Holding tight

I'm a people watcher. I most frequently watch myself because I'm easy to find and follow. I've been thinking about a few things I've noticed about how I react with HP and they've got me thinking about trust and holding on.

When we are out among other people, he and I don't have to be right next to each other the whole time. I always know where he is, but we are each comfortable doing our own thing. He talks to his people. I talk to my people. Maybe we mix people at some point. But there's no stress that we have to be joined at the hip when we go out.

I was looking through some pictures of us recently, and something I've thought about before stood out to me. When we are walking somewhere he and I almost always hold hands. My arm goes behind his because it feels weird for both of us to have it the other way. But we don't hold tight. Every picture I have of us holding hands looks like the one below. We're connected, but neither of us feels the need to hold on super tight to the other.

I can loosely hold on because I know he won't go anywhere. I don't have to always be next to him because I know we'll go home together.

I love holding on, but it's nice to not need to hold on so tightly.

What do you say?

HP and I helped out at a community booth thing at the neighborhood park recently. At our booth we were handing out information, and homemade cookies. After several times I started to find it real funny that the parents wouldn't say "Thank you" when they took a cookie. Instead they'd turn to their child, who also had a cookie, and say "What do you say?" I started to wonder how old I have to be before I can say "What do you say?" when someone does something for me instead of "Thank you."

Last week Jinxie wrote about running a single household. Before she put it up she asked me if running a house by yourself was just as hard, if not harder, than doing it with someone.

My living space is more than twice what it was before. There are two bathrooms where there was just one. There are two living rooms where there was just one. The bedroom is bigger. My last apartment had four rooms (kitchen, living, bathroom, bedroom), and this house has eight. So vacuuming takes a little bit longer, but really once you're cleaning it's just as easy to clean a little more. Plus there's the whole yard thing now too that apartments don't have.

Cooking for one is actually harder than cooking for two. It's easier to cook for more people, which is why I actually cook more now than before. It takes the same number of pots to cook for both of us than it did to cook for just me. And again, if you are already washing one plate it's just that easy to clean one more.

Laundry is a bit more than before. We do five loads every two weeks instead of the three I did before. But again, the increase in effort isn't the same as the increase in tasks.

So what does all this have to do with saying "Thank you"? I lived completely on my own, no roommates, for over 7 years before I got married. I did every single household chore myself every single time it needed to be done. HP lived with male roommates for six of the last nine years since college, and from the stories he told that meant he did a lot more than just clean up after himself. We've both done everything that needed to be done.

While it might seem silly, we both say "Thank you" a whole lot now. Because every time he cleans up the dishes (which is more times than I do because I don't like dishes), I say "Thank you" because it means I won't have to do them later. Every time I go out and water the lawn (because plants are cool!) he says "Thank you" because it means he doesn't have to. I think one of the things we learned being single for so long was just how much it takes to run a house, and so we are both appreciative of what the other does.

The fact that he's at work today while I'm getting vacation laundry done doesn't mean I won't thank him when he gets home from work. Because he's earning money for our house means that's something less for me to worry about. And I'd bet the house that he'll thank me for doing laundry when he gets home because it means he didn't have to worry about it while he was at work. Being single I would've been wondering how many loads of laundry I could finish between getting home from work and needing to get to bed and when I'd manage to cook dinner somewhere in between.

Some older "knowing" couples have told us to "just wait" till he stops offering to help with the dishes or I stop taking out the trash. Just wait until we stop being appreciative of each other? I hope that never happens.

Running a single household

There was no way around it, I had to go grocery shopping this evening. I'm booked the rest of this week and most of next and I was running low on food. So, I made a grocery list and dragged my sorry butt out the door and bought food (and toilet paper and hairspray) to last through next week.

I've pontificated on my wish to have help with that chore before, but I've recently been thinking about sharing all the chores and duties of running a household.

I'm willing to submit that running single person's household (no roommates or other family) is just as hard, if not harder, than running a household as a married couple (with no children at home). Married readers and co-bloggers - please correct me if I'm wrong.

Yes, with a married couple, there may be twice as many clothes to wash and food to eat, and they may or may not have more rooms to clean, but that doesn't really mean it's twice the work. There are just as many food preparation dishes, and adding an extra fork, plate, and glass to the dishes pile doesn't really change things. I still have to eat three to six times a day, which means three to six sets of dishes, and I don't have a dishwasher. I still have to do wash my clothes every 1.5 weeksish so that I don't run out of underwear. There's just more space in the washer and dryer for each load.

When it's just me I live with, I'm the only one doing any of it. No one is going to vacuum the house or do the laundry or clean the bathroom or shop for the food or manage the finances or cook the food or take out the garbage or recycling or make the bed or replace the DVD player that died a month ago (and I'm dying too, since we're moving into summer TV and I was thinking about canceling my cable anyway and I'm quickly running out of things to watch on my TiVo) or anything else that needs to be done around here. Not on my good days and most certainly not on my bad days.

There's so much to do and only one me to do it. I also work alone, running my own department, and I deal with many physical things, not just files on a computer. It's amazing I ever feel like I ever get anything done ever.

And just as I was feeling overwhelmed by everything I have to do around here, a woman I follow on Twitter was complaining about how her husband passes two grocery stores on his way home but he couldn't be bothered (according to her) to stop for milk and now all she really wants is a bowl of cereal and milk. She posted multiple statuses about it.

I really wanted to say (and I apologize for the uncustomary language), "At least you have a husband to share your chores and grocery runs with. Now, quit whining, get off your ass, and get your milk your own damn self like I have to every time."

But, as our blog title states, these are things I won't say.

Let's be adults about this.

Just a few thoughts I've been working on for the past couple of days. I'll elaborate later.

1. If you are over 25 and don't live in a place with excellent public transit, perhaps you should invest in a car.
2. If you are over 25 and have finished school, perhaps you should try really hard to find a full-time job.
3. If you are over 25 and your friends have finished school and have full-time jobs, perhaps you should remember that and not expect them to be free to play when you are.
4. If you are over 25 and looking for a wife, perhaps you should not expect your dates to pay for everything because you're between gigs.

True Love Waits

A non-LDS bride recently posted on A Practical Wedding about why she waited to have sex until they were married, and her experiences before and after the fact. I wish I could have written that post (and only partly because it would mean that I was married and having sex by now ;) ), but it pretty perfectly sums up our own feelings here at IWS.

Check it out.

Finding love

The martians on Sesame Street discover all kinds of things about this world. Sometimes it can seem like love is on a completely different planet. But if they could discover it, then anyone can. It just might not always be in the first place you look.