I know it seems like a silly little thing, but I am absolutely thrilled that my husband has made some new friends! Last weekend, I was unhappy that he left the house after freeing up my car to go prep for Sunday’s Magic tourney in Boston, and less happy when he called to say that he wouldn’t be home until 1am. However, when he got home and explained that he’d met some guys and went to one guy’s house and hung out there, I was thrilled!

This week, he’s stayed in contact with them through Magic websites and is hanging out most of tomorrow at his friend’s house to test Magic decks and watch the US vs. Canada gold medal hockey game. I’ll miss him, but I’m so, so happy that he found intelligent people with similar interest that he can spend time with and that he is feeling less isolated.

When it comes right down to it, Peter is more than my husband, he’s my best friend and I want him to be happy and content. I knew I could not do that on my own, but I can give him the freedom to spend time with friends.

Equality in a marriage can be difficult to achieve. When children are part of the equation, it’s much easier to set aside the generally selfish desire for procrastination and good-enough for the greater good. However, when children are not part of the equation, both parties avoid confrontation like an overdue-but-still-acceptable-within-the-next-week term paper, and one party has fibromyalgia, it can be much more difficult.

For years, my husband and I have found ways to avoid sucking it up and doing chores that we didn’t feel a pressing need for, like dusting or cleaning the toilet. It can also be very difficult to accept the onus of responsibility for certain chores, since it tends to become Your Job if you do it more than once.

In January 2007, I had my first major, super-duper flare of  fibromyalgia and Peter took up the slack (or, rather, all the chores) while I wore myself out commuting for an hour or two each day and teaching & planning for 10 more hours. Three years later, I go on leave, unable to work due to my fibromyalgia and migraines, but slowly strengthening and rebuilding my body and, as a part of that, taking my life and home back. Our living room is liveable and mostly clutter-free. I have sorted through all the mail from the past 9 months in the kitchen. We cleaned our bedroom, I have cleaned bathrooms, I am organizing “my” room, and I have done many, many, many loads of laundry. In addition, whenever possible, I do all the grocery shopping and errands. So, basically, I do 3 gym visits and 2 home workouts each week and do an errand or chore each day.

Unfortunately, the snow storm has done a great deal to mess up my life. I know, I know, that sounds very dramatic, but I have done yoga nearly every weekday with a DVD (”Healing Yoga for Aches and Pains”), had migraines nearly every day, and gained 4 lbs. To make this worse, although Peter was snowed-in with me most of last week, he spent two hours unburying his car on Tuesday, helped me with cleaning the bedroom Thursday, went to the supermarket with me for one and a half trips (Tuesday and Friday), and went off to play Magic with his friends on Friday evening and all day Sunday (he worked Saturday). He left the dishwasher unloaded many, many times (as though testing me to see if I will take care of it). I was forbidden from trying to unbury my car and Peter did not touch it after his car was free. His newest reason (as of yesterday) was that he wants to use his own shovel, not borrow one (so I searched online, discovered Lowes, Sears, Home Depot, and Target were all out, and ordered one on Amazon to get here by Friday). Monday, I borrowed Peter’s car, did 25 minutes (2.5 miles) on the recumbent elliptical cardio machine at the gym, got the now-crunchy oil and 3 cracking belts changed on Peter’s car, stopped off at Target and picked up some essentials (unfortunately, they refilled the wrong Rx), filled the tank up with gas, came home to unpack and eat lunch, then injured my neck and started a slow leak on Peter’s car trying to get out of his spot (the last burst of snow, he just backed over, but I didn’t enter the spot straight, so…), went to the doctor, worked myself up to talking to Peter about him giving me freedom to use my car or allow me to find and pay someone to dig me out, and then picked up Peter.

By the time Peter came out and got behind the wheel, he had little air in his passenger-side rear tire. After much drama, we were towed and it was patched, it was obvious I didn’t drive on it while it was flat (else it would have been ruined), but I went from feeling empowered to having to apologize over and over for doing nothing but try to work with what I was given (and saving his car from near-engine-failure due to having less than 50% of its required oil and that which was there was not liquid, but when I told him that during the day, he didn’t see why I was hassling him). I refused to drive his car since then and mine is still behind a 4 ft-high, 2-ft-deep wall of snow. This means I didn’t do the Aqua Aerobics I was so looking forward to since the last time I did it, 2 weeks ago, and I didn’t get to visit a church for Ash Wednesday and get a dirty forehead. I am in desperate need for Rx from Target and we need groceries and I should go to my semi-personal training…

But I don’t want to drive his car. The roads are bad enough without the pressure I feel under to keep his car pristine and, although I want groceries, a part of me feels resentful and frustrated by my limitations, the set-back, and the loss of freedom and feeling safe in my car. So maybe I’m projecting, but I also know that Peter didn’t care enough to make himself uncomfortable in order to give me freedom in a timely fashion. I understand not going out for Valentine’s Day, and not getting a card or flowers… I understand receiving just a good time together for our anniversary. Money’s tight, we’ve been spending plenty of time together… But… Well, sex isn’t the only way you can show affection, and I feel like he’s not trying. (As for that, I’ve been trying to send out signals, but -based on his responses during my impending and then very very short period- it appears that he is only interested if intercourse is possible.) So what was I hoping for? He could have done some of the unsanitary laundry (Stewie was using old laundry as a litterbox). He could have done a little to make my car easier to access, if not drive. He could have shoveled behind and around where he parks, so it’s less tricky. He could have given me a foot massage or given me time to mess with my RockBand avatar and practice before we started playing together. I had a card for him (a general I-Love-You, not specifically V-Day), but I never bothered to fill it out when I saw his attitude Saturday night and Sunday morning.

I know my being home puts additional pressure on Peter to stay employed. However, I continue to receive a paycheck, and I have a very specific set of plans for the future in order to make money and receive disability benefits if possible. Maybe he can help me do the laundry, or clean the area around the kitchen sink, or give me some cash (I have none right now) so I can either pay someone to dig out my car or get a taxi ride. Or maybe he can call the psych group and have them give him an appointment for individual counselling so he might start to be content.

I know that what I really want is to ***POOF*** get my body back to a reasonable weight (sub-140) and have the physical ability to work out the way I want to. I want to teach and then come home and do very little in order to make the house gorgeous and then sit back in my organized, gorgeous, comfy room. I want to be able to enjoy my husband and have him enjoy me. I want to be able to get pregnant and enjoy that pregnancy and then that baby and then, a year or two later, get pregnant again. I want a family and a life. But between migraines, fibro pain, and transport issues, I’m currently living the life of a shut-in (but without the perks of the occasional visitor). 

But right now, just asking for a balance of household responsibilities, and the occasional ”Thank you, I know X was a pain in the butt, so I really appreciate you taking the time and energy to do it,”  is what I need to do…

We have a tiny master bathroom with relatively old fixtures. Additionally, we’ll need to do a little patchwork or completely replace the bath tub before selling. In fact, we’re not even using that shower right now (which is a nice change, since it’s a little claustrophobic with a cloudy shower door.

Now, we’re not necessarily moving anytime soon. However, we don’t want to put wear and tear on another bathroom that we may eventually (after a year or two) discover we’ll have to make the same decision over. Plus, I keep leaving my towel in the other bathroom.

I spoke with my mortgage broker and we have 2 options when we refinance at a lower rate: we could refinance the entire mortgage and wind up paying a few hundred (2-4) less each month OR we could add $5000 to the principal and pay $100 less each month. Either way, we pay less. The $5000 would go toward landscaping the front for curb appeal and less maintenance AND redoing the shower-tub of the master bathroom.

I think we should actually redo the master bath. On average, a bathroom remodel brings in 100% of its cost and could get a home to sell faster. If we do it now, we can enjoy it too. Basically, nothing too fancy or expensive or taste-specific, no moving things around, just something nicer/less dated than what is there, which will make the room more appealing. What I propose is, since we’d have to tear out tile, why not make the room seem larger? We make it a large shower (no tub) with new, higher fixtures (but relatively inexpensive). If we put in some frameless sliding doors, it could look like part of the room rather than a giant wall. In addition, since we’ll need more tile and the white tile with brown flecks always looks dirty, we could put in ceramic or porcelain tile that looks like pale ivory marble. We can paint the walls a slightly darker tone than the cream we have (so a pale, warm brown) or maybe the cream color will make it flow more seamlessly. Otherwise, the flooring is fine, so no need to change that, but if money’s left over, maybe a new vanity or  vanity top or new sink faucet, and definitely spend a buck to put a new pull on the vanity door. It could be sooo nice to use while we still live here, and “updated master bath” is often a big eye-catcher, which could get us more traffic and a better sale.

Or we can use a whole lot of caulk and scrubbing and hope potential buyers will just be happy with it as it is.

If we stay here a year and a half, we may pay back some of that $5000, and we’ll still pay less than we already budget for. Once materials are in place, it should only take a couple of days, so it wouldn’t put us out much.

Then again, a few hundred less to pay a month could pay for caulk, patchwork, and landscaping. So it should be interesting to see what my husband decides (I’m putting the decision in his hands – he has 1 week).

January 23rd was our 6 year anniversary (1-23-04). We didn’t exchange gifts this year, or even cards. Instead, we spent time together and played nice. We indulged in a lunch at Red Robin (my favorite burger joint), played video games, watched TV, ate dinner at home, enjoyed some intimate time, and did our best not to bring up things that are unpleasant or could cause us to argue. So we didn’t clean the house at all, the cats didn’t get their much-needed baths, and I kept controvertial issues to myself.

I don’t know if this means we’ll argue tomorrow or are saving things for when we see our new couple’s counselor on Monday. There is certainly a lot to talk about: our potential move and its timing, Peter’s desire to change his vocation, organizing/fixing /cleaning the house, vacations, my fibromyalgia… I’m sure I could think of other things, but those are definitely the biggies. Despite the lack of discussion, though, I did talk twice to a mortgage broker about refinancing at a lower rate, with very favorable results.

At least it didn’t feel like we were ignoring the tap-dancing gorilla in the corner of the room. It was more like we were focusing on enjoying each other and just chilling out.

Hopefully, the rest of the year will go as smoothly and enjoyably and productively. Yes, a girl can always hope…

I have come to realize that one of the largest issues with harmoniously living together and cleaning up both the house and my car is dealing with “my room.” You see, the townhome we own has 4 bedrooms: one is the master bedroom, one is the guest/cats’ room, one is Peter’s man-cave, and the fourth is my room, an office/reflection room which was to hold all my toys and educational materials and give me somewhere to sit and quietly read. The feminine version of a man-cave.

In the summer of 2008, I cleaned it up and organized it and began to use it again. But once I got a full-time job doing curriculum work, it once again became a dumping ground.

I’ve been finding quite often that I wish I could have somewhere to go and read, or just remove myself from the living room but not hang out in the bedroom (where I’d inevitably fall asleep). Furthermore, because I don’t have a room of my own to go to, Peter’s activities seem to be cramped by my taking over the living room.

Although I could probably sit in the chair by the window in my room, entering the room and maneuvering around in it is quite hazardous to my health. It’s not that it would take more than a couple of hours to clear up, but then I have more stuff that needs to go in, and a lot of it is on-the-floor work, and it does involve moving some heavy stuff. Also, some things need decisions to be made about them, and some things need to be stored (else I’ll need another bookcase). Then there are the things in my car and in the kitchen, all of which would need to be gone through and possibly would belong in my room. Perhaps I can have a bookcase and storage of some sort in the rec room in the basement, where things could go without being “dumped” there.

Regardless, I cannot physically do this on my own. In fact, in order to remove the table from my room and bring it downstairs (which I’d hoped the burly 1-800-GOT-JUNK would do, along with moving the romance novels and bookcases into the basement, when we decided on a date and I properly prepared for it… but the next day it was sprung upon me with no notice, and I just occasionally hope that this part of my walker or that large gold-framed mirror were not taken).

I find myself looking at various rooms and considering tasks, but discarding them because (1) too much physical labor is involved, (2) I can’t do it alone, or (3) I worry a large part of the task would involve putting items in a room that can’t fit anything.

So, I’m going to selfishly ignore the kitchen and our bedroom and the guest room and everything else (just trying to maintain the living room) and focus on doing a tiny bit in my room each day. I assume that, once I’ve organized to a certain point, Peter will help me out if I can say definitively and concisely what should be moved elsewhere (with a plan for storing/organizing it), what can be thrown out or donated, and what I need help putting away.

However, I’m on my own with going through it. My husband won’t help me, no matter how I ask. My mother will only help by hiring help – I begged her several times in the summer and fall to come help me, but she was overwhelmed by my brother’s move and the holidays and now just either offers to hire someone or argues about my husband not helping and has even asked me to help her go through my grandmother’s stuff. Oddly enough, my older sister is the only person I can think of who might be able and willing to pick up and come down and help… in fact, my car would probably wind up empty & clean, but it would probably all wind up in the basement, and I don’t know if she’d be able to help me sort my stuff or understand saving this item or that book…  but I am definitely keeping her in mind if it’s March and I still don’t have an empty car.

In any event, I’m focusing on my stuff and my room and the rest can just wait. After all, once my room is in order, I can decide what to do with other items (although now I’m definitely thinking a giant bookcase in the rec room with inexpensive cubby-bins would be awesome). This also will give me something to focus on that doesn’t get edited depending on whether we’re moving this summer or next.

I’m off to Amazon.com now to research inexpensive big bookcases and cubbies.