to JC’s work and it’s a family saturated area, which is great for my business,” I said glowing “it just happens to be in Smalltown.”

Smalltown was a good 30-35 minutes north of their home.

So of course, they also reported that they drove up to our area on several occassions to see what kind of housing for older retirees they had.

“They need to respect our space – there’s no way I can be nice to them if they follow us up here” I told my husband.

“They have no reason to move,” he said.

“Well if they start talking about it, tell them they need to stay put.” I said.

“Will do.”

The next time we were riding in the car together, George said “we’ll let you guys get settled in, then follow you up here.”

It was time to kill this idea: “You don’t want to do that – it’d be like Everybody Loves Raymond.”

They acted weird my mom said.

Finally George stated “I don’t understand why she has to have such expensive equipment. I use those disposible cameras on vacation, and they do a great job.”

Stunned at in ignorance, my dad simply said “well I’m sure it will help her business grow.”

Then Nan turned to my mom and said “we wish we could see the kids more – seems like they are always so busy, so they don’t invite us over.”

You are barking up the wrong tree you narky snob- at that time, we saw my parents once every few months, while we ended up seeing his parents once every few weeks.