Finding personal space in our marriage

Rich and I don't have many boundaries in our relationship. We're pretty open with each other and enjoy each others' company all day. We work in the same office and sleep in the same bed. But there are a few places I draw the line. We don't close our bathroom door. In fact, we toyed with not even installing one in our master suite but figured some other couple that lives in this house one day might be more uptight than us. I'm used to carrying on conversations with Rich while one or the other of us is occupied in the potty. But I've set my foot down on getting too close to me while I'm sitting on the toilet. Cuddle time is not in session once I've just spent several minutes "trying to open a jar of pickles" as David Sedaris would say. I thought this would be obvious, but we've had multiple conversations about it.

Invariably, we'll be talking and he'll dutifully keep his distance. But once I'm all cleaned up and have flushed but am still sans pants, Rich is all "Ooh! Naked butt!" and feels the need to grope my ass. After the first warning, he was remorseful. Then the second time he smacked my bottom and immediately apologized, but there was a mischievous smirk to it. Apparently I need to declare that I'M ABOUT TO GO POOP AND EVEN THOUGH THAT MEANS I'LL BE PARTIALLY UNDRESSED THAT'S NOT AN INVITATION TO COME GROPE ME.

He's gotten better about naked ass groping, but has a bit of short term memory loss and will squeeze my behind about .04 seconds after I've walked out of the bathroom. He's following the letter of the law but not the spirit. A few days ago, I announced that I was going upstairs to "talk to a man about a dog" but we could keep talking. As I exited the bathroom he absentmindedly groped me without even a break in conversation. I issued a stern warning and told him I would rather he not grope quite yet. We continued chatting and were preparing to go out for some dinner. I may have even mentioned I wasn't feeling so great. As I bent over to grab my shoes, he was eye level with Wife Ass and gave it a big ol' smack. And I stood straight up and lost my mind.

"God Dammit! Can you PLEASE just stay away from this whole butt area for at least 30 minutes after I have exited the bathroom? I appreciate a good-natured smack as much as the next girl, but my ass is not in any condition for groping right now and as a personal favor to me, could you just show a little self-restraint until everything is all settled?!"

As I decreed all of this, I was yelling and waving my arms around my torso as if using an imaginary hula hoop. Rich looked at me as I stood huffing at him and then we both immediately burst into laughter. He apologized for violating my Personal Butt Space and after discussing it a bit he reminded me it was 24 minutes before he would touch my butt.

I think I'm going to hang a stopwatch around my neck every time I leave the bathroom to enforce this one rule I have.

Spring cleaning

Since it has been 70 DEGREES THIS WEEKEND I wanted to work on some random projects around the house. Earlier this week, I had bought a bunch of tiles from Flor.com to become our new dining room rug and they thankfully arrived on Friday! Wooo, crazy Friday night at our house! Sarah is a 12-year-old elderly stateshound and when sick or under stress has let us know by exploding in some portion of the dining room. Always the dining room. What can I say, she's a creature of habit. I have actually watched her start to get sick (usually from eating grass outside) and just before she pukes in the kitchen on its convenient tile, she will sprint on her creaky little legs to the dining room to puke on the rug in there. Ugh.

I have an elaborate system for cleaning the carpet but it's time-consuming and a bit neurotic. It keeps the carpet in good shape, but it takes a good hour each time it happens. When you have company showing up 45 minutes after you've discovered an accident or you're already late for work, this can prove inconvenient.

We started using pee pads in her favorite spots on the old rug and those were working great except that our dining room didn't have much decor what with the green and white diaper mats strewn everywhere. So I bit the bullet and bought a new rug.

This isn't just any rug, though. It's from Flor.com. They sell individual tiles that are 19.7" square (it's a metric thing) so you can mix and match. They all have rubber backings on them and they clean up amazingly well. I first read about them on Dooce.com when Heather raved on how she got wine off her carpet with a baby wipe - a baby wipe, people! I was instantly hooked. But they're not cheap and I was chicken to pick out a set for a long time. Until now.

I ordered 49 tiles for the dining room, not really sure how many of them I would use and how many would become spares. With some tinkering, we worked out 35 of them in a 5x7 pattern and have stored the remaining 14 to be replacement tiles should anyone decide to pee or puke in the dining room (not naming any names or anything). I can't tell you how pleased I am with these tiles! They went down super easy, the pattern was fun to make, they're designed for heavy traffic and if we decide to put them somewhere else, they stack and fit in the back seat of a car. Try that with a Persian rug!

I'm now shopping for tiles for my craft room, which is a funky shape with two doors in it and lends itself well to tiles of carpet. Soon I will have no excuse to not be sewing all the time!

Along those lines, we finally cleaned all the crap out of the spare bedroom upstairs. I still had Christmas wrapping paper and accessories up there (and lots of them) so it was time to tidy. Those went to storage in the utility room, the piles of recycling made it to the actual recycling can and after six months of living here, I finally took all my fabric out of the trash bags we moved them in and into tubs on shelves. I have a lot of fabric and I really should work my way through these piles before I buy any more. The whole room, though, looks a thousand times bigger! Hooray finally moving in!

Other than that, I haven't accomplished much. I'm headed outside to enjoy the sunshine a bit more before it's back to work for another week. Here's hoping this weather holds out or at least comes back to stay soon!

Recap of 2nd Living Out Loud project: our bodies, ourselves

Again, you all continue to amaze me and I'm humbled that you would take the time to write such great things for this project. This month's challenge was to describe something physically about ourselves that pleases us. It could be a body part or an overall physical feature. The project also had a second part of providing a recent photo of yourself that pleases you. Below is a list of the participants: Kitty's Living Like you Love It Her topic is her body's power to adapt. She has done great things to create a positive image of herself and my favorite line of her entry is, "Hello – I made people!!!". And while it wasn't her topic, I feel it necessary to note that God graced her with a great rack. So there.

Gina's What Makes ME Hot Stuff I was afraid Gina was going to chicken out on me for this project but she came through with flying colors! As a fellow brown-eyed girl, I can totally respect her choice of highlighting her eyes. And the grin in her photo is awesome!

Martelle's Hot Stuff I stumbled upon Martelle through LiveJournal and the SCA, but I'm not sure I could have picked her out of a police line up or crowded feast hall. Her entry gave me all kinds of insight into her childhood, the things she takes joy in, and most importantly a photo so I can introduce myself the next time we're in the same place! Looking forward to meeting you soon!

Kim's Living Out Loud II: Body Check As folks have talked to me about this challenge I've mentally noted to myself my favorite thing about them physically. I've always loved Kim's skin and her choice to adorn it in such beautiful detail makes me a bit jealous. I'm just not sure I have the guts for it myself. I also admit to growing my hair out lately with the hope that I'll get more hair brushings.

Megan's My Body. Not Wonderland. I read Megan's entry about her strong legs and nodded to myself in agreement. I got to her photos and started crying. She is beautiful in so many ways.

Karal's Forever on the Hips I've been commiserating with her as she struggles with medical mysteries that make her belly her enemy these days. But sometimes the smallest of things can mean so much and remind us how strong we are.

Rich's Momentos written across my skin I won't embarrass us all by listing all my favorite parts of his, but I do admit that his hands are up there in the top five. Chicks do indeed dig scars - this one does at least.

My own contribution is All of me, why not take all of me. So many things about my body I can't control, but I'm pretty sure I'll always be a million feet tall. The air really is nice up here.

This project continues to bring me much joy and I personally want to thank all of you for participating. It means the world to me! I'm already looking forward for the project due April 1 (great, April Fools Day).

For this project, I have chosen Megan as our prize winner. She has been waging a battle over her body for quite a while now and bared her soul online for us all. I've been wracking my brain for an appropriate prize and have decided that a good massage would pamper all those muscles that serve her so well. Megan will be receiving a gift certificate for a 30 minute massage at her local salon.

I encourage you all to read the entries above and comment. And if you have a suggestion or this month's project, I'm all ears!