Cerina

We really enjoyed this show. It's like Addams Family fan fiction for people who like Harry Potter and The Vampire Diaries. It's just one of those shows that you can't devote too much thought to because it will hurt your brain and the questions and holes won't stop (just like everything Tank said). You have to enjoy it for what it is in isolation and nothing more. That said, I felt like the parts with the rest of the Addamses and the love "triangle" were really shoehorned in. It was so forced that it really pulled me out of the narrative and reminded me of everything that the show was not. On the other hand though, I LOVED Enid and the actor who played her. She could have been so one-dimensional and tropey, but the actor made her just loveable. She was honestly like a puppy. And despite what the internet thinks, I caught no lesbian vibes from the Wednesday-Enid relationship.

Ever since her parents died, my mother-in-law has been spiraling. She won't go to therapy. She's been stuck in the "angry" part of grief for almost a year. Damn near everything pisses her off these days. My sister-in-law and her fiance split up for about a month back in Sept/Oct, and my MIL acted like she was going through a divorce of her own. She was angry that my SIL didn't take all of her "advice". She was angry that she didn't see my nephew as often (she used to get him from school 3-4 days a week) during the split. She was angry that SIL and her fiance don't ask her to babysit and just assume she will. She was angry that SIL did and didn't invite her to Thanksgiving (I still don't understand that one tbh). She's so angry that she's decided to "disappear" in December and leave the state for Christmas. She almost didn't tell us where she was going, and she still hasn't told SIL that she's even leaving! We had a hiccup trying to buy this house from her. The taxes increased so much from last year to this year that it priced us out of it. We can afford the insurance and P&I, but not the taxes anymore. When we told her that and tried to talk to her about our plans, she flipped her shit. Literally, we just wanted to tell her that Trevor is looking for a full-time job now and Luke is going to be going to public school for the foreseeable future, both of which we're pretty much on the horizon anyway because the rising costs of everything is putting a major strain on my salary and I haven't been with my boss long enough to really request a raise just yet. We're not happy about the lifestyle change, but oh well, life and all that. But anyway, she LOST. HER. SHIT. She accused us of trying to sell the house out from under her, threw a fit because she "just knows" that we blame her for not doing what we told her (homesteading the house and protesting the taxes)(and yeah, we kinda do blame her for that part a bit but whatevs, we didn't bring it up), and basically told us that she can't trust us because we're family and you can't trust family when dealing with money. THEN she tried to explain to us that it's not that she doesn't trust us, just that she has to verify all of our real estate knowledge with an outside source because that's what you do when you're on opposite sides of a transaction. But at least she admitted that my real estate knowledge is more robust and complete than hers and nothing we've told her so far has been false or misleading in any way. So it's like, it's not that she doesn't trust us just that we can't be trusted... So 2 nights ago she came over so we could discuss this all in person to avoid any "confusion". Mostly the convo went well. But then she started telling us that SIL's fiance told her that our nephew is not allowed to spend the night at her house if she allows Trevor's currently incarcerated and estranged brother move in with her once he's released. She's angry about that too. Had a whole rant about how they don't trust her. And then we had to interrupt to tell her that our kids aren't allowed around Uncle Travis either. She lost custody of Travis when he was a toddler because she married a new guy who was in the army and got sent to Germany. Travis's dad (grandmother really) took her to court to keep her from taking Travis overseas for a year and won. Travis's dad is complete white trash - meth addict, conman, thief, in-and-out of jail, domestic abuser, etc. So Travis came out the same. Travis is 40, and two years ago when Trevor tried to reunite Travis and their mother, he brought his 15 year-old "stepdaughter" with him. After a few visits, it became apparent to pretty much everyone that he was actually sleeping with this girl. Trevor called the girl's mom who basically admitted that it was true and strongly hinted that she was pimping out the girl for meth from Travis. Travis's one and only sane blood relative, Aunt Theresa, also confirmed that her brother caught Travis and the girl in the act and beat the hell out of Travis for it. So Trevor called the police and Travis's PO (because he's pretty much in and out of jail all the time, he always has a PO), but neither could do anything without a complaining victim or solid evidence. Then Travis got popped with meth and wound up back in jail and is now in some work program. But he's been buttering up to my MIL, getting money from her, convincing her to send money to his fellow inmates ("it's so sad, he doesn't have anyone on the outside to send him money for commissary"), and now has nearly convinced her to let him move in with her when he's released. Basically, he has nowhere else to go, even his bat-shit insane blood relatives on his dad's side won't help him anymore, and he has to have an address to put on his parole papers to get out. So the other night my increasingly disproportionally angrier and angrier mother-in-law told us, "you're saying if I help out my son, I lose my entire family". Not even sure how she made that leap. We kept telling her that that wasn't the case. She's a grown-ass woman and if she wants to help the son she didn't get to raise, that's commendable. We think she should proceed with caution, but it's admirable to want to help. We're all just saying that our underage children aren't going to be allowed around their meth-addicted pedo uncle until we see some serious changes in him. Still, she thinks that means that she has to choose between him or the rest of us. She's always welcome at our house (she still owns it!!), and is conditionally welcome at SIL's (the split did a number on their weird 3-way relationship), and we could always meet somewhere in public. But oh no! We're making her choose - her son or her grandsons (and yes, she specifically left off her daughter, her other son (Trevor), and me). So shoot me now! At least *I* know that she won't be in town for Christmas, so we won't have to deal with this bullshit then. It's rare that my side of the family is the least drama-filled.

Background info: My husband Trevor and I started dating in May 2000. We moved in with each other that summer and stayed together until October 2001. He moved out, we broke up. He eventually joined the Navy and married some random girl moments after she turned 18. I started a friends with benefits sorta thing with one of his closest friends, Jason. Jason and I kept this up for years. Real feelings developed but we never upgraded our status beyond friends with benefits. Trevor eventually left the Navy and came home, wife in tow. They divorced. I balanced a friends with benefits thing with both Trevor and Jason for about a year, but it was tumultuous to say the least. Eventually, Jason was slowly replaced by Trevor, and in 2007 I got pregnant with Noah. Trevor and I married in 2011, and things have been pretty solid with us ever since. Trevor and Jason had a falling out not too long after, and we've only seen him a small handful of times since. Also of note, about 8ish years ago another mutual friend of all of ours told Trevor and I that Jason had told her that he regrets not taking things further with me back then and that he feels I'm "the one that got away". I had always assumed that my feelings were stronger than his, and if I had known this at the time, there's a very real chance that I never would have started things back up with Trevor. Ongoing issue: About once every 2-3 months, I have a dream about Jason that brings back all the old feelings. They're insane. The dreams are never sexual but always very intimate, usually about reuniting or finally breaking down and admitting feelings or something along those lines. Now during the normal course of my life, I don't spend any time thinking about Jason at all. And under normal circumstances, I can admit that I miss him and our friendship (we had a very close bond beyond all the sleeping together), but I don't carry any lingering feels other than that. Trevor and I even talk about him every so often as he was a huge part of both of our lives for many years and so many of our good-ol'-days memories include him in some way. However, when these dreams happen they seriously throw me off. You guys ever have dreams that feel so real that you keep the feelings with you for hours or even days after you wake up? This happens every time. For a day or so after these dreams, I basically float about in a daze of longing and heartache. Like I said, I don't really think about him normally, but for a good 24-48 hours these feelings are very real. And then I start thinking about reconnecting - I still have Jason's number (it hasn't changed in so long that I actually have it memorized from the early '00s) and know where he works (head of security at the outlet mall). So I start envisioning myself finding him and sparking up a friendship again. (I do actually miss his friendship. He helped me deal with my and Trevor's breakup in so many ways. I would have spiraled into a much deeper depression without him.) So I don't know what to do with all of this. I had one of these dreams last night, so today I'm sitting here in my office trying to concentrate on work but instead keep thinking about what might have been, how much it feels like I have a hole in my life from the loss of his constant friendship, and fighting the urge to text him. Like I said...the feelings are very real right now despite everything I know about my normal feelings. Somebody tell me that I'm not crazy.

Yay interview! So I think we're going to move back to Austin in a year or so. There's a lot of details to figure out first. My husband's grandparents died last year and left a house to my MIL and her brother. Neither of them want it. So we're considering it. The thing is, it was built in 1978 and while decently maintained until roughly 5-7 years ago, everything in it is original to the house (except appliances, roof and HVAC) and also occupied by hoarders. All of the flooring, wallpaper, fixtures, and hardware are straight from '78 and covered with a good half inch of dust. So good news/bad news. It'll be highly unlikely to sell in that neighborhood unless to an investor, so it'll need quite a bit of work to make it livable. Also good news, once updated it'll be worth probably a good $100-150k more than it is now. It's 2050 sq ft on a quarter-acre corner lot. More bad news, Trevor's uncle will likely want all of his half through a sale rather than working with us. We're unlikely to qualify for a decent mortgage since none of our jobs are really transferable to Austin. So now we're thinking of ways to make this work. We have a few things in mind, but are open to any and all ideas.