Home Ownership Means Work

I think the biggest stress in my relationship with my wife, if there is any to speak of, comes from the fact that there is a lot to do around here to take care of the house. Part of that is because we're upstanding, good citizens. That means, in this case, that in addition to following laws and whatnot, we're recycling even though our community only semi-supports it (meaning we have to keep our recyclables until we have a chance to drive them over to the local recycling center ourselves). This particular chore is one that I suck at keeping up with and probably just about the only way I drive my wife crazy.

In my defense, there's a lot to do around here. We have a garden: between yesterday and today, I spent two hours in that pulling weeds and picking fruits and veggies that are taking over our kitchen and making it feel more cluttered and messy than it really is. We have ugly bushes that need to go: in the last few days I've been working on cutting them back or down, depending on which ones they are. We have teenagers: in the last every day of my life I've had to do eleven billion dishes, most of which I have to go find, and sweep the floor three hundred times a day (slight exaggerations). We use the bathroom: bleach is needed. We have a yard: mowing takes a while and is sweaty work. We have poison ivy that grows in the yard: herbicide, check, again. We apparently throw away trash that stinks to high hell: I took that out this morning. We compost: every day, hands in the yuck. We etc, etc, etc. Home ownership means a lot of work.

Once a month we have a discussion, which we had this morning and might do something about tonight. Once a month the city comes around and collects junk that can't be thrown away. Pretty much every month, we collect more of this kind of junk (mostly in the form of dead limbs from our trees/bushes -- see above) than we manage to get to the side of the road (a pleasant 200-foot walk away). Of course, there's a very narrow window each month in which that junk can be taken down there, and right now is dead in the middle of that window. The plan tonight, when my wife gets home from working (I'm watching the kids again right now), is to take said junk down there. Thus, while I was working out this evening (I do my exercise out in the driveway, mainly), I took breaks between exercises to start loading up the wheelbarrow and organizing that stuff. Good times. In about a half an hour, I'll be carting it down to the road. My plan is to get most of it down there before she gets home if I can manage it, but with the workout, I couldn't do it while I was loading that thing up and organizing it: it's too hot out. Now that I'm rested up and, more importantly, re-hydrated, I think I can make quite a dent in the pile before I see her!