CharlieHolder.com

If you haven’t heard the news, Amanda was unexpectedly laid off last Friday due to complications arising from contract bids. Suffices to say that we are both unemployed at the moment.

Funny thing, we are not worried at all. We are believing in the one true God of the universe and we have complete confidence that we will be provided for.

I don’t know what’s going on, but I am not ashamed to tell people about God when talking about our new money situation. This is kind of new for me. I just throw that jazz in there every chance I get.

I think it’s great. And you should too.

Title says it all. Hope I didn’t cause anyone any trouble.

Again, if you have any questions please let me know.

I will be moving the location of our blog very soon. Possibly within the next 24 hours. So if you are reading this through RSS or you arrived here through a bookmark, take 10 seconds or so to update the URL.

• OLD URL – http://charlieholder.com/blog/
• NEW URL – http://charlieholder.com/

Yes. I am just moving the blog from a folder called blog to my root directory. I will be nice and automatically forward people that hit the old URL to the new URL. However, if you’re reading through RSS, you’ll be out of luck on that regard.

If you have any questions, please let me know.

I’ve been a little self-conscious about some unwanted changes in my physique I’ve been noticing lately. I attributed it to the parade of different tasty treats that came through my office during the holiday season. I figured that cutting down on sweets would fix the problem.

Then yesterday, a pair of pants that I’ve had since high school felt a little too snug. After work, I broke down and pulled out the old workout DVD. I just figured that I was getting to the age where eating whatever I wanted and not exercising wasn’t going to cut it anymore. I mean they say you are supposed to gain an extra 10 lbs in your first year of marriage, right?

This morning when I was getting ready for work, I couldn’t even button a pair of pants I’d just bought. I mentioned it to Charlie and told him I thought I was getting fat. He got this “Oh crap!” look on his face.  When he ran out of the room, I didn’t know what to think. When he came back in, he told me that he’d accidentally washed them in hot water and shrunk all my pants.

So good news is I’m not fat, but now I have nothing to wear. This would normally be awesome news. Shopping Spree!! Unfortunately we are saving money right now. Looks like I’m just going to have to keep working out to fit into my clothes.

Doing chores.

Yay.

But since I don’t live with my parents anymore, it’s kind of essential that we actually do stuff around the house. I guess we could hire a maid, but why pay for one when I married one? HAYOOOOO! OMG JUST KIDDING.

I don’t really know how long it took, but Amanda and I eventually just came to an agreement on some things:

• If you prepare dinner, you don’t do the dishes.
  • If both of us prepare dinner, we both do the dishes.
• Amanda will fold the laundry if Charlie washes it.
• Flip-flop letting the dog out.
  • Charlie is a heavy sleeper. Amanda lets him out at night if he’s whining.
• Flip-flop cleaning the bathroom as needed.
• Flip-flop vacuuming as needed.
• Trash goes out with the next person to leave if it’s full.
• We don’t dust.

Well, Charlie wanted a new deal. Amanda does everything. OMG JUST KIDDING.

I requested some amendments to the agreement. After a bit of negotiating, the agreement was amended as:

• Amanda does all the laundry.
• Charlie keeps the entire kitchen clean.
• Charlie vacuums as needed.

The key to negotiating is ranking your assets/items. A 1 is something that is not important to you. A 10 is something that is very important to you.

To me, not doing laundry is a 10. I’m pretty willing to do most other things in order to get that.

Keeping the kitchen clean is a 3-4. I don’t dislike doing dishes. Taking out the trash isn’t a big deal. It’s a little more time consuming than washing clothes, but my personality just prefers this over laundry.

And vacuuming is a 1. I do it already. And I’m pretty savvy at it. (HAHA GET IT?!?) Plus we have the Dyson Ball DC24. It’s so money and you don’t even know it.

When I initially asked Amanda about the laundry-dishes trade off, it only included laundry and dishes. A 3-4 for a 10 in my book. I’m already coming out ahead. When she came back with adding vacuuming, it was over.

FDR would be proud.