....and Everything in it's Place

My poor sweet husband.  He has to put up with me nagging bugging him about all kinds of things. Please don't leave your shoes in the walk way so I don't have to step or trip over them.  Why won't you put anything back where you found it?  Can you please put your stuff away?  Why are your clothes on the floor?  Can you put your dirty clothes in the hamper not on it?  Is there a reason those dishes still sitting there?  You get the point.  I must admit I am not without fault.  My main indiscretions are misplacing the lotion bottle, leaving the pantry door open, not matching the knives into the right slots on the butcher block, squeezing the toothpaste from the middle and .....well that's about it.  Oh, and all that nagging reminding.  So sorry baby (I know he's reading this).   

In his pre wifey days his routine was to throw clothes on the floor, let messes and dishes pile up throughout the week, clean it all up Saturday then start it up all over again.  So, you mean to tell me that your house was a mess about 5 out of 7 days?  That's about 20 days out of a 28 day month.  Totally not acceptable to this lady.  You see, I have an illness.  I'm a neat freak, I have OCD, call it whatever you like but I believe there is a place for everything and everything in it's place.  I didn't have that luxury for a very long time.  I used to have no place for anything and nothing in it's place because I simply didn't have the space.  Now we do.  Why spend thousands of dollars on a closet and not put your stuff in it?  My home is my sanctuary and when my home is mired in the chaos of clutter I cannot be at peace. 

I could blame it on my childhood.  I grew up in a messy house and there was nothing I could do about it.  The minute you straightened anything up it was messy again.  My dad was a walking tornado who wouldn't lift a finger around the house and expected everyone else to clean up after him.  He wouldn't even put his plate in the sink.  I hated it, so excuse me if I'm a little sensitive about this subject.  I just don't want that for my home.  My mom may have been willing to double as a servant but even as a child I vowed I never would.  Thankfully, MJ is not even close to that.  In fact, I'm pretty lucky to have a modern man such as himself who cooks and makes an effort to consider my feelings.  If I make the effort to clean the house I just don't think it's too much to ask to pick up after yourself.  I know it can be a pain in the butt and sometimes life gets busy.  It doesn't even bother me if it's not done right away as long I know you will...someday...in the near future...soon...please.  Believe me, I wish I were not like this and I certainly don't wanna be the house police.  I WANT to happily toss my belongings willy nilly without regard to where they land, ignore crusty dishes stinking in the sink and care not about the ring of dirt accumulating in the toilet.  Sounds kinda nice actually.  We could enjoy a content often dirty clutter filled life together-no nagging involved.  But the laws of nature have ensured that a messy person always marries a neat freak so that is not to be. 

We've been living together for about two years now and he really has made some major improvements.  He no longer stores his jammies on the floor, shoes are getting put away and dishes aren't getting left for days.  It means a lot to know that he is listening and trying.  I've got to give him props for that...and for putting up with me.  Messiness makes me irritable and eventually I must speak up.  If I don't say anything how will he know it bothers me?  It's called communication.  He's sure to let me know if I do something that bugs him too; it just doesn't seem to happen as often.  I can't help it that I need order and that messes put me on edge.  And I suppose he can't help it either.  He literally doesn't see things that are sitting there all messy in plain sight and/or it simply doesn't bother him too much.  I do bite my tongue and I have loosened up some.  It's his house too and there are way more important things to worry about right?  I try to ask nicely and I make sure that I show my appreciation of his efforts to neaten up.  I mean, I don't want him to hate me...or divorce me for that matter.  This is just one of those things that we have to accept about each other and try to compromise on so that we can both be happy together and in our home.  Give and take.  We all have our strengths and weaknesses.  This part of him tries my patience but does not diminish the many things I love about him in any way.  

Fruit, Meat, Vegetables, Cheese.  Not too complicated.   

We spend all this money on a beautiful refrigerator with a lovely LED light and plenty of space and roomy drawers to organize our food.  Mj never puts anything back in those drawers where he got them from.  I've explained to him where everything goes many times but just as recently as last week he says "Well, I didn't know that the meat goes in that drawer."  So, I labeled them right quick before I left for work in the morning and left it for him to find when he got home.  Now, I'll pose this question to you.  Am I a B-I-T-C-H or just a wife who wants the meat to go in the meat drawer?  Lucky for me my husband has a sense of humor.  He had a good laugh, took this picture and posted it on Facebook.

Labor Day Weekend

We had a three day weekend for Labor Day.  Oh, how I needed it!  I say that every time because every time one comes around I'm just desperate for it.  It might be a three day weekend but that doesn't necessarily mean it's all about relaxation.  I wish.  It just means you have an extra day to take care of business so that you actually have time to fit in some relaxing too.  Friday night we went to Lowe's and got our garage shelves, went for groceries and yogurt, ate a late dinner, watched a movie, then got really wild and crazy and played a round of Yahtzee.  I did my house cleaning on Saturday morning while Mj went road biking with his friends then we went up to my parents house. We spent a nice day hanging out with them and then went on a double date out to dinner.  I finally got some stuff that my mom has been keeping at the house for me.  Never mind that I moved out thirteen years ago.  Sunday I got up and did my homework and then we put our garage shelving together.  I did laundry and we stayed up really late watching movies. 

Hot dogs roasting on an open fire......

An All American dinner.  Hot dogs and Miller Lite. 
Except the Corona. 

By the time Monday rolled around my only chores were some dishes that had accumulated and some left over homework.  In the morning I went to the gym while Mj went mountain biking.  The weather was gloomy and it even started sprinkling.  Not good if you actually had Labor Day plans but just perfect for taking a nap.  We took an awesome 2 hour nap just because.  We definitely don't do that often enough.  Then it was time for dinner.  Our fire pit has many uses including roasting hot dogs.  Fire roasted hot dogs taste even better then grilled.  Roasting them let's you get them perfectly charred to your liking so that the edges are nice and crispy.  It was a easy yet delicious meal.   Then, we watched a movie, ate ice cream and had the rest of the night to chill out.  We spent some good quality time together and the weekend was a perfect mix of being productive AND being lazy.  If only every weekend had three days. 

I'm not sure what's up with the weather.  It's muggy and rainy...like the East Coast weather has come for a visit.  All the kids went back to school today so the days of light summer traffic are officially over.  I have a super long day today since I have school after work.  Back to the grind...but at least there will only be four days of it.  

Maintaining the Magic

On our wedding day

There are so many unhappy marriages in this world.  I don't have statistics but I venture to guess that for every happy and loving marriage there are at least five pairs of miserable dysfunctional marriages that are on the verge of collapse or already have.  I should know.  I used to be in one of them.  I am glad to say that my newly minted marriage is alive and well.  We love and respect each other.  The lines of communication are open and we have fun.  But for everyone of those marriages that are falling apart many of them started out just like us.  Happy, loving, affectionate.  Madly in love.  It is a huge reminder to me that although I know that Mj is the right person for me we are not just going to magically stay as in love as we are now forever without effort.  I think it's so important to put forth the effort and be conscious of that now when things are good to avoid having to try to do it later in a relationship that has been allowed to unravel into disrepair.

Dating Mj was such fun.  Our first date was dinner and even though it was also my first time meeting him I felt comfortable right away.  He planned our second one which was an all day date that included lunch, go cart racing and kite flying.  After the third date I was hooked.  I fed off of his energy and he showered me with gifts, love and all kinds of fun outings.  Learning new things about each other all the time was thrilling especially because the more I found out the more perfect he seemed for me.  Every time we were together was like a new adventure.  Issues and problems that we'd had with previous partners were a thing of the past.  Everything was different now that we'd found each other and it felt wonderful.  Every kiss, every touch, every time I got to see him was magic.

That was 3 1/2 years ago and we are 1 year into marriage.  We are no longer in that euphoric exciting fun filled newly dating and falling in love phase anymore.  That phase only happens when you are newly dating and falling in love and seeing as how we are no longer newly dating and have already fallen in love that phase of our relationships is over.  We still have fun but now our relationship has a whole new dimension to it.  We live together.  We have bills to pay.  I get to wash his dirty gym clothes and he gets to listen to me complain about him not putting his keys and sunglasses in the brown basket.  While we might not know everything there is to know about one another we know quite a bit and so that discovery process has slowed down.  Still, when he kisses me or says "I love you" just because my heart melts.  I'm still excited to see him.  We love spending time together and I love coming home to him every day.  I am as in love with him now as I was in those exhilarating days of dating and I want it to stay that way.

We are newlyweds just beginning our marriage journey.  Those early days of dating are in the past but I don't ever want to loose that wonder and attraction that made us fall in love with each other.  Therein lies the challenge.  We are no longer newly dating and freshly falling in love but we are in love and we need to keep that magic alive. It's so easy to communicate when everything is perfectly uncomplicated but what about when it's not?  The hardest decision we make isn't where we should go for dinner anymore, it's whether or not we should have kids, how much we should put into savings and who gets to clean the bathroom.  Communication is more important now then it ever was and having the courtesy and respect for each other that we started out with will only make it easier to maintain a healthy happy relationship.

The bottom line is that as a couple you should never stop doing the things that made you fall in love in the first place and add in new things that will keep you there.  Continue to be kind to each other.  Listen to each other and have fun together.  Think about the words you said on your wedding day.  Relationships, like people are constantly evolving.  As easy as it is in these early days of our relationship it might get more difficult as the years go on especially if we don't nurture and value what we have.  When I see those happy couples married for 20 + years with gray hair still out there slow dancing, holding hands and going on dates it makes me smile.  I know without a doubt that I want that to be us some day and it's up to us to make sure that it is.

The Garage: Step 1 & 2

When you become a homeowner you go to Home Depot a lot more then you ever thought you would and you do things you never thought you'd care about like pay good money for rocks and paint floors.  I've been dreading the day we'd face the garage for a while but it's one of those projects you just have dive in and do at some point like it or not.  If it were up to me I'm not exactly sure when this would have happened...if ever!  I came home from work Friday exhausted.  All I wanted to do was sit down and watch TV but Mj was already out in the garage working so I did what any good wife would do.  I dragged my tired butt out into the heat, complained about how hot and tired I was and then joined in the fun.

Boring old concrete floor

Step 1:  De clutter the garage.  It's really easy for the garage to become the dumping ground for all things you don't know what to do with.  We can't get too out of hand because we park our cars in there but there was a lot of junk accumulating and it was time for it to go.  We went through the various bins and boxes and loaded up the car for a trip to Goodwill the next day.  On Saturday everything that we were keeping went outside overnight and it was on to step 2.

Sweep, squeegee, scrub, squeegee...then we finally got to paint

Step 2:  Epoxy the floor.   A lot of dust accumulates in the garage and this is a good way to help cut down on it and make the garage floor look pretty.  As if it really needs to look pretty...but whatever.  This was an all day affair and we sure picked one of the hottest weekends ever to do it.  It's quite the process.  You start by washing the floor.  We swept out over a years worth of dirt and cobwebs.  Yuck.  I made Mj do the corners.  Then, we wet the floor and went over it with a giant squeegee mop.  Then we wet the floor again and scrub a dub dubbed it with a scrubbing brush using soapy cleaning concoction from our epoxy kit that sizzled.  Then we wet the floor and did the squeegee thing yet again.  By this time the garage floor was cleaner then any floors inside the house and clean enough to eat off of.  We waited hours for it to dry out and then we could finally start the painting.  Mj painted with a roller and I artfully sprinkled the pixie dust decorative chips all over like a little Fairy Epoxy godmother.  It's a big job and I imagine we saved a ton of money in labor by doing it ourselves.  We were able to put our things back in the next day but we can't park in there for 3 days.  I love the way it looks.

Stylish epoxy-fied floor

The decorative chips really make it pop

Step 3:  Buy shelves, bins and hooks as needed for organizing.  We've got our eye on some heavy duty shelves at Lowe's.  I parlayed my credit card points into a $100 gift card from there so I think we'll get them next week.   We'll use bins to organize everything and hooks to hang up bikes and tools.

Step 4:  Move some of the things in our storage closet under the stairs out into the garage.  This closet has has also become a dumping ground that could use some organization.  Some of the things in that closet can go into our newly re organized garage so we can organize the closet and make room for other things in there.

Most of the indoor house projects I've been wanting to do have come to a screeching halt so it was nice to get something accomplished even if only to the part of the house where our cars live.  A garage has always been sort of a scary place for me.  It's dark, dingy, dirty and creepy crawly things hang out there.  Ideally, our garage will feel a lot less like something out of a horror film once it's clean, organized and user friendly.  How can you be afraid of a room with a shiny pretty floor accented with blue, black and white sprinkles?

House Project:  The Kitchen

Back to School

I graduated College with a B.A. a loooong time ago and didn't look back.  I enjoyed my four years in College but was really happy to get my life back and move on from the poor College student lifestyle.  Without any specific career goals in mind and an unwillingness to take on any more student loans then I already had Grad school wasn't something I wanted to pursue.  The loans are long since paid off but I'm still not interested.  So why do I find myself looking at a College campus map to find my class room and the bookstore where a teenager informs me that I need to leave my purse at the door and then I drop $115 bucks on a giant used book?  It's so weird.  Back in the day when I was a student who wore jeans, tennis shoes and a UCSD sweat shirt to class every day we didn't have online registration.  I don't even know if my College had a website back then 'cause I didn't even have a computer.  You had to wait in really long lines for a really long time to pay all of your fees in person and we registered by phone.  I used a word processor to write my papers and Wikipedia didn't exist.  Now I can register, pay fees, drop classes, and order books online.  Do people still go to the Library to do research?  Is it biologically possible that my mind has turned to mush after all of these years?  Times have changed and so have I. 

Life just feels busy enough as it is and I truly value my free time outside of work to relax and take care of business.  It was hard enough for me to add the gym back into my life let alone school.  At my job we get a pay bump if we earn 12 units of college credit.  I've known this but have been too lazy and unmotivated to do anything about it.  We even get reimbursed for it so I really should've done it a long time ago.  I'm not trying to push it so I'm only taking 2 classes this semester and then I'll take two the next.  I've chosen classes that I have a real interest in so that hopefully I won't hate it.  I'm taking an Introductory Paralegal course and planning to take Nutrition which doesn't start until October.  Only the Paralegal course requires me to physically attend and the other will be online.  It sure makes my day long working from 8:00-5:00 pm then going to class from 6:30 to 9:50pm.  I went to my first class and got my first homework assignment Tuesday night and I'm already tired.  At least I wasn't the oldest one in the class.

I think it'll be good for me to do this.  It feels productive.  If it means less couch and TV time then that's probably a good thing but I definitely see it cutting into my gym time.  It's just one night a week so I need to stop being a wimp and deal with it.  Plenty of people have been working full time and going to school full time for years.  Some of them even have kids to juggle.  My very own husband is taking a full time course load online.  Surely I can handle 6 measly units at Community College.  That's what I'm telling myself anyways and I hope I'm right.

Visa Gymnastics Championships 2011

Jordan Wieber wins it. Photo Source:  Universal Sports

This past weekend was Visa Championships.  I excitedly watched Women's Prelims on Thursday night.  The finals were on Saturday night but I didn't get to watch it until first thing Sunday morning.  Prelims were kind of a mess.  There were so many falls and mistakes-which isn't too surprising when you consider that these girls are doing things that people shouldn't physically be able to do.  These athletes are incredible, but even still if Team USA gymnasts were to perform that way at Worlds OR the Olympics for that matter there is no hope for a medal.  There is still time to improve and the final day was much better.  It seemed like everyone got the jitters out.  With Marta Karolyi watching it was their last chance to show her something good and so they did.

Jordan Wieber basically blew out the competition.  She is the only gymnast who hit 8 for 8 and did solid routines over both days.   It is a testament to her good gymnastics but also a testament to the fact that most everyone else performed miserably.  She won by 6 points!  She could have fallen 3 times off of her last event, the beam and still won.  She's been American Cup Champion twice already and now she finally can add National Champion to her resume.  

Rebecca Bross had a really bad day one and an even worse finals.  She was actually showing some improvement but after a falling on her beam dismount again and a bit of a sloppy floor routine she twisted into the ground on an under rotated vault and screamed in pain as she landed and grabbed her knee.  I feel so bad for her.  She was fighting so hard to get back in the game and now this.  That's the harsh reality of gymnastics and as the camera panned around the arena it looked like you could cut the silence with a knife and people were shaking their heads.  What is there to say?  It's a terrible thing and it could happen to any gymnast at any moment.  She won this meet last year, placed 2nd All Around at World Championships in 2010 and 3rd in 2011 (six world medals all together).  She was basically on her way to the Olympics.  Then she had to have leg surgery but she recovered and during her comeback is slammed with another injury.  As they carried her out of the arena I couldn't help but wonder if she should have been competing all four events.  Her gymnastics was looking a little rough up to that point-maybe she tried to do too much too soon. 

Ally Raisman [Photo Source:  Universal Sports.com]

McKayla Maroney was all over the place on day one but she really improved on the second night.  She is so graceful and has such beautiful form.  Her Amanar (2 1/2 twisting Yurchenko) vault was the highlight.  It's the hardest vault being done by anyone in the world right now and she just about stuck it.  Jordan Wieber uses the same vault.

Ally Raisman was one of the few that was solid on day one and she was solid on day two as well until the half way point when she went to beam right after Bross got injured.  She seemed really rattled by what happened and actually put her hands down on the beam (which counts as a fall) but she came back and did great on floor.  That one mistake edged her out of 2nd place which is unfortuanate because she one of the most consistent out of everyone and I thought she deserved the Silver. 

Chelsie Memmel did very well but on her last event after falling, re mounting then falling again on bars couldn't finish the routine.  She spent the remainder of the night with an ice pack on her shoulder.  I REALLY wanted to see her in the top three so I was disappointed to see her falter but she did a great job.  She showed everyone that she is back and a serious contender.  Her dance on floor could definitely use some work.  She basically does a series of connected poses and doesn't really seem to dance through the floor movements as she should.    Her strength is her consistency and power.  

Sean Johnson definitely improved from Cover Girl Classic.  She looked so much more confident and solid.  She still needs to add in floor and get her difficulty level up but I'm much more impressed with what I saw at this meet and glad that she's on her way.  I love her attitude.  She realizes that she may never again be the Sean Johnson who won a gold medal on beam at the Olympics and almost won the All Around.  She is Ok with that and just wants to compete and be in the mix again.  She didn't stop smiling the whole night.  She and Memmel were both named to the National team along with Alicia Sacramone who had a good meet as well.  Her 2nd vault was low, and she had a few balance checks on beam but overall she was solid as usual. 

Final results listed here at Inside Gymnastics.com.  Jordan Wieber 1st, McKayla Maroney 2nd and Alexandra Raisman 3rd.  I can't wait to see who makes the World team.

UPDATE:  2011 World Championships