It has been raining since before I woke up.  The skies are cold and grey.  But in my peripheral vision streams of light, made of strawberry lemonade,  kiwis and sunshine, bounce off each other… creating a warm glow.  This beautiful scarf was be-gifted to me from the Lovely  Erin of La Caotica.  She has long taken residence in my mind, as one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met,  online or offline.  Thank you Erin. 

Mini Site Update

I wanted to keep track of The Quote Book pages on a separate page, but the plugin I was using was all messed up.  It worked about 50% of the time, but I had been too lazy to change it until now. I know I know, bad Christine! 

So I set out on a quest to find a different gallery plug in and I found this!  ¹  I was worried it might be  a little slow, but so far I haven’t had any problems loading images.

I’m in the process of changing over the doodles, and I might think about making one for the comics too to make them easier to stream.

The interface with this plug-in is really quite nice as well.  Load of options to customize, but I couldn’t see a way to upload multiple images at once?  ²

Now that I’ve found a nice working alternative, i need to do an over hall of my Twin Love site.  I’ve neglected it this year despite the fact that I keep coming up with fun new ideas! I’m going to force myself to do as much work as I can before I move instead of letting my move be an excuse to put it off.  I find myself saying, Oh, i’ll start that after the move is over.  But why not now? Hmm!?

Constant Vigilance!! 

Ps.  Listening to Lady Gaga.  Love her.

1. it was the first one on the page ~_~ [↩]
2. be sure to point it out to me if i’m being dense ~_~ [↩]

In 1997 I came upon a blank book.  I think it was a gift but I can’t remember.  It was kinda ugly and I didn’t want to keep it as a journal.  So i started a quote book.  I filled it up over the following years.  I’d like to share them, if I may.

Note: This isn’t the first page in the book, but it’s one of my favorites that I feel is a good beginning.

*my written correction is Judy Downing

I’ve got so much going on in my head right now.

I guess the biggest news that’s been taking up a significant amount of time recently is the decision  between my boyfriend and I to finally take that plunge and move in together.  

We’ve been together for just under 3 years and travelling back and forth on weekends, living out of my purse and doing twice the amount of housework is almost at an end.  I’m pretty excited about it of course, but honesty forces me to admit that I’m a little nervous too.

My partner and I have had our shares of good times and not so good times.  We’re very different people in terms of our views,  how we see things, and we’ve grown together over the years with a very solid foundation.  So I think we’re ready and the timing is just right.

Things that worry me?  Oh, all the things that anyone worries about when you move in with your partner.  Will we fight about money? House work? Space?  Will our intimacy drift away?  Will the time we “make” for each other now be replaced with the time that we just both happen to be home?

That last one worries me the most.  When you live apart, the only time you see said person is when one or both makes an effort.  But when you co-habit a space, and you happen to be home together a lot, it’s easy to forget to make that effort.  But the effort is the most important thing to me.

I’ve had this experience before (dated a nice fellow 5 years, lived together for three of them), and even though the love was still there, by the end of it, we were more like room mates.  And this isn’t unique to me, I’ve met quite a few woman who have shared similar experiences.

I guess like anything in life, it’s about finding the balance and keeping it.

Everything in life is a learning process, and so there are somethings that I will insist upon now.

1. Doing dishes together.  Men (for the most part, no offense) will never voluntarily do the dishes.  We might hope that piling them by the sink will prompt them to think, oh maybe it’s my turn, but in the end, you just have dishes that are that much harder to clean.  Team Effort! Andy and I have a great system now where we do them together always, I wash, he dries.  I think this logic can be extended to house hold tasks in general.  Anything is easier when two people help.  Right?

2. Try to go to bed at the same time, at least some of the time.  (if you can, work permitting etc).  For me, this is important in maintaining intimacy.  It’s nice to fall asleep with said person, and i think, adds to the closeness you have together.  There are always going to be nights where one might want to stay up later than the other, and that’s ok, but keep it in balance with sleeping together at the same time.  When you live apart, it’s natural to go to bed at the same time, since it might be weird to stay up at his/her house w/o them.  But this kinda changes when you co-habit a space,  at least for me since I’m a closet night owl.

3.  I will not do your laundry.

When I was thinking about this subject this morning, i had a few more things floating around my head but now that I’m here, I can’t really think of them.

Oh yah.

4.  I don’t want to decide what we have for dinner every night of the week.  This should be a back and forth shared process.  Even now, Andy and I sometimes bicker because neither of us want to make a decision on what to eat.

What are things you’ve learned and/or insist on when living with your significant other?

PS.  LOST WAS SO AWESOME.