Eat, drink and be married!

We are slightly more than half way past the glorious one year together in this chapter called marriage and I suppose the blooming questions most people have when we catch up is - how's married life? Don't furrow your brows when I say it's "like that lor", fact is...behind this are my 10 things that I suppose most married couples would agree. Well at least those who are newly married (newly weds somehow does not apply to those married for longer than 3 months) would.

To be read with a pinch of amusement - I didn't seek the Hubba's approval though but I am sure he will be back with a vengeance by the time this goes out. ;p

#1 Equality does not exist in housework

I love all words that begin with h, hermes, holiday, heels and then the dreaded housework. I grew up knowing how to do them in theory and haughtily told my mom - when the day comes, I will know how to do them.

And I lived up to my word. I morphed into a pesky neat freak - I can live with a mount of dust beneath me back at the Mom's house but now, it's unbearable.

Being so impatient, I cannot stand dishes not washed, rubbish bags not brought out on time and the list goes on. The current work load goes -

He washes the toilets, vacuums occasionally, clears rubbish, cleans the dishes when I cook. Maybe there are chores that I did not notice but he did them (benefit of the doubt).

I wash the dishes sometimes, cook, laundry, sweep, mop, change bedsheets and uses Attas to the best of her ability.

Here's what the hubba does not count as chores - taking Attas out to vaccuum. But it's an effort to, anyway!

If I may add, it's truly a case of who has a longer bout of patience to outwait each other.

#2 Our fair share of bad habits

Live with it or die trying to change the other. 6 months into the marriage, he snores louder than I grind my teeth. It got so bad, we were destroying our sleep with the noise we both made.

Yes, we have both sought our respective treatments after several red necked puffed faced arguments over "who said I do that in my sleep".

One of us is a blanket thief and is absolutely proud of it.
Someone can insist the dust collecting is naked to the human eye.
Someone must change towels everyday.
One hates being late, another is perfectly fine with it.
One loves to leave all the lights on and the other goes around switching them off. 

I could have a lawsuit on who has more bad habits but really, it's living with it and accomodating with both eyes closed that makes this alot easier.

#3 Men are immune to nagging

My dad did so and so does the hubba. Face it, men get nagged all their lives. From their early years to their teens, young adulthood the Mom has been a force not to be trifled with - depending how much a Momma's boy he turns out to be, he probably had enough of nagging.

And marriage does the same, turns on the tap for nagging. I, unfortunately, have become a nag. And the hubba does practise his occasional amnesia and temporary bout of deafness when he wants to.

No two ways about this unfortunately, my Mom lived with it for 30 years and until I get there, I will be complaining about this.

#4 Overnight arguments stink

Someone dear wrote a piece of advice on the red packet handed to us before the wedding, he said - Do not let arguments go to bed with you. Works for me.

I cannot second that enough - facing someone for 247 is a completely different ball game from daily after work and all through weekends, even if the dating stage was being with the other person all the day long for every single day of the week is NOT the same as getting married.

You can say marriage changes the dynamics of the game. We become less patient, more demanding, more brutally honest and fact is, we show our true selves. You can of course say what happened prior was a mask, being on my bestest behaviour all the time can be tiring even. Reality is such, yes?

So whatever it takes, solve them before bedtime or at least soften it. We have done the head on with yanking each other out of slumber land at 1am and arguing till we both cannot sleep. We have also done the kiss and make up before bed time. 

I'm proud to say our arguments have a shorter lifespan these days.

#5 Late nights have taken a back seat

And we both have become such domestic people, by 11pm the eyelids get droopy and I find myself comfortable tucked beneath my comforter. Even nights that we head out for drinks see us sashaying it out at the latest 10pm because our friend had another appointment at 1030pm if not, it would have been a challenge.

Gone are the days our dates can last through the nights and continue into the wee hours texting - dating does have its magical hold on people. And marriage does wonders to quality of sleep.

#6 Saturdays are no longer just date days

We try to keep to our schedule of things - morning exercise, afternoon household chores and night we try to pak tor. Ask any married friend and they lament how Saturdays are no longer just brunch, lunch, shopping, dinner and movie. It unfortunately gets more mundane with a date with the broom and mop.





#7 The power of separate toilets

I love my husband very much and will share my food but not my toilet. We have a privilege of having our own toilets so joy is us for the following reasons and more!

1) Having the toilet to ourselves when we want to
No such thing as who uses the toilet first, or last or we both are late because so and so hogged the toilet. The bestest part is, I use it whenever I want to.

2) I squeeze toothpaste whichever way I fancy
I used to laugh out loud at the articles that mentioned the way one squeezes tooth paste can be a catalyst for a divorce. Trivial? But yes, we have our issues with that even when we do not share the same tube of tooth paste. Here's why - he cleans the toilets. So respect the toilet cleaner and squeeze it the way that would not dirty the toilet any further and still make me happy.

I never had a toilet to myself all through growing up so this, has made me uber duper trooper happy.

#8 Cook, because I want to and EAT, because you have to

I wonder who coined the term domestic goddess - was it a more highly regarded term that housemaid? I never cooked and to date, I have been weekly.

Well I never thought I have to or be obliged to because we are near so many cafes and coffeeshops and the food is really decent. Finances does come into the picture if we dine out five times a week, as with the nutrition of food. So I try and we have been enjoying successful and failed experiments together.

Truly, it is invigorating telling the hubba straight off - you have to finish this all up because I cooked it.

#9 The handy man can

I could get slammed for saying women all need a man - especially when it comes to the handy work around the house.

In this order -

Running after the cockroach(es), electrical failures, ferrying my groceries up into the house

So far, we have encountered a power failure and had dinner with candle sticks, the intrusion of 2 disgusting roaches and 2 millepedes and survived so many grocery trips without a trolley.

#10 People should stop asking when we are having children

This, is the next greatest question that people love to ask. I blame my gluttony sometimes that I end up with a food baby the next day at work after the night's pigging out so to hide it, I wear a baggy dress and to date, the number of questions posed have been a mind boggling many.

We will when we want to, simply. Does being married means we both want children immediately? I definitely did not look preggers during the wedding so then, it definitely was not shotgun.

I suppose this is cyclical - people assume alot through out lives - they question when we are getting married when we start to date, when the children will come when we get married and when we will get more when we have the first.

My advise is lay off people, the answer has been and will be "In God's time".

Whew, this took longer than expected...above all, we still love each other the way we annoy each other. This journey is truly but just a beginning.

In this day and age of ultra convenience, we seek the easiest way out in most things and there could really come an age that robots could over take us - if artificial intelligence could rule the world. As with many new home owners, the draw of such intelligent products to make my life tons easier was too alluring to resist.

Imagine not having to physically drag a vacuum through the house? The house gets cleaned on its own, quite nearly and everyone is kept happy? Plus, I need not pay the maid levy and deal with domestic help issues.

The question then is, which brand? #firstworldproblems

The IRobot Roomba surely tops the list in most households but price was a deal - at close to 1000 buckeroos. It had all the intelligence required to clean up the place as well as a human could, or even better with the scanning of area to make sure it could avoid obstacles and even make its way back to the charging port.



How does ATTAS measure up then at a fraction of the price?

The battery life is short, for 2 full hours of charging I probably get it cleaning a room for 45 minutes before it beeps low battery.

It cannot return to the charging port and while the sales guy was quick to point out most of the robots do not make it back anyway because of unforeseen obstacles (the machine is tuned to calculate its energy based on straight routes), it can be annoying having to poke it out of under the bed with a stick or hunt for it around the house.

It bounces off the edges and I hope it cleans every inch carefully, I am not so sure if it really does. 

The fact of the matter is, this works best in a flat and definitely not in places with different stories.

Let's face it, the machines are for day to day maintenance and does not completely replace physical cleaning at the dusty nooks and corners.

Well for startup families like ours, it is a handy device to have. So far my only grouse is its short battery life, otherwise, we are happy campers.

I could not have expected the first attempt at using the washing machine to be a resounding success and go without a hitch. Murphy's law much maybe but I certainly was not expecting a nightmare come through - I could have very well dreamt this so many times over, handling a car that would not stop until it crashes, float and fly out of the window and now, in reality, my washing machine foamed and could not stop.

The first wash without laundry and the manual clearly stated to pour in 1/2 a cup of detergent with 2 litres of water. And trouble started. Too much detergent everyone else conceded.

The second wash - officially the first with laundry - occured without a hitch. Then there was a power trip (which I shall not mention now) that caused the machine to reset its washing settings and restarted a full washing cycle on its own. By the time the cycle ended, it was 12 midnight.