It is a Saturday so I did…stuff
February 3, 2007
I blinked and February is already three days in. Why the shortest month of the year is moving so swiftly, I know not. What I do know is there are a number of things I need to accomplish in the coming month and if time continues to move with such haste, I might as well give up because the year will be over and I will still be woefully single, overweight and extremely temperamental and combined they are not a good look for me.
In good news on the accomplishment front, the bridesmaids dresses are ordered, which means my wedding duties are over for a couple of months. I wonder if I look as out of proportion as I am when measured: based on my bust, waist and hip measurements, I would need two different tops to be taken apart and attached together, and a separate size in a skirt. Instead, I bought the top to fit my bust and will now have to do 200 crunches a night until June 15 and invest in a heavy duty girdle so that friends are not tempted to ask if I’m expecting. The good news is that I’m ordering the same size of dress as I did two years ago, from the same designer, so at least my girth hasn’t increased appreciably.
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It is my desire to move out of the family home soon, into a (town)house of my own and become a responsible mortgage paying individual within the next two years. I’m not sure if I’m ready for the extreme amounts of responsibility that this will entail but I think by age 29 or 30, ready or not, I should make the leap. As I’ve said earlier, the idea of renting seems like a waste to me so buying is my only viable solution. Some of my friends have suggested that my extremely thrifty (and two years younger) sister might be a prime roommate but every day she reminds me why I have sworn not to live with her if I don’t have to.
I currently share a bathroom with her (and the occasional brother) and she leaves all her clothing everywhere. The bathroom door barely stays open due to the sheer quantity of clothing hanging behind the door on hooks. Some of her less privileged clothing adorns the floor and I hate stepping on dirty clothing on my way to the shower. I’m convinced that these piles of dirty clothing will be the breeding ground for the next outbreak of pestilence, and our house will have to be quarantined or something. She also has this habit of bringing her new clothing to the bathroom to try on, and if she decides she’s purchased an article of clothing she’s going to keep, she will remove its price tag and leave it (the tag) on the counter and right now a hanger is also on our counter. And both will remain there until I move them. I wonder how she manages to brush her hair since at least half of the length of the bristles are intertwined with her hair. I don’t know why this bothers me so (other than the fact that I’m an interfering witch) but I find myself picking out the hairs periodically and it makes me feel so much better. Today’s act of sanity preservation was the gathering of all her clothing and putting them into her empty hamper, and then opening the door as wide as it could go. I think I got a rush of endorphins from it.
And imagine this: she never thanks me, or even comments on these little tasks I do for her. Do you think she’s realized that other than being the cause of my discontent she has nothing to do with why I do these things?
To those of you with spouses: how do/did/are you get(ting) used to a mate whose ideas on organization or cleanliness differ from yours?
well good that you may pursue the townhome, it will go up in value
as you pay for it. Real estate in most cases always goes up in value.
I clean up after my brother alot, but he does sometimes too. Its like a 75/25 split. Basically the clothes he leaves laying around i toss in his room.
if we are still doing words i guess pestilence
I'm going with intertwined for today's wordygurdy.
My husband doesn't have a radically different idea of cleanliness than I do – he just has a different idea of how things get clean. I'm pretty sure he believes fairies come by to pick up after him. He's not the worst one in the house though – the kids have him beat hands down when it comes to bathroom clutter and ickiness. I could probably get rid of the hubby if I got tired of the messiness but the kids…pretty much stuck with them for life :-)
I'm not sure that you ever get used to it though. Pretty much you just give up bitching about it. There are some things that you just can't change.
Sharing living space is tricky. I've done it now with a family, a significant other, and a roommate and each of these people have given me grief due to their differing definintions of cleanliness and differing approaches to the fact that they share space with others. Did I ever show you my slide who of decomposing food items that my roommate left in the sink for two weeks? Who would have thought that noodles would leave behind such an odor….
The only way to deal with it is to be upfront. My own brother used to drive me insane. One example is taking the last Coke, and then not replacing it with a new case that is only in the pantry a few feet away. We've moved past that, though, and it took a while but now we are mostly co-existing quite nicely.
By upfront, you have to say "Roommate, I can't deal with clothing on the bathroom floor. I ask that you pick it up to save my sanity. Is there anything I am doing that is bothering you?" And then you have to make a choice: Nag over it until she's so tired of hearing your voice that she does it, or get over it.
Living with people is not easy. I don't think there is a way to make it better.
If you do end up living with someone you can't stand, I recommend martinis. And lots of them. And I also recommend that if you end up subsisting on martinis, you call me. And call often. :P
Good luck, Jooms!
Mike is the more organized/clean/neat of the two of us and I know that I drive him absolutely batty with my chaotic mess. but he loves me anyway…We try to find a happy medium between his need for order and my need to create chaos wherever I go. sometimes we do better than others. I've promised to keep the kitchen and our bedroom relatively neat and he doesn't complain (too much) about the disaster that is my office…
wordygurdy gurdy word: pestilence
I say pestilence.
And I get the same rush when I clear all the clothes off the back of the door and I can open it all the way too, but they're my clothes! What does that say about me? I go through phases. Never the floor, but piled on top of my laundry hamper (I have a piece of 2 x 4 on top of it for support or sometimes the lid caves in from the weight) or hanging on the door are common. I can't believe I'm admitting this!
My first roommate and my first boyfriend and I all lived together and we devised a plan whereby dishes would always be done quickly and not get left in the sink to rot. It was your turn to do the dishes until you did them, then it switched to the next person's turn. So, if you did them right away, you got off super easy and everything was kept clean! My boyfriend learned really fast!
There are so many other roommate issues though. I cohabitate very nicely with my spouse. Don't get me wrong, we have issues, but most of them do not resolve around roommate type topics. So, that's good. I think. Okay, I'm done babbling.