Domesticated

So I've often surprised myself with my ability for domestication. I'm definitely not perfect, but I'm doing a lot better at all the household stuff than I thought I would. I've never had a home to really claim as my own. A whole house! Now, I need to take care of it. I'm cleaning the counters, doing a lot of dishes (I don't know how Emily manages to use so many dishes whenever she cooks), doing laundry, vacuuming, taking out trash, sweeping the garage (I don't know why the leaves like our garage so much, but they really like our garage), cleaning sinks/toilet/tub, and cooking. The cooking thing has worked pretty well. We've done a good job at eating pretty balanced meals (at least dinners) since we moved in.

The only thing that has been a bit of a challenge for me is becoming scheduled. Typically I have a list of tasks to do, but when and where and how I do it is all pretty flexible and I kinda make the decisions as I go. I live my life this way in many respects. I'm not good at setting clear schedules for myself (or keeping to other people's schedules => being late...but culturally I'm polychronic, so that is my excuse all you monochronic/live-by-the-clock people!). Emily and I differ sharply in this regard. She had tried to adapt to my way of living and it left her feeling frustrated and behind and that caused some issues. So, now I'm trying the scheduling thing and my life has never been this scheduled. In some ways, it is really really good, just takes some getting used to. For instance, I love that we have set nights where we are in charge of dinner. We also have things like cleaning time scheduled, grocery shopping scheduled, exercise together scheduled and I've got this chart that tells me all this. The only thing I really don't like is having a regular bedtime or wake up time scheduled, so I've protested this. Since I don't go to school at the same time each day, I prefer to maximize the potential for sleep based on when I need to go to school. Plus, if I'm pretty useless in the mornings so I can't get up earlier and expect to use that extra hour productively. It will end up being wasted. I'm more productive at night so I'd rather stay up the extra hour to get things done.

The sad thing is it looks more and more like we'll have to schedule in fun time. This has always been more flexible, but lately it seems like she's been so much more busy...always working on something and staying up late...so I've found myself free and she's not and then I'm frustrated because we can't spend much of that "quality time" with each other doing the things I love doing with her. So we end up not doing much (except dinner time, which is usually an hour endeavor together). So, now I'm thinking that I'm going to need to have her pencil me in so we can do things together. It's a bit sad, but I guess a necessity of two busy grad students and surely I'll be really busy at some period this semester and the roles will be switched. The other thing is that I think it is weird to keep track of how much we spend on stuff for the house and food. She has a spreadsheet and I'm suppose to give her my receipts when I buy something and then we see if we've been spending equally and pay the other the difference at the end of the month. To me, I think it is a strange concept, even though I can see the logic behind it. But it is definitely not something I would of thought to do.

Anyhow, it has been an interesting learning experience living with Emily. I love it though. She left this week for a trip to Taiwan to visit her dad and his family and without her here the house definitely feels a bit emptier. She is very good for me and (I think) I'm pretty good for her too. So, things have been working out well and I'm really enjoying all the wonders, joys, trials, and tribulations of the domestic life.