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the next maids day
30 November 2020 09:31The cycle continues -- the maids come every two weeks, we pre-clean for them, it's usually a stress increaser for us both on a Monday morning. But we were able to put the cats away without drama and everything was ready by 8am, when I left for the condo. It was raining hard when I had to take out the trash and recycling, I wore a raincoat but my shoes and shorts were soaked. Rain had decreased by the time I had to drive downtown, no flooding, no usual delays or detours.
T seems grumpy or stressed about having to go back to full-time work after taking time off. My own work To Do List is manageable again, it usually decreases around the holidays and picks up again mid-January. T also seems grumpy or stressed that we haven't put everything away in the basement yet, but that's complicated because he wants to be in charge of doing it in a well-organized way, so I cannot help unless he's ready for my help, so he feels like it is all on him. And back on Friday morning when he was interested in working on it, I was recovering from that spell of vertigo -- instead of waiting for me he dove in and worked by himself. By the time I returned to the house on Sunday he was worn out from working on it himself, without me, but he also didn't ask me to come home on Saturday to help ... which he could've done ... so ...
It's tough when he wants to be in charge of something but feels like it should be a joint chore, because he has to pre-work it and then we both need time and energy after he does the pre-work, and then he has to tell me what to do, and then I don't always do it the way he intended me to. As for me, I'd just get rid of most of the stuff in the basement, far more of it belongs to him than to me. I'm not into "storage" per se. If I don't use something regularly, and if there isn't room for it to be stored or displayed in the living area, then I'm usually happy to dispose of it, via the trash or recycling bins if necessary -- T likes to give it away, which adds another level of complexity and slows the process way down. We do have more food requiring storage than usual right now, because of being home all the time and wanting to limit exposure at grocery stores. But I view the main issue is just junk we should get rid of. Other than food and cleaning supplies, I'd keep nothing in the storage room. If your clothes won't fit in your dressers and closets, you've got too many clothes. And I let T use 3/4 of the upstairs closets to my 1/4.
There's also the pileup of junk that happens when you live in the same place for 15 years.
So, I might skip the condo this weekend, intending to help T with the basement stuff, but then that will require him to invest time and energy doing it with me. We'll see later this week.
I'd said we'd deal with the leaves after we dealt with the other stuff -- including the budget stuff. Now the budget stuff is taken care of so I'm paying a crew to rake up the leaves. It's tough for me to think of spending money when we're months behind on things as it is. It's a stress on the relationship, my conservatism about spending money versus his liberalism. I'm not against spending it, I just want to have it before I spend it, or know how I'm going to pay for it. And I also want to keep an emergency reserve, in case of emergencies.
From T's point of view I run "hot and cold" about money. I'm hot when I have it, and cold when I don't. He's more willing to use credit than I am, but then he runs into things like credit limits and late fees and such, so he experiences cold spells with money as well, just at a different point along the spectrum -- when a bank says no more. I don't ever want to hit the point where I cannot raise additional funds from a bank, so I keep a big cushion of cash around and pay bills on time. I used to be more judgmental about this, although I'm still not easy-going about it. I didn't pick up on this relationship conflict until a few years into the relationship, because when I met T his finances were being floated by the housing bubble, and he was able to cash in at the peak of the bubble. Then when K lived with us we were able to split many expenses three ways. After K moved out, T''s profits from the housing bubble had been spent, and then we experienced a 50% spike in our shared expenses, and it's been a point of conflict ever since.
Anyway, I think I'm going to do a dance video workout here at the condo this morning, as I'm not that busy with work today. I haven't done one of these videos in a long time, because the fall weather has allowed me to run and hike much more often. So, I should probably start over with video #1, plus the abs workout. Then I'll have lunch delivered and go through all my emails and draw up a new work To Do List.
T seems grumpy or stressed about having to go back to full-time work after taking time off. My own work To Do List is manageable again, it usually decreases around the holidays and picks up again mid-January. T also seems grumpy or stressed that we haven't put everything away in the basement yet, but that's complicated because he wants to be in charge of doing it in a well-organized way, so I cannot help unless he's ready for my help, so he feels like it is all on him. And back on Friday morning when he was interested in working on it, I was recovering from that spell of vertigo -- instead of waiting for me he dove in and worked by himself. By the time I returned to the house on Sunday he was worn out from working on it himself, without me, but he also didn't ask me to come home on Saturday to help ... which he could've done ... so ...
It's tough when he wants to be in charge of something but feels like it should be a joint chore, because he has to pre-work it and then we both need time and energy after he does the pre-work, and then he has to tell me what to do, and then I don't always do it the way he intended me to. As for me, I'd just get rid of most of the stuff in the basement, far more of it belongs to him than to me. I'm not into "storage" per se. If I don't use something regularly, and if there isn't room for it to be stored or displayed in the living area, then I'm usually happy to dispose of it, via the trash or recycling bins if necessary -- T likes to give it away, which adds another level of complexity and slows the process way down. We do have more food requiring storage than usual right now, because of being home all the time and wanting to limit exposure at grocery stores. But I view the main issue is just junk we should get rid of. Other than food and cleaning supplies, I'd keep nothing in the storage room. If your clothes won't fit in your dressers and closets, you've got too many clothes. And I let T use 3/4 of the upstairs closets to my 1/4.
There's also the pileup of junk that happens when you live in the same place for 15 years.
So, I might skip the condo this weekend, intending to help T with the basement stuff, but then that will require him to invest time and energy doing it with me. We'll see later this week.
I'd said we'd deal with the leaves after we dealt with the other stuff -- including the budget stuff. Now the budget stuff is taken care of so I'm paying a crew to rake up the leaves. It's tough for me to think of spending money when we're months behind on things as it is. It's a stress on the relationship, my conservatism about spending money versus his liberalism. I'm not against spending it, I just want to have it before I spend it, or know how I'm going to pay for it. And I also want to keep an emergency reserve, in case of emergencies.
From T's point of view I run "hot and cold" about money. I'm hot when I have it, and cold when I don't. He's more willing to use credit than I am, but then he runs into things like credit limits and late fees and such, so he experiences cold spells with money as well, just at a different point along the spectrum -- when a bank says no more. I don't ever want to hit the point where I cannot raise additional funds from a bank, so I keep a big cushion of cash around and pay bills on time. I used to be more judgmental about this, although I'm still not easy-going about it. I didn't pick up on this relationship conflict until a few years into the relationship, because when I met T his finances were being floated by the housing bubble, and he was able to cash in at the peak of the bubble. Then when K lived with us we were able to split many expenses three ways. After K moved out, T''s profits from the housing bubble had been spent, and then we experienced a 50% spike in our shared expenses, and it's been a point of conflict ever since.
Anyway, I think I'm going to do a dance video workout here at the condo this morning, as I'm not that busy with work today. I haven't done one of these videos in a long time, because the fall weather has allowed me to run and hike much more often. So, I should probably start over with video #1, plus the abs workout. Then I'll have lunch delivered and go through all my emails and draw up a new work To Do List.