Tag: home life

a new division of labor

Posted on by jplatt27

There’s a new division of labor in the Platt household!

After frustration over the dishes we came to a new agreement on chores, one that we are both super happy with.

Mike and I both do things around the house.  Mike does a lot of dishes and takes out the trash.  We take turns making the bed and grocery shopping (though Mike does more grocery shopping than me). I’m usually the one that vacuums and cleans the bathroom.

Mike does things that are more regular or have a natural tipping point and need to be done.  I do things that take a little bit longer but that can be done less frequently.

When we were chatting about the dishes, I assured Mike that I do things around the house.  That I do pull my weight.  “I woke up and did laundry first thing Monday morning after our trip because I knew you would do it first thing when you got home from work and I didn’t want you to have to stress about it.”

Mike said that he recognizes that I’m the one that cleans the bathroom and sweeps the floors and appreciates that.

I said that I’m much better with chores that I can do on my own time.

And that’s when Mike said “I have an idea!”

“How about I do the dishes if you do the laundry?”

I can not even tell you how quickly the stress and tension in my chest evaporated at that statement.

“Yes! That’s a great idea!”

(Apparently Mike hates doing laundry–which I honestly didn’t know and wouldn’t have guessed because he’s always so on top of it.)

So that’s what we’ve been doing.  For a few weeks now.  And it’s like the best thing ever.  I can’t even tell you.

Last week I saw the laundry piling up and I did a quick check of Mike’s underwear drawer to see how low he was getting (he was down to two pair) and I thought ok, gotta get this done.

5:20 on Friday morning I popped out of bed, took the laundry down, put 6 loads of laundry in (one of the serious perks about still living in an apartment and having a laundry room), came back up, got back in bed for a half hour, woke up, and changed the laundry on my way out to walk Zoe.  I drove over to Zoe’s house, took her for a walk, came back, got the laundry out of the dryers, and brought it upstairs.  I got ready for work and left for the day.  I folded the laundry when I got home on Friday night and put it all away.

Mike was thrilled it was done, I felt productive in doing it, and free to do it when I chose to, and I haven’t really worried about dishes since!

Win-win!

it's about the dishes

Posted on by jplatt27

We had a little spat about the dishes a few weeks ago.

I was telling a friend about it and he said “maybe it’s not about the dishes. Maybe he wants to spend more time with you on something.” I asked Mike later if this was the case and he said:

“No, it’s about the dishes.”

Mike and I have differing thoughts on the dishes.  Mike wants them done as soon as possible after the meal and definitely before bed. I agree that I want them done but the timeline for me is more flexible.  Most of the time I would much rather do them in the morning. But having them done before bed is really non-negotiable for Mike.

I know this.  And I had been making a concerted effort with the dishes but it didn’t seem like that.

Mike felt like the dishes were always falling on him.  And most of the cooking.  I can’t say this is far from the truth.  We had fallen into a routine where Mike would cook and clean most nights.  But I would try to help with the dishes as much as I could.

Mike felt like he would do them and I would just help when I heard him doing them. Which wasn’t far from reality.  “But it’s because I don’t think about doing the dishes at night,” I told him.  “You don’t give me a chance to think about doing the dishes before you’re up and at ’em.”

“I’m working on it. But you have to give me time,” I said, “because this isn’t my priority I’m not just going to jump up one day and say ‘I just finished my last bite, I’m going to do the dishes!‘”

He smiled.

I said “And while I’m working on changing this behavior and making this more of a priority, one of two things has to give: either you do the dishes and don’t get angry that you are, or you relax and allow the dishes to sit until the morning when I’ll get to them.”

“I don’t mind doing the dishes.  I really don’t.  But it’s stressful when I feel like they have to be done at a certain time.”

But they really bother Mike.  Having them done before bed is a non-negotiable for him.

That’s when Mike came up with a brilliant solution.  One that immediately made sense for both of us and has taken the stress of the dishes off.

Check back tomorrow to see what we decided…

In the meantime, tell me:

Thoughts on dishes?

What’s your non-negotiable?  I’m honestly not sure I have one.  Not to this extent.  Mike may disagree with me on that though.

promise me we'll be weird

Posted on by jplatt27

While I was preparing for my vision board party, Mike was helping me make some cookies.  I don’t remember what possessed this, maybe I needed a laugh, but I said “I have an idea.  Why don’t I make a rule where for the next 10 minutes, you can only speak in rhyme?”

Mike was quiet for a little while but then after about 45 seconds, he said a line in rhyme.  And I giggled.  And we kept going.

And now it’s kind of our thing.  We just rhyme randomly.  And laugh.

Then, earlier this week we were in the kitchen doing dishes after dinner and I was packing up the leftovers for lunch when in a loud random voice I said “the lunch.”

Mike started laughing and when I asked what he was laughing about he said “I was just going to start singing and it would’ve been really embarrassing.”

Because I want to protect my husband from more public shame, I told him I wouldn’t share the song he then broke into.  But, it was hilarious.  So funny and silly. I was giggling up a storm.

We kept making up more lyrics to this song that had to do with lunch and leftovers and dishes.  And we kept cracking up.

I’m still struck as we laugh and laugh and laugh by how good it feels to do so.

And as we laughed and laughed, made up more lyrics, and laughed and cheered at each other’s good rhymes, I said to Mike

promise me we’ll always be weird.

I never want to stop laughing like this.  How many adults did you see being silly or weird when you were a kid?  I didn’t see many.

When we’re “grown up” and have kids, I don’t want to stop giggling and joking around with my husband. As we take on more responsibility in years to come, I still want to have good clean fun like this.  I want to laugh.  I want us to still be weird.

 

opposite frustrations

Posted on by jplatt27

What makes you angry? Who makes you angry?

This is one question I have to answer in preparation for the first module of my life coach training this weekend.  I have to be honest there aren’t a lot of things that come to mind off the top of my head so I’ve had to think about this a little bit.

But when we got from New York on Sunday night Mike reminded me of something that drives. me. crazy.

We walk in the door around 8:45 after picking up Chipotle before getting a cab home from the bus. First thing Mike does when we get home: empty our bags and put everything into trash bags with moth balls (a preventative measure in case we picked up any hitchhikers from the hotel–a little paranoid? probably but I do understand his concern, we don’t want to go through that again).

First thing I do when we get home: drop my bags, turn on the TV, and settle onto the couch with my burrito bowl.

After Mike finishes his burrito, he starts looking around in the kitchen. (I found some random bugs a couple weeks ago in one of our kitchen cabinets.) “I found some more of those bugs.  They were dead, but still.”

More bugs? Ok, they’re dead?  No action necessary, I think.

Next thing I know he’s emptying everything out of the cabinet again and asking that I help him pull the cabinet out from the wall.

Do we have to do this now? I think. We just got home from a super busy weekend and it’s late. Can’t you see I’m busy watching the latest episode of the Kardashians? 

The next morning I’m making my usual chocolate chip pancakes and moving some baking sheets out of the way so I can get a measuring cup.  A second later Mike is standing in the kitchen saying “you’re not putting all of that stuff back already, are you?”

No, I’m not. I’m just moving them out of my way so I can get a measuring cup. (I actually might’ve said this with a little ‘tude.  Ok, I’m sure I did.)

Last night I pick Mike up from the metro, he stopped to get groceries and the bus he was taking broke down on the way home.  I unload the groceries and tell him to relax while I make dinner.  He changes his clothes and next thing I know he’s in the kitchen opening the cabinet again to check for more bugs.

Do we have to do this now? You just got home.  And I’m trying to make dinner.  Why do we need to freak out?

“You know what makes me angry?” I ask Mike. “When you are paranoid about things and start stressing out over something so small like bugs.”

“You know what makes me angry?” Mike says to me. “Your apathy to things like this.”

I just started laughing.

 

scenes from my summer home

Posted on by jplatt27

I spent the past week at my “summer home,” house-sitting Zoey and Nikko again.

Mike was actually out of town last weekend and had college buddies in town this weekend, so I had a nice little summer retreat for the past two weekends.

I read, wrote, napped, cooked a little, relaxed a lot.

I had a great week in a beautiful home and enjoyed a break from my normal routine.  But I am so glad to be back to my apartment, my bed, my DVR, my couch, and my husband.

If you had a summer retreat, what would you do?

What do you miss about your home when you’re away?

A "we're married" moment

Posted on by jplatt27

Last week, a colleague asked “have you had any ‘wow, we’re married‘ moments?”

“Hmm,” I thought, “no, I don’t think so.  None that I can really remember.”

And then, a night or two later, I had one.

I had gone to bed at 7:22pm because I wasn’t feeling well and was tired from a bachelorette party the weekend before. At 8:30pm I wake up to a crash and Mike screaming profanity.

I run to the kitchen to see what’s happened.  Mike is standing at the sink holding a bleeding pinky. There’s a broken wine glass in the sink.

I stepped in to clean up the glass and finish the rest of the dishes.

I felt terrible.

Earlier that night, I started doing the dishes but I was so tired, I didn’t finish.  The now-broken wine glass was sitting on the sink waiting to be washed but I stopped right before getting to the wine glass.  If I had taken 30 seconds to wash that wine glass, Mike wouldn’t have cut his finger.

As I finished the dishes, feeling guilty and made at myself, and knowing that Mike was probably mad at me and blamed me for his injury, I thought “yep, I feel married.” 

I apologized to Mike a lot saying that it was my fault he hurt this finger.  He assured me that it wasn’t my fault.

The next morning Mike admitted that while he was doing the dishes and just seconds before the glass broke, he was mad at me.

Love during hockey playoffs

Posted on by jplatt27

Playoff hockey season can be challenging for a marriage.  There are games multiple days a week and the stakes of each game are high. Because I’m not a huge Flyers fan, we usually spend this time apart. Between the hockey games and our busy schedules, it’s been particularly hard to find time to spend together in the last few weeks.

However, Mike did a few things during the Flyers playoffs that made me feel really loved. They are seemingly small things but they show thought and care.

During one of the first games, I was really sick and went to bed early.  The Flyers ended up winning against the Penguins (Mike could tell you more about the exact game and exact plays/goals). The next morning I asked if they won or lost and he said they won.  He said he was doing some silent jumping up and down and screaming because he didn’t want to wake me.

A few weeks ago, I had a work event and got home later than usual. I walked into the apartment and Mike was making dinner and music filled the space. I can’t remember what song was playing or what Mike said to me but I remember standing, holding the island with both hands, facing the window, singing and looking out and relishing the moment. Later Mike told me that he wanted to put the game on but didn’t because I deserved to come home and not have the game on in the background. That since it wasn’t even a Flyers game he decided to do without it.

On Thursday last week we sat down to have dinner at the table before the game started.  Knowing that the game started at 7:30, I figured we’d eat quick and Mike would go on to watch the game.  We got caught up chatting and when I looked at my watch it was 7:50.  We moved to the couch and continued talking, maybe even watched an episode of Modern Family.  I was so grateful that he wasn’t itching to turn the game on and made the effort to get some quality time in with me.

I also showed some consideration during playoffs.  Earlier this week, I really wanted to talk to Mike about some next steps. Knowing that he had a paper to finish and the Flyers to watch that night, I texted him and said “Can we chat about coach training tomorrow night?” He appreciated that I recognized the importance of his paper and his desire to watch the game. I appreciated that he noticed that.