Backstabber...

I just learned tonight that my MIL is trying to get in contact with someone who owes my husband $10,000... and she doesn't want me to know about it.

She asked me roughly two weeks ago for my ex-landlord's phone number, but didn't tell me why.

Tonight, my BFF told me that my MIL came over last night and asked for my ex-landlord's number again, because he's not returning her phone calls.

Then MIL told BFF that before my husband was arrested for molesting my kids, he'd loaned a friend $10K... and that this friend had indicated that he was ready to pay it back. Somehow, Ex-landlord seems to be the go-between, but he's not easy to reach.

MIL confided that she and my husband really need that money. I don't know if she thought that might make my BFF more likely to help or not. Apparently she never considered our relationship, because she was taken aback when BFF said, "Jo really needs money, too, you know. She's almost out of the money she had in savings."

MIL just seemed to brush that off, repeating, "(Son) and I really need that money, so we need to get in touch with (Ex-landlord) as soon as possible."

I just gave this woman a lovely coral necklace, for which I carefully picked out just the right beads and painstakingly strung as securely as I could, which I knew she’d love, for Mother’s Day. She’s been wearing it almost every time I’ve seen her since I gave it to her. And this is how she repays me.

She (and her son) have always insisted that NOTHING comes before family, that you protect and defend family above all else.

Yet she doesn't care that I have no income, that her son has never supported me since going to prison, that my sons are her grandchildren. She doesn't care that I dedicated my life to taking care of her son, forsaking my own wishes for his, until the day I learned that he was sexually abusing my son (and my daughter, as I learned later). She doesn't care that I have always called her Mom, that I've honored her just as I did my own, that I considered her as close a family member as if she were my own flesh and blood.

She just wants money... and she stabbed me in the back in an attempt to get it.

I will never trust her again. I can’t. I’ve been married to her son for nearly 12 years now, and she still doesn’t think of me as family.

The mysterious green bridge...

My sister wanted to go visit a friend in Florence, OR, but it seems she feels nervous traveling by herself outside of the Springfield/Eugene area, so she requested I accompany her. Since she so rarely spends time with me, I agreed.

En route, she was telling me about this green arched bridge which was supposedly near a good agate-hunting bed, and she said she understood it to be by Big Creek. I had done a Google search the night before, because I know I've seen a green bridge somewhere along Highway 101, and found a photo of the bridge at Big Creek... and it did indeed look green.

However, when we arrived at Big Creek, the bridge did not look green, nor did it have any real parking, so we continued on to Stonefield Beach.

From above, that bridge didn't look green, either, but we were running out of time to beachcomb, so we went down to the water anyway and sought agates, walking first to the north end of the accessible beach and noting how the sand erosion had covered much of the stones for which the beach was named.

Looking east from the creek, the supports under the bridge are a greenish tone, so we decided that maybe we were at the right place. I found six agates to her single find (I gave my fourth agate to her because I didn't want her to go home empty-handed, and promptly after that she spotted her own), and we had a lovely time looking at tidepools along the southern edge of the beach.

We're still stumped as to the location of that mysterious green bridge. Google isn't helping me so much today when I search, but I'm not giving up. I know I've seen a green arched bridge somewhere along 101.

Any ideas, anyone?