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| photo from thecampuscompanion.com - found via Google. Please don't sue. |
Seriously, yesterday I finally wanted to prepare adobo pork chops that I had planned to prep when I bought them 6 days ago; I left them in the fridge thinking I would get to them soon. Every day I glanced at them, saw they were still pink and assumed they were good. Now, I had a pack of turkey sausages on top of them (which also still looked good), so I only saw the rim of the chops. Pull them out yesterday, saw that the meat had turned GREEN. GREEN. So my damn procrastination resulted in my wasting $9 worth of meat. I paid the joint account back from my own fun money, which The Hubs thought was more than fair, but I could not let it go the rest of the night. Hell, I'm STILL thinking about it, obviously, because I'm so mad that I let this happen. The Hubs was over it about 1 minute after I told him - he was more bummed because it meant we wouldn't be having the chops for dinner.
Anyway, the above is just an example of the head-space The Hubs has to deal with. As I mentioned many moons ago, I had several large projects I wanted to tackle once a week as one of my goals. I didn't get rolling until The Hubs suggested that if we did it first thing in the morning that Sunday, he'd be happy to help. I thought that was a great idea - we already share the chores of dishes and laundry (he washes, I put away for both), and it makes the chores less daunting and annoying to me. So that's how we finally got the Xmas stuff put away (on St. Patrick's Day *sigh*) - and it felt so good that we both decided to tackle one more chore on our own, and I later went grocery shopping because I felt so productive!
We've done it several times since then - we schedule a start time and choose one project or room to focus on, and work together to get it done. It's becoming an almost-weekly thing, and it's nice because sh** is getting done around the apartment and it's slowly becoming much more hospitable. Love it!
Obviously this system doesn't work on the reg if you don't have a live-in buddy, but it can still be a good idea; my friend JS helped her friend pack for moving by helping the friend organize with lists, and even going over to help pack as well (because JS is awesome at it - I totally plan on recruiting her when we eventually move). Someone to help you out when a task seems so big is a huge weight off the shoulders and allows for the task to actually get started. Everything's easier to tackle when there's a team, right? I'm especially grateful to have someone who is willing to tackle these big, scary tasks with me and be my cheerleader. I'm a very lucky woman, and hey, our home is getting a little bit better every week!
Today was the fridge/freezer - fridge had gross stuff, freezer was so packed with crap that we were in constant threat of a broken toe and it was driving The Hubs nuts. Took us 30 minutes, then Hubs washed out the salvageable containers while I menu-planned; I'm going to attack last week's chore of switching pantry for cabinets (I'm moving pots/pans, dishes, and tupperware [today's attack] into our massive pantry and the non-perishable food where the dishes/pans were - much less room for wasting food, much more room to see all the pots/pans I have at a glance! I LOVE IT), then I'll run to the store for the week's food and a treat to enjoy my double-feature of "Game of Thrones"/"Mad Men"!
It feels so good to start my week off productively. Such an improvement from me of even two years ago!
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