My MIL talks about when she and FIL go out and see houses for sale and she used to say she was making a list for us, but tried to play it off jokingly. They also owned another house on the bay that FIL loved going to on weekends (it was inherited from his father) and that we'd all go to for a day (because it was about an hour away from our homes). They eventually started patching it up and MIL was definitely the happier one when they looked into finally putting up for sale (words from when we recently saw them when she was talking to someone else: "So we finally sold that stupid house..."). However, when they were renovating and buying things inside it and planning out more rooms, MIL would ask DH what he wanted and she'd speak of it as "his bedroom," which I thought was odd but I didn't say anything about it at the time (we were just dating and I didn't know our future). She sometimes brought me in after a while about what I'd like since I'd likely be there, too. Anywayssss we ended up moving away for a job opportunity for DH many states away after graduating college and got a rental house. IL's sold that house on the bay and that was that. Just recently, the other house next door to that bay house went up for sale - it was the other house inherited by FIL's father, and FIL's brother owned that one. So MIL emailed us asking if we'd be interested in buying it. Except -- we're kind of here at a duty station for a few years. We just got here and we can't exactly commit to anything, much less buying a house that we wouldn't live in. It made us realize that MIL had been hoping we'd buy out the house on the bay they renovated, hence when she'd talked about the future room being DH's room.

And the shopping addict part... oh, don't I know! We get a year's worth of clothes all the time!