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I’ve had an exciting time since my post last week! Recap from Monday’s blood pressure check:

• BP was terrible (160/90) when they first took it, so about ten minutes later they re-checked and I’m so glad they did, because it improved a ton (134/82).
• Because it was so high initially and my leg/foot swelling was so bad, the midwife decided to put me on bedrest. Argh! This means I am on the couch or my bed basically 24/7, no going to work, and no grocery shopping or housework or anything. Fortunately, my employer is fine with me working from home to finish out my time until I’m on maternity leave. Yay for flexibility!
• They took a blood sample to do some bloodwork so they have a baseline in case I start going downhill – they can compare it and see what’s going on.

They scheduled me to come back today to recheck everything. From today’s appointment, bad/mediocre news first, good news next:

• I had a bit of protein in my urine, and my bloodwork showed elevated levels of uric acid. I don’t actually know what this means, other than it is not really a good sign. The midwife said neither number was particularly alarming, exactly, just not ideal.
• Because of this, they are having me do the 24-hour urine collect. Boo! I have a fancy brown bottle that I get to fill with my pee and keep in my fridge. Delightful.
• Blood pressure: 130/80! YAY! Bedrest seems to be working.
• I lost two pounds! Also yay!
• Foot swelling is down! I think this is the reason I lost two pounds – it’s all water weight, but since I can move my ankles again I am more than happy to take it.
• Baby has moved head-down! We had the fastest ultrasound ever, on the same ancient machine, in which she pointed out the white lines that were the edges of his skull and that was it. Baby’s heartbeat sounds great.

Final word was that I don’t have preeclampsia, but she wouldn’t be at all surprised if I developed it, so the goal is to have that happen later rather than sooner. They also bumped me up to twice-weekly appointments to keep a close eye on me, so from here on out I’ll go in Tuesdays and Fridays.

Bedrest

Sounds like a picnic, right? Hanging out on the couch all day?

Not so much. I mean, I’m working from home, so technically I am occupied from the hours of 8:30am-5:30pm, but once you’re forced to be on the couch it becomes much less appealing. Plus, I feel fine! It’d almost be easier if I felt “sick” or otherwise in need of 24/7 resting.

Also, you know how your butt hurts after sitting through a long movie? Imagine days and weeks worth of that. Blah!

I’m not really sure how restrictive I’m supposed to be; I’m allowed to get up for bathroom breaks and the occasional shower, but I’m not sure whether or not I can complete simple sewing projects for instance. I forgot to ask today.

(I am totally flouting the rules to attend my baby shower on Saturday. Wouldn’t miss it for the world!)

Remodel

I got a call from our building’s maintenance guy on Monday to let me know that during our annual inspection, they discovered some major issues in the bathroom that they’d like to take care of, and basically they want to remodel our bathroom.

Yes. A full bathroom remodel, on our only bathroom, with me at 35 weeks pregnant, on bedrest, with a baby that may or may not come early due to this whole BP issue. DOES THIS NOT SOUND LIKE THE WORST IDEA EVER?

A guy from the company slated to do the remodel stopped by this morning to assess the situation and determine his price and timeline. They need to rip up the floor, fix some nails that are migrating upward, replace the floor, tear out the tile in the shower, fix some squishiness in the walls, re-do the tub surround, and possibly replace the sink.

It was at this point I was told that it would take THREE WEEKS to complete the work. Everyone I’ve talked to has encouraged me to go for it before the baby arrives rather than after, since you don’t want to renovate a bathroom with a newborn in tow, but GOOD GRIEF. I also do not want to be 35+ weeks pregnant and without a bathroom for nearly a month.

ARGH.

At this point, I am waiting to hear back from Maintenance Steve with the landlord’s response to the remodeling company’s assessment and bid. If they decide to go ahead with it, I am going to ask about being put up in a hotel. I’m on bedrest so I can rest from anywhere, but I need a bathroom. This is non-negotiable.

Impeccable timing, no?

This past week, Baby got a LOT more active. I feel him/her throughout the day off and on and they are definite kicks and/or punches. It’s totally awesome and simultaneously really, really weird. Something is kicking my innards! Ack! It is cute now, but I bet it will not be cute several months from now when Baby is kicking the crap out of my lungs or bladder.

I’m still having a fair amount of round ligament pain. Lame. It’s not debilitating or anything but if I’ve been sitting for a while and stand up, I look about 300 years old for the first few steps until my body adjusts to this newfangled thing called “walking.”

I received my shipment of my newborn diapers and OMG SO CUTE. Tiny little diaper covers!

This week’s comparison picture:

It… does not really look different. I actually think it might be the photo or my outfit or something because I am pretty sure I am noticeably bigger, but I took today’s pictures in a rush to leave for work this morning. Baby is about 5.5 inches long, or as big as a bell pepper. This does not sound adorable to me because I loathe bell peppers but perhaps someone will find this cute. Last week was a turnip, which really cracked me up.

Oh! Also! My ultrasound appointment is scheduled for November 23rd, in the morning, so here’s hoping Baby cooperates and we find out the sex! It will be a Thanksgiving week surprise. (Baby just kicked. He/she says hello.)

Overall, this week has been pretty normal baby-wise and pretty crap other-wise. Our bathroom light decided to fail over the weekend so we called in a maintenance request on Monday, because it was obviously an electrical issue and not a lightbulb issue. We didn’t hear back. Tuesday came and I got a call from the property management company, which I thought was kind of weird since Daniel made the maintenance call, but my phone was on the verge of death so I let it go to voicemail and figured I’d listen and then have Daniel call them back.

My voicemail revealed that they called to let us know that unusually, they did not receive our rent this month.

I could have died.

WHAT.

This is the ONE and ONLY time this has ever happened to me: THE CHECK GOT LOST IN THE MAIL. I am not making this up. It’d be like if your dog really did eat your homework – it just screams HELLO I AM LYING. I swear to effing everything that I mailed it on Nov 2, because I had to beg a stamp off my co-workers because I realized once I made it to work that I forgot to mail it the past Friday.

When Daniel talked to them they didn’t sound like they were going to charge us the late-rent fee but I am not 100% sure on that. They did note that it was very weird to not have received our check (we’ve been here for 2.5 years and haven’t ever been late) and we promised to send another right away, which I did today. (I tried to yesterday but realized when I got home and the envelope was still in the mailbox that there is no mail on holidays.)

GAH. Talk about stress.

Then today, we had a big company meeting at work, and yes, it was that kind of meeting. I still have a job. This is obviously great. But instead of receiving raises for next year, or not receiving raises at all, we are receiving the option of either a 2% deferred pay cut or 5 unpaid furlough days off. The “deferred” apparently means that we are in essence “loaning” that amount of our salary to the company for 2010, and we will get it paid back in 2011. The example they gave was if you started with $1000 this year, next year (2010) you’d make $980, and the year after (2011) you’d make $1020, which is the amount you started with plus the backpay from 2010. If you take the furlough days there is no backpay option, you just take them and that’s that.

I haven’t decided yet what I want to do. My maternity leave will occur next year during the cuts, so I could either choose to have money come in the next year or an extra week home with my baby. AGONIZING. On one hand, we could totally use the money, because hello, we are not rich and also there will be a new baby and hospital bills. On the other hand, what kind of horrible unfit parent would I be to choose money over an extra (unpaid) week with my child? Argh. The pay cut actually seems like the better option so far in terms of long-term planning, but I am going to do some math and work out what makes sense for us. I assume we have to choose by the end of the year.

On the plus side, our bathroom light got fixed today because I received another call from the property management company that I was able to answer, and they offered to send someone by this morning. So I don’t have to do my hair and makeup in the dark anymore like I’ve been doing all week.

I’ve decided recently that I really do like Fall. I always used to say Summer was my favorite season but I’m realizing as years go by that this isn’t true – I can’t handle hot weather, I hate being sweaty, and I don’t have a car with which to drive somewhere to go swimming. Overall, it’s not the best.

Fall, however, Fall I can get behind. It’s still warm-ish, but you can start wearing skirts with boots and maybe a sweater and if you’re really adventurous, you can start busting out your winter mittens and hats for chilly mornings. It’s a lovely mix of the best parts of Summer and Winter.

Except for the spiders. I hate the spiders.

They emerge juuuust as soon as it starts cooling down a bit and they take up residence in the bushes and railings and light fixture around our building’s front door. This makes entering and exiting somewhat problematic, like the other day when I came home and had to call Daniel to let me in the back door because some stupid fat spider built a web across half of the stairs and I didn’t want to chance squeezing by it lest it get stuck to me. *shudder*

Fortunately by the time I left for work the next morning, it had moved (or had been moved by someone) and I didn’t have to leave through the back door.

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about the spiders above our door or how we solved that problem, but that one was kind of an isolated (yet horrifying) specimen. There are smaller ones now but there are more of them and I am afraid they are going to get larger and more bold.

FREAKS ME RIGHT OUT.

News on the apartment front:

I managed to score a cute, simple little lamp at Target the other day, as well as a much-needed curtain rod. I am still getting used to our curtains, but it’s nice to finally have them up.

About a week and a half ago, I ordered a narrow small side table to sit in between the wall and the couch and I’m still waiting for it to arrive. I don’t totally trust the website. Let’s all hope my table makes it to me safely. And soon. I have some heathered gray felt coasters from Etsy that I’d like to set on it. I am not a crazy coaster person, I promise, but I do think they look nice sometimes.

As you can see over on Flickr, I managed to get our plants repotted! I came close to killing our jade plant on accident and, while I’m still not sure what I did wrong, I’m hoping its new environment will encourage it to keep up the fight. The other plants look happy in their new homes.

News on the WTF front:

This could be a whole entry unto itself, but long story short, if I would have actually looked into it, I could have put Daniel on my health insurance aaaaages ago. Instead, I listened to what I was told at work (“No, marriage is not a qualifying event!”) and waited it out until the next Open Enrollment session. I decided to prove a point and email my healthcare provider about this qualifying event business and was told I was correct. HA.

Also, WHY IS HEALTHCARE SO EXPENSIVE? Ugh. I don’t actually know how much I pay for mine, but GOOD GRIEF adding Daniel is a lot of dollars.

News on the snowboarding front:

I have still only gone once so far, but I expect to end up there on Saturday. Woo-hoo!

News on the technology front:

The Netflix video player for Xbox is SO. AWESOME. We’ve been using it to watch documentaries from PBS, The History Channel, and other lovely educational things. I especially enjoyed the one about ocean life. It had all sorts of cephalopods and showed how they can change their colors at will and it was amazing! Loving cephalopods at the moment.

I am also glad that WPMU 2.7 is finally out! I can’t wait to upgrade some of our client sites running it.

…aaand that’s about all that’s going on with me. I can’t believe we’re almost into February!

Since you all were so helpful in assisting my big purchase decision, I am now the proud new owner of a Grown-Up Couch from Room & Board.

The couch is positively lovely. It fits both Daniel and I at the same time (lengthwise) and the color is exactly what I expected. It’s a bespeckled white-and-black nubbly fabric that seems like it’ll hide stains reasonably well, which is good because we plan on keeping it for a long time. The pillows will definitely be changed out periodically once I get a good cover collection.

More pictures and long descriptions of our progress:

(more…)

All right, you talked me into it.

COUCH ON THE WAY!

We haven’t come to a concrete decision about the rug yet. It is a lot of money and there are nice looking rugs at IKEA that we should probably consider first. I do like the Pottery Barn rug, but… if it were roughly half the sale price I’d definitely go for it. As-is, it’s is a bit much, I think.

So! SQUEE! Couch! Now I feel like I should make some festive throw pillows to adorn it once it arrives. Thank you all for your advice – it helped put things in perspective and I think we made the right choice.

Since it’s well-documented that I am a rug dunce and am trying to beautify my living room, I need some outside opinions.

I want this rug:

Daniel and I have been saving for an occasion like this, and the only other big-ticket item we are seriously considering is the Eugene sofa in Dita Salt:

This couch, sadly, is being discontinued so we either need to decide to purchase it ASAP or find another couch we like.

PLS ADVISE.

Pros:

• I like this rug. That is more than I can say for many other rugs I have seen.
• It would work nicely in either the living room or the bedroom. Multi-purpose!
• It’s on sale. Rugs are expensive and this definitely makes a difference.

Cons:

• I might like the couch more. It’s not an either-or, just a matter of priorities.
• THAT IS A LOT OF MONEY, especially if we go for the couch as well.
• What if it is all wrong and it’s a bad choice and I get both and I’m out $1500? *dies*

Here’s a quick moodboard I made up so you can get an idea of what it might look like with some other items we’re considering:

HELP. Should we go for both? One? Which one? We have been saving and can basically afford both, but doing it all at once is a bit of a hit.

As a result of receiving a couple of Target gift cards as well as a couple of Bed, Bath and Beyond gift cards as gifts for the wedding, I decided to redecorate our bathroom.

Before

Here are two photos of our bathroom before:

Things worth mentioning about our bathroom:

• We rent. Therefore, even though I hate hate HATE the fact that we have ½ an electrical outlet for the whole bathroom (the bottom half is the light switch, not another plug area) I cannot do anything about that. I also dislike the lack of storage (we have an over-the-toilet cabinet that came with the apartment) and the really awkward, misshapen area underneath the sink. And the lack of counterspace.

  If I had my way, I would replace the sink with something that:

  • Has a counter
  • Has one spigot instead of individual ones for hot and cold (you can’t ever have WARM water – it’s either scalding or icy cold, unless you turn both on and plug the sink and splash around in the pool that forms. Ick.)
  • Has cabinets underneath for storage
• I am still not entirely sure if we are allowed to paint or not. I think maybe they said we can’t, but it would be worth asking about because the area above the towels is woefully blank.
• The walls are very hard and it is incredibly difficult to pound nails into to hang things. It is not concrete or anything, just very bizarre drywall. This limits our art-hanging endeavors.
• Itemized:
  • Shower curtain and plastic hooks from Target (I think it was on clearance as a set for maybe $10)
  • Mismatched hand-dyed towels, originally white ones from JC Penny for about $4 or $5 each
  • Bright lavender bath mat, hand towel, and bath towel that was a present for my high school graduation five years ago.
  • Blue trash can left over from my days of living at home. Have probably had it since middle school.

Total:

Roughly $20. We really didn’t buy anything new for it when we moved in.

After

Here are some photos of our bathroom after:

The photos are really poor-quality and not very color-accurate (I need a new camera). See the links below to get a better idea of colors.

Things of note about the redecoration:

• Couldn’t do anything about the over-the-toilet cabinet. It’s not ours to mess with.
• Itemized:
  • Shower curtain, liner, and metal hooks from Target; $20, $7, and $10 respectively
  • Matching “Cocoa” towels from Bed Bath and Beyond (4 large towels, 1 bath sheet, 2 hand towels, 4 washcloths); $55
  • Bath mat from Target; $30
  • Not pictured since we haven’t bought it yet, but Rubbed Bronze trash can from Target; $20

Total:

Roughly $150. Most of it was on gift cards.

Verdict:

I love it! It looks so much nicer now that things are color-coordinated and actually given some thought. Looking at these photos, it would appear that I bought a shower curtain and a towel and called it good, but it really looks so much nicer in person and with natural light. The nighttime+flash look is never pretty. The mat is a nice cream and sage green, the towels are this rich, chocolatey brown, and the shower curtain is very lightweight and brings in not only the leaf imagery from the bath mat but the black and white of the floors.

See, I told you the HGTV was getting to me.

This time they are not on our porch, but they keep showing up in the bathroom. We have killed three identical spiders in the past week and I AM NOT ENJOYING IT.

This morning’s spider was found on the inside of the shower curtain, so I tried to push the curtain closer to the front wall of the shower to get a better squishing area, but the spider fell over and I had to shake the curtain to get it to fall into the tub. Then I squished it with a Q-tip box. Gross.

The spider prior to that scared me half to death as it appeared on the OUTSIDE of the shower curtain, conveniently right by my head as I was rinsing my mouth out after brushing my teeth. Horrifying. It climbed its way to the back wall of the shower and then on to the ceiling, whereupon Daniel tried to squish it with a broom but it FELL and I screamed and somehow it ended up dead. I don’t really recall that part.

The first spider was spotted in the morning as I was getting ready for work. I saw its reflection in the mirror and couldn’t figure out if it was just a weird paint spot or something more sinister. I turned around and saw that it was sinister and on the move. It climbed all over the wall and the shower and our shower caddy and Daniel’s shampoo and generally violated everything cleanly in the general shower region. Ugh.

And then I lost it.

I had no idea where it was hiding. I didn’t see it on the wall, the shower curtain, the shower caddy, any of the bottles or soap things… It was lost. I HATE THAT. If there is a creepy spider in the room, as counterintuitive as it sounds, I would like to know where it is at all times. And I lost it. And I had to leave for work right then.

This meant that I had to leave a note. It was a horrible note, as no one wants to wake up to something that says:

BEWARE: Spider in the shower. Tried to kill it but it got lost.

Poor Daniel. He said he wasn’t sure if he appreciated the note or if he would have felt better discovering it on his own. I still maintain I could not have gone to work with a clean conscience if I hadn’t at least warned him. But he managed to find the spider and kill it, so all is well.

Semi-unrelated tangent: After dispatching the spider, I jumped into the shower and several minutes later had another terrific scare. You know how water sometimes makes weird noises on plastic shower curtains if it hits it just right? This made some godawful noise like a croaking frog-man growl and my heart flew into my throat and I jumped and generally had the everloving wits scared out of me. By water. In the shower. Where you are probably the most vulnerable ever. It was awful.

I just hate when mornings start out like that.

Maintenance has started cleaning! [Read the beginning of the story here.] We were supposed to have a follow-up visit today (our kitchen cupboards appear to be detaching themselves from the ceiling so we mentioned it when they came in last week) and I left a note about the mess in the basement. The note was still there when I got home from work, but Daniel and I ran downstairs and checked and they have totally made progress.

They got rid of all the boxes and opened up all the storage units (except ours – I think it’s the only one being used) and shoveled out the foul grossness on the shelves. It actually looks kind of nice down there now. I didn’t take any follow-up photos but trust me, SO MUCH BETTER.

I still suspect that the maintenance people were the ones that discovered it and dragged the boxes out to begin with, but I still felt like too long a time went by before they really cleaned it out, hence leaving a note. And, yay! No more grossness.

I loved all of your comments about how gross it was. I mean, on a whole I don’t mind mice. I am not afraid of them. Even so, I do not want to live with them and have them leave that kind of filth behind, because YOW. It was like I could feel myself contracting Hantavirus.

I don’t do laundry nearly enough. If it gets really bad, I can usually find some long-neglected, ill-fitting t-shirt to wear for the day until I can get home to do laundry (or ask Daniel to take care of it). Today, though, he threw in a load and then later asked me to go downstairs and switch it over. Cool, I said, and off I went.

Upon reaching the basement, I noticed a rather… pungent smell. Sort of like cat pee. But there are not any cats in the building. I looked around, thinking maybe it was my imagination or maybe a cat zoomed in the building and peed in the basement? And died there? I did notice a bunch of cardboard boxes all over the floor in front of the haphazardly built storage units, but didn’t think much of it.

I finished switching over the laundry and decided to investigate. The closer I got, the worse it smelled, and there were multiple chewed up boxes with furry hairballs and mold spots and piles of what looked like dirt clumps but I think are actually poo. I stood there for a minute, staring at this godawful mess on the floor in front of the storage units, and came to the startling conclusion that A VERITABLE HORDE OF MICE must have been living there for YEARS and have only now been discovered. ACK.

ACK ACK ACK

I can only assume (based on our scheduled apartment inspection today) that the maintenance people have discovered this alarming situation and have dealt with the offending storage unit (the cardboard boxes used to live in there, not on the floor) by spreading it all over one end of the basement. The now empty unit looks like a chicken coop. It is SO. GROSS. Layers and layers of poo and cardboard and hairy tufts of grossness and OH MY GOD I DO LAUNDRY DOWN THERE. I have no idea when they are actually going to do something that gets rid of the offending mess, but jeeze I hope they do it soon.

Pictures should be forthcoming, as there is really no way to describe it that will do it justice. I only wish monitors had scratch-n-sniff so you could experience the horror in its entirety.

EDITED TO ADD: Okay, photos!

First, the chewed boxes I came across first:

Then, the floor in front of the storage unit:

Theeeeennnn… inside the unit:

And the other wall:

ACK GROSS FOUL

Daniel just came home and told me that his co-worker Matt gave him a ride home and…

…AND…

MATT KILLED THE SPIDER.

He held the lamp aside, grabbed a phone book that was laying on the stairs, and SKOOSHED it! (Apparently, he is tall.)

If you need me, I’m going to be composing a heartfelt thank-you card to our wonderful, spider-killing friend.

Lest I continue to create any more confusion, um, I am not a derby player. Sad! I know! It would be so cool, but I am not. I am, however, a spectator who is considering maybe eventually learning to skate well and try out for derby. So, um, when I say “our” team, I… I mean the team I cheer for. Because I know one of the players. Not that I play derby because I don’t.

Now that I have gotten that embarrassing confession out of the way, I shall delve into the spider saga. It is pretty well documented that I hate spiders. A lot. I claim I have arachnophobia, but I don’t do the hysterical screaming and crying and trying to hide under chairs at the sight of one, I just get really scared and run away and get someone else to kill it because IT IS INVADING MY PLACE OF RESIDENCE PLEASE HELP.

Naturally, there have been several spiders that have decided to take up residence in the area directly above the front door to our building. Yes. This means that every time I want to LEAVE HOME, I have to walk under them and it is a harrowing experience. And it is less of a walk than a quick, sprinting jump through the door onto the top steps that lead down to the sidewalk. Coming back in is much more difficult because it involves attempting the quick, sprinting jump inward through the door while simultaneously unlocking said door. Of course, all of this is an effort to spend the least amount of time possible standing underneath the wretched creatures.

They are up high, and the most offensive of the bunch is probably bigger than a quarter if you laid it out flat. Its back end is as big as a peanut M&M, at least. You will not see photos, because there is nothing I hate more than being confronted with a giant spider photo on a website when that is very much the last thing I’d like to see. Also because I do not want to have to take a photo of it.

Seriously, what can I do? I am considering writing a letter to our property management company to get rid of them. I do not, however, want them to spray for spiders, because you know what that does? It brings them out in DROVES from where they have been hiding out into the open to die, and I don’t think I can handle any more dangly spiders over my front door. We did that once at the hotel I used to work at and it was horrible. We have occasionally been coming in through the back door to avoid them, and one of our friends is absolutely petrified of spiders and we have to tell them to wait outside on the sidewalk instead of being able to come in for a moment.

Options? Solutions? How can we get rid of them without a) killing them ourselves, or b) spraying for them?

Thanks for your responses to my last post. I’m always interested in details of other people’s lives, and I’d love to change my own habits if they prove idiotic. We did some apartment-improvement recently and bought our first kitchen table (JOKKMOKK from IKEA) and a matching set of hampers (the hampers match, I mean – they don’t match the table. That would be weird) so we’ve been combining our laundry into “light-ish” and “colors, dark things and jeans” instead of “his” and “hers” and it seems to be going well so far.

We’ve also talked about putting some reversible magnet on the fridge that shows whose turn it is to get groceries. Then there’s no confusion. I figure I can come up with one out of felt and embroider something clever on it.

In other apartment/flat news, you remember the people below us that smoke up a storm, right? The ones whose blinds are all yellow and disgusting? The ones where, when we mentioned their (forbidden) smoking to the move-in inspector, the inspector chuckled and made an “oh, that’s just them” remark and mentioned how they’d lived there for 18-odd years and they’d just have to replace the blinds when they moved out? There was a pink eviction notice taped to our front door today regarding that unit. EVICTION. Now I am curious what they did to deserve that.

I’m finding it increasingly difficult to post anything interesting since the place I spend most of my time (work) is the exact thing we all know is a bad idea to write about. Be ye not so stupid and all that. Let me just say that my department seems woefully understaffed for the amount of work coming in and it is not so good for the sanity bit of my brain.

I am also having some valid concerns about that thing we have coming up next year that starts with a W. The planning of it, I mean, not the W itself. In short, I am coming up short on enthusiasm from my immediate family and it is ruffling my feathers. Figuratively speaking. Asking for favors is like pulling teeth and I am becoming increasingly frustrated and worried and hurt.

It is difficult to plan a wedding long-distance. I get that. BUT. This location thing? If that is worked out, I can take care of invitations and catering and so many other things over the phone. I don’t have to be there. My problem is that I can’t order save the date cards unless I know where the goddamn thing is going to be held, you know? I’m just getting the distinct impression that this is more of a total pain in the ass rather than a fun event to be excited about. And that makes me feel bad.

That said, it could be worse. I could be having fears that Daniel is not the person I want to marry (he definitely is) or something else equally as important. I am not having those kind of fears and that is a positive thing. Because honestly? I could get married in a dirt hole for all I care as long as we end up married. And that’s the important bit.

To those of you who live with your significant others, especially if you are not married: How combined are your lifestyles?

I ask because I have recently noticed that Daniel and I keep an awful lot of things separated when it comes to cohabitating. For instance:

Grocery Shopping
We more or less take turns buying. That said, sometimes, 90% of the items are “mine,” as in, things for me to put in my lunch that Daniel doesn’t necessarily want or eat, and how is that fair that he has to pay for all that food he won’t eat? We usually compromise by having the offender pay for the groceries that time and then resume tradeoff the next time. This is obviously not a perfect solution, and I am curious how other people deal with it. Do you view it as a “household” expense that just gets paid regardless of who does the eating of the food?

Laundry
We have separate hampers and generally do our laundry completely independent of one another. Sometimes someone will ask, “Are you doing laundry? Can you throw in [blank] if you have room?” or whatever it may be. Is it more efficient to wash everything together? Are we just crazy?

Finances
None of our finances are combined. I’ve heard off and on that this is a smart move, as you don’t want too many things wrapped up “just in case” – whether that’s true or not, we’ve just never bothered to get a joint account. We handle most jointly-paid items by switching off who pays them. I might pay the cable bill one month while Daniel covers electricity and gas, or I pay rent and he pays me back half of it.

I suppose these questions could apply to roommate situations as well, but in that case I feel like you are less inclined to voluntarily cover someone else’s expenses if need be. How do you handle these things in your household?