Well.

Thanks for giving me a space to vent. This summer, I paid about $6000 to help my mother-in-law move from Tennesee to Oregon, near us. Her arthritis makes it difficult to get around by herself, and she wanted to be near her future grandkids. Good reasons. I took a week off and helped her pack, cleaned her house, powerwashed her siding, mowed her 2 acres of lawn, RAKED IT UP, weeded her front sidewalk, moved a big pile of dirt, cleaned out her horse and goat stalls, stayed up late each night to help her study, gave her money for moving, am giving her my refund from my taxes equal to the value of stuff she donated to charity (since she had no income last year), took more time off to help her move into her new place, bought her a lot of stuff to welcome her here (TV, DVD player, plants, etc), spent lots of time with her (at least one day every two weeks; keep in mind it's not MY mother), and constantly scouted for job postings for her. She was a scientist up until two years ago, when she decided to go back to school and get her master's in Education to become a high school biology teacher. She spent more than $15k on moving costs, since she is a pack rat. This was in October.

Now, she announces that she is "probably not going to be able to find a job" in Oregon so she is moving to Florida at the end of the month. WHAT?????????

No discussion? No consideration of our ideas? There are 89 open science teacher jobs in the Oregon area right now. There is exactly 1 biology teacher position posted in Florida on the state's website. She hasn't even applied to any jobs here, nor did she go to the multi-state job fair last week. She gets pissed if either of us try to suggest taking things one step at a time. She doesn't seem to realize that maybe we might be a little hurt by this.

I could understand it if she had tried for a year and got turned down from everything she had applied to. But she hasn't applied anywhere. She's "running out of money" yet she still has money to move across the country again. We feel she is acting out of panic and is not making rational decisions (nor is it her MO to do so, unfortunately), yet her mind is made up and she's outta here.

I'm doing my best to stay out of it, but the fact is it was MY money we gave her and mostly MY time to help her move. My husband is furious with her, especially because in the next breath after telling him it's none of his business what she decides to do with her life, she turns around and asks him to take 2 weeks off to help her move across the country (she has a very old horse who can't stand long periods in the trailer). What? Is she KIDDING???



If she doesn't like it in Oregon, she should just SAY so. Instead, she is following a completely illogical work non-situation and is insisting that we have our heads in the sand when it comes to careers (what???? is she JOKING? me???). And regardless, she should address our feelings.

Argh.

The End.