Eating with the in-laws

The second Monday of each month has been desigated dinner with the husband's family day. We swap off who's house it's going to be at each month. Whoever's house it's going to be at is in charge of "the meat and potatoes". My mother in law went as far as writing up a schedule of who is to bring what each month and where the dinner will be held at.

Lately the husband and my schedule has been really hectic. We haven't been eating until 7:30 - 8 many nights. Most nights my husband doesn't even get home until after 7 then he has to shower. Spring is here and work has just picked up especially in the fork lift mechanic area I guess. I'm guessing because we got "a schedule" we no longer recieve reminder calls to let us know that we are in charge of dinner that week or if it's at their house what we need to bring. Anyone that knows me knows that I NEED A REMINDER CALL. I am the most forgetful person and more times then not I double (sometimes triple) book my days.

Well Yesterday was our dinner with the in-laws. And of course I had forgotten. Even though the husband and I talked about it the night before I still forgot. I planned to go to the gym with my friend at 5:00. Dinner is always at 6:00 because my mother in law is a diabetic. I understand her condition and I know she needs to eat at a certain time, but ugh! I still forgot. I got stuck working over nine hours because I was training a new hire and my boss hadn't returned from her appointment. So when my husband called to see if I was cooking dinner and I was still at work we both got a little freaked.

Now for a little history lesson:
The husband isn't really a fan of his family. He never has been. He couldn't wait to move out of their house when we got married. I think he moved into our apartment a month before we got married just to get out of the house. My husband doesn't look anything like his family. He's athletic, he works out, he's a whole lot thinner and he's healthy. Having dinner with his family is painful, they talk about all the health problems that they have. And that's just his parents. His brother... oh wow where to start? His brother is 26 years old and hasn't had a job in the past 7 years (he did serve a 1 1/2 year mission during that time). As of late he can't even leave the basement where the big screen tv, 3 recliners, his bedroom and the bathroom are. He has so many health problems I dont even really want to go into it. He is easily over 400 pounds. We haven't seen him in 3-4 months. When we visited his parents house last month, my husband's brother was already in bed -- at 6:00 at night. The in-laws told us that they had taken him to dinner for his birthday and that was the first time he's been out of the house in 4 months. Did I mention that we don't like to go to their house because it smells. Yup it does. The last dinner that his brother attended (at his parents house) he had to sit in a recliner because he no longer can sit on the kitchen table chairs.

So back to Monday night dinner. Instead of cooking dinner I stopped to buy Papa Murphy pizzas. When I got home after 6:00 everyone was already there. No one was talking and I was already in a bad mood from traffic and having to rush home. We popped one of the pizzas in the oven and sat in the living room. In complete silence. Yeah fun times. The silence was eventually broken by the fire alarms in our house. Yes whenever we cook the fire alarms go off. And they are the fun ones that are all connected to each other so the entire house was beeping. There was no smoke, nothing was buring, our fire alarms just like to go off when we cook, especially since the genious that installed them put it RIGHT over the stove. So we enjoyed the ringing of every fire alarm going off in our house for a good 5 minutes. The husband and I are so use to it we just turn up the tv louder and wait till they turn off. But since we had guests over we had to be a little more proactive and try to get them to shut off.

The actual Dinner was pretty uneventful. Eventually they left and we went back to our regular scheduled lives. Until next month when we have to go to the next family dinner... ugh! At least it will be at their house we are usually in and out of there in an hour. Don't you just love the in-laws?!