the tv shows and dvr.

dvr might be one of my favorite inventions of this century.  ok, i really dont know how old it is, but i love it all the same.  my parents started getting dvr when i was in my senior year in college and everything changed.  before you had to set up the vcr, of course every single one was different, make sure the last person to turn the tv off had it set on the right channel, and that your vcr time matched the actual tv time.  you had to have a separate tape just to record the new shows, and make sure to set it exactly right so you didnt tape over anything you hadnt watched yet.  then came the invention of dvr to my house.  all you had to do was find the show you were looking for and press record.  it never expired.  it, usually,  never ran out of space.  you didnt even have to remember to tape it every week, because you could tape the entire series.  no one could record over your show for something else.  you could fast forward/rewind and didnt have to pray the tape wasnt going to break.  happy sigh, it is amazing.

i have been an avid fan ever since.  so when richard and i moved in together i knew it was something we definitely needed on at least one tv.  richard hadnt really gotten to enjoy the amazingness of dvr on his own tv before, but he immediately agreed that he wanted it too.  then came the debate, how many tvs do we put it on-we only have 2 ps-, whos shows go on which tv, can you watch and record something else at the same time.

being that he is at work during primetime nighttime tv he has become so behind on shows he gave up, becoming interested in new ones, or so i thought.  once he also realized how fantastic dvr is he was recording left, right, center, backwards, and all in between.  i would get up in the morning and he was recording something random at 7am.  he would watch part of a show and then record the rest because something else came on.  now, i thought this was all pretty cute and humorous until the night he started messin with my tv schedule.  and let me preface this with, yes i really have a schedule.

sunday : undercover boss @9p.  army wives @10p-only during the summer.  keeping up with the kardashians @10p, but this comes on many times during the week so i can always catch it then. and im thinking about getting back into brothers and sisters @10p.
monday : gossip girl @9p.  himym sometimes @8p.
tuesday : the biggest loser @8p.  this is recent, thanks mom lol.  the city @10p, whenever that decides to come back.
wednesday : nothing really happens on this night in the land of tv, which is why i usually work late lol.
thursday : big bang @8p.  greys anatomy @9p.  project runway is also on @9p so this must be recorded.

ok, before you really think i am totally crazy-instead of just slightly, let me explain a little bit more.  now, yes i do feel the need to watch this many tv shows every week, and if any new ones come out that i like i reserve the right to add more.  however, if i get an invitation to go out, or am not going to be home i will simply record on my dvr so i can watch them another time.  i am not chained to my tv and feel the need to watch them the second they come on.  plus if you do watch them on dvr, you can fast forward the commercials!

ah yes, the difference in our tv shows.  his shows include things like glen beck-yuck, pawn stars, anything on fox news really, american chopper, sportscenter, boardwalk empire,ufc next fighter thing, pardon the interruption, now entourage-even though i have been watching it on dvd for almost a year, asking if he would come watch with me, because it is so good, as he turned up his nose, until he lived with his friend anthony and now thinks it is the greatest show on tv-and man vs. food.  now i will give you that pawn stars and man vs. food are actually pretty good, and i am totally willing to watch those if they are on.  now this is where his schedule really plays into the tv show watching.  since i am home when most of my things come on, and they are pretty girly i do admit, he gets out of watching all of them!  not that i need a tv partner to watch with me, i talk enough to myself as it is during the shows, it would just be kind of cool to have somethings we watched together.  im just sayin, whew, glad i got that out lol.  so when he does come home, we sit down to watch tv, click on the dvr shows, we are watching something of his.  usually though it is pawn stars or man vs. food, so like i said i am willing. 

so as i was saying, the random recordings was all very cute, until he started messing with my tv schedule.  i came home on monday night, for sure one of the most important/best tv nights because gossip girl is on-followed very closely by thursdays, ready to sit down curled up with my ice cream when the awful message flashed across the screen that two things were being recorded at the same time and i either must watch one or nothing at all.  my two choices were wwe raw or american chopper.  guess what i choose...nothing.  thank goodness we have more than one tv!  so i simply went into the bedroom and snuggled into my bed instead, thinking why do i watch tv on the couch when i could be curled up in here instead!  i watched himym and gossip girl that evening in bed perfectly content.  that night when richard came home he was completely shocked to find me already in bed, i think he thought i was sick and dying.  when i began to tell him the tv story he got this silly/goofy grin on his face like he was 5, and while i couldnt help but laugh.  he started to explain that he tried to cancel a couple of recordings, now i really could care less where i watch these shows, just as long as i get to watch them.  after i finished laughing and him explaining he fires back, not so cooly, that i have taken over the dvr on thursday nights.  he really was not ready for the rebuttal that came from that remark and then we both just looked at each other and cracked up laughing.  

while yes there are bigger battles we will have, and much larger things to worry about than which tv show to watch when he comes home, we are definitely still trying to figure it out.  he has stopped asking though, as soon as something is done taping when i am going to watch it.  and i content in watching his shows when he comes home, because spending anytime that i can with him is really all i care about anyway:)

the schedules.

when i was younger and thought about growing up and living with a boy-now mind you in this interpretation i would be married to him lol-i always believed we would get up, get ready in the morning somewhat together then come home and be together in the evenings.  while the being married to him changed so did quite a few other things.  the biggest thing to change was the schedules.

i work in higher education, have a fairly normal weekday schedule and the occasional saturday.  i am usually home between 630p-730p with one day a week come home after 8p.  richard works at a shipping company in their warehouse hub in the evenings monday-friday.  he goes in somewhere between 3p-5p and is home between 11p-midnight.  he has had this job the whole time that we have dated, so we talked at nighttime, usually when i am in bed and he is driving home.  this has definitely messed with my sleep in the past, but it got to the point where i couldnt sleep through the night without it, it was our routine and it worked for us.  this definitely made us make the most of our time together, as we spent most of our weekends together.  not seeing him during the week was tough, some weeks where definitely tougher than others, but we always seemed to make it work.  as we began to seriously talk about moving in i wondered how this routine was really going to work.

whenever we did talk about moving in, i still had that togetherness idea in my head about the mornings and the evenings.  i had never really seen it done any other way, and wasnt sure i was really ok with this.  but when i talked to richard he always sounded really excited about our opposite schedules.  he always told me that i would be able to come home and have all this time to myself to watch my girly shows-i will admit most of them are pretty girly lol-and relax from my day.  he would still be there in the mornings and be able to get up with me while i was getting ready for work to start the day.  and he would have the time to himself during the day and see me when he came home, we could still talk about our days and spend time together at night.  i never had the heart to tell him that i wasnt really ok with this plan, because i knew in my heart there wasnt anything i could do to change it.  i think what bothered me the most was that i was finally going to see him everyday and go to bed with him at night, which i was really excited about, and all he talked about was the space.  

i got to the point before we moved in where i realized part of the reason he wanted "so much space,"  he had never really lived with anyone before or had to seriously share his space before.  he was an only child growing up and lived much of his life with his dad.  the closest thing he had to roommates was when we met and they were living with some family friends.  but even then, he was pretty much on his own, he had never really shared his up close/personal space with another person, much less a girl.  i had lived with a younger brother growing up and a family that would constantly walk in and out of my room at leisure.  i lived with many different roommates in college, fantastic ones in the end, crazy ones, naked ones, quiet ones, and loud ones.  i had figured out how to live with other people that i was and wasnt related too.  however none of the a fore mentioned roommates had been boys, that in itself i knew was going to make a huge difference. 

the first night i came home from work it was very eerie.  i didnt totally feel like i lived there yet, there were still boxes in the living room lol.  i wasnt really sure what i should do, so i did what i always do.  i changed out of my work clothes into my pjs and wandered into the kitchen to make dinner.  as i made dinner for myself i kept expecting other people to come home, but i wasnt really sure who i was waiting for.  i also wondered what was i supposed to do when richard came home.  do i stay up and wait?  do i go to bed?  i knew things were going to figure themselves out when he called that night to say he was on his way home.  i-being the huge overthinking girl that i am-wondered if he was going to, and i was so glad he did.

the next night i came home was my late night and i had already eaten dinner, so i had one less thing to do when i got home.  i still felt a little bit lost on what to do.  i had this i live with a boy feeling, but i dont ever see him.  when he does come home he is awake and ready to go.  he wants to talk and tell me all about his day, he asks questions about my day and the things i did.  he watches most of his shows at night and is up till 2 and 3 in the morning, this has taken some definite getting used too.  the hardest part is the fact that it is 11 or 12 at night and i am ready for bed/falling asleep when i finally do get to see him.  i dont really spend anytime with him in the mornings either.  my alarm goes off and as i am getting up to take a shower/make coffee he is rolling over to keep sleeping.  i always kiss him goodbye as i am walking out the door, while a little piece of my heart is sad that i cant get back into bed with him.  how am i going to get used to this?

a few days later it was like a switch flipped.  i came home from a particularly long day and was so ready to just flop on the couch and pass out.  it was so nice to come home to my own apartment and be able to do that.  richard was at work like usual and i was so relieved to have a few hours to myself to unwind.  when i was living at home there were a lot of times i wanted to do this exact thing, but it never seemed to happen.  i finally felt like i understood where he was coming from with the goodness of our opposite schedules.  there are still some nights where i wish he was home when i got there with his smile to make the perfect ending to my not so perfect day.  we are both trying to get better about the night time.  quite a few nights i have fallen asleep on the couch which actually turned into a good thing, because now i can stay up a little bit later chatting and watching tv with him.  he always gets sad when i go to bed and he is still up for a few more hours by himself.  we spend all day apart and then spend an hour, maybe at night together.  the best part is though, its so much more time than we used to spend together, and i am so grateful.  the mornings are still a little sad, i hate leaving.  nobody wants to get out of bed in the morning, and i especially dont now with him sleeping next to me.  but as i am leaving each morning, i still smile watching him sleep and am so glad that we made this moving in decision.  it has already brought us so much closer.

the grocery store.

i love the grocery store.  i am surrounded by food with endless possibilities.  most of the time i walk up and down the aisles singing with the incredibly entertaining store music swaying back and forth as i go.  i make a list as to not forget anything however more things always jump in the cart as i wonder, but im ok with that.  it is also one of the few errands i actually enjoy going by myself.  going with other people always makes for a good time, mostly because everyone shops different.  i know that sounds weird, but think about it.  i prefer to go up and down each aisle (skipping the dog, kid, toiletry aisles) to make sure i get everything i need, and some other things i probably dont.  i start in the produce/deli section and work my way to the other end.  some people go straight for the items they need and run out as quickly as they can.  others sit and read the label of every single thing they put in their cart.  

i have been grocery shopping with richard many times before.  i always got very excited about going, while he dreaded every minute of being in the store surrounded by so many people all of which were in his way.  we shop on two complete opposite ends of the spectrum.  for starters he grocery shops at walmart, i grocery shop at albertsons.  he runs through, skipping whole aisles then having to run back to them.  i take my time and go up and down each one.  when we decided to move in, i often wondered how the grocery shopping would work.  would we go to both stores?  would he do his own and mine on my own?  would we find a new one altogether?  or most importantly...which one of us was going to cave/compromise on this one? 

as it stands now...we are two store grocery shoppers:)  however we both go to the other persons.  the first week we embarked on this adventure we started at walmart, which i absolutely despise, i am a target girl all the way.  my plan was to actually buy quite a bit more there then i probably ever would again, i mean we were literally starting from scratch.  we needed everything from sandwich bags to salt and pepper shakers to lunch for the week.  we went during the middle of the day on a monday hoping for less crowds so we could take our time, which worked out pretty well.  however i think it still drove him crazy that i went up and down every aisle:)  my plan was to only buy the things i needed here and still go to albertsons when we were done.  richard was doing his full blown grocery shopping though.

coming from two different households you have two very different perceptions of what you need/and want in your kitchen.  for example, we bought two different kinds of butter, brummel and brown for me and stick butter for him.  two different gallons of milk, 1% for me and whole milk for him.  two different breads, white for me and wheat for him.  two different kinds of macaroni and cheese, the blue box-the only kind that really matters-for me and the disgusting velveeta kind for him.  two different kinds of snacks, cheeze-its/100 calorie packs for me and chips/popcorn/cookies for him.  

as we approached the registers you could see the big question on both our faces...how do we split all of this up?  one spice for you, one box of sandwich bags for me?  so i decided i will pay for the together stuff and he can pay for his stuff.  he had paid extra the nite before when we made the target/walmart run.  however he stepped up and said no, we are splitting the whole thing down the middle:)  once the cashier was finished ringing us up ($140 later),he asked how were paying, when we told him to split it, he looked at us a little funny.  we told him we had just moved in together and this was our first grocery trip, after a small chuckle which turned into a huge laugh, he looked at us and said, see how long this splitting everything lasts with a goofy grin. as  we smiled and told him this was a partnership, we plan to keep it this way, a friend of his came over and asked how long we had lived together.  when we told him 2 days, he gave us the same small chuckle to a huge laugh and also said, good luck.  we both looked at each other with a little surprise and realized there was nothing else we could do but join in the laughing. 

once we got home and put away all of our new groceries, i decided i was really hungry.  we had already decided on making pizza for dinner, but i hadnt eaten lunch yet and was starving.  so i began opening cabinets and the freezer and the refrigerator to find a startling fact.  we had just spent $14o on groceries and had nothing to eat!  it was all "starter food" we decided to call that week.

later that evening i went to albertsons, which is literally across the street, and did my own grocery shopping.  as soon as i walked in a gave a huge sigh of relief.  the lighting was so much nicer, there was not nearly as many people, the music was on, and the best fact, i was not in walmart.  yes, i had just spent quite a bit at the first store, but i had nothing for me.  as i wondered through the aisles, i began to realize how much i really needed at the store.

when i finished shopping that evening i went home to an empty apartment.  this was the first time we had spent apart since we had finished moving two days before.  i know its silly, but i kind of missed him.  i put away the groceries and flopped down on the couch with a grin on my face.  "i live here," i thought to myself, "with my boyfriend."  and i settled in for a night of monday night tv, anxiously waiting for richard to come home from work, having that grin on my face the whole time.

the move.

moving is a crazy day for anyone.  the anticipation/stress/excitement/worry/joy/anxiousness alone will drive that to a crazy day.  ours of course, was not any different.

i had to work open house that morning, as if combining our things from three different places wasnt enough of a logistical hassle, add one man down.  however, richard and his friends picked up the pieces extremely well and had so much done by the time i got here.  what i would find from the infamous storage unit, no one could have prepared me for.

i always knew that our decorating tastes where pretty different, i mean the boy and girl factor alone was going to make us different.  i was girly-colorful, youthful, flowery, and kept something from every part of my life.  he was simple-not many colors, by that i mean one, hadnt bought anything new for decorating in, well thats just too long to count.  but then there was this mysterious storage unit of things he had always talked about.  before living with the roommates he was when we met, he and his dad lived in an apartment.  they decided to move and put the things from that apartment into storage, furniture, dishes, decorative pieces, and bedding.  i had heard about this storage unit forever, but had never been inside or even knew where it was.  however i knew the types of things that were in there and figured they would at least be excellent starter pieces.

back to when i arrived that day.  i have one photo for you, this will explain any type of "style" questions that are going through your mind about the "starter pieces"...

now, as if it could get any funnier, the dishes...they matched.  trust me, i could not make these things up.  so a very quick starter set they became.  at this point, none of my things were actually in the apartment yet.  we still had to go back to my house to get them.

about three weeks before this move my parents had actually just done the exact same thing.  we moved from the side of town we had lived on since we moved to las vegas in 1997 to a new house that was a hell of a lot closer to where both mom and i worked.  they actually had professionals (i use that term loosely for the gentlemen who actually showed up) move us, so half of my stuff was still in boxes, i never unpacked them.  genius i know:).   while waiting for us to arrive mom, dad, and kyle decided to help in a major way by taking apart my bed/dresser and taking all of the boxes downstairs so it would be easier to move.  with that huge advantage we had everything loaded in under a half hour.  when we arrived back at the apartment we had two new set of hands to help us, thank goodness.

now adding my entire life on top of his entire life and about three quarters of his dads (he recently moved back to chile and left just about everything with/to richard to deal with), space was becoming a commodity.  after all the unloading richard had to take back the u-haul so tiffany, kyle, and i decided the best use of our time was putting the bed together so after the karoke birthday party we were attending, we had somewhere to sleep!  this started out as a great plan, until we were done putting the frame together and richard called to say he had forgotten his keys and needed them to come home from the u-haul place.  so i left the rest of the bed to kyle and tiffany while i took him his keys.  when i pulled into the u-haul place richard was sitting on the curb next to his car with the saddest puppy dog face on.  he looked upset, past the point of exhaustion, and so sad.  there was nothing i could do, but get out of my car engulf him in a hug and tell him that i loved him.  he wrapped his arms around me and in that moment i knew that this was going to work.  as im driving back i get a text from tiffany asking what she can do to help till i come back.  i asked if she could take off the god awful futon cover so that i can at least wash the horrifically dirty thing until we could purchase a new one.  when i returned home i saw the best thing of the whole day...the awfulness was only a slipcover!!  i no joke jumped up and down with excitement.  as tiffany and kyle left that night to do their own things i realized that i am officially on my own.  i had been before, kind of, i mean i lived on campus in college.  but this was a completely new kind of on my own.  and to top it all off...i live with a boy now. 

in the end it took us three days, one horrible night to put a tv stand together, countless laughs and bunny noses in comparing things that came from both our families, and a realization that the storage here might just save us, to unpack our very first apartment.  now on to the next big thing...grocery shopping.

the background.

two weeks ago i made one of the largest decisions of my life, i moved in with my boyfriend.  now while this may seem like a semi-big deal to most, to me it was rather large.  let me explain a little better.

i am a pretty independent girl, college graduate, with a great job, out to have a good time, and a level head on my shoulders.  i was never the drop dead gorgeous girl that guys would buy drinks for or stop in their tracks to talk too.  i am however the nice, pretty girl with beautiful friends.  i often was stuck with the friends of those guys i just described, who did those things for my friends.  all those things changed the night i met my, now, amazing boyfriend richard.  we met in a bar through mutual friends where we had great conversations and he even let me teach him how to line dance, well sort of.  he asked for my phone number and said he wanted to take me out on a date next saturday.  while yes he waited the dreaded three days, i still agreed.  the short version of the story is, i got sick (literally) had to call the date off, and then cancelled any future plans he tried to make.  leading me to tell this great guy i was not interested, even though i really knew nothing about him.  he however, did not except my excuses and became the first, and only guy to ever fight for me.  fifteen months later we are still together and stronger than we ever have been :).

we decided in the beginning of the summer that we were ready to take that next step in our relationship and move in together.  this was a pretty huge step for us both.  this was the longest, and by far the healthiest relationship either one of us had ever been in.  we both brought our own set of obstacles to the table, that we were actually willing to help each other overcome.  now i am the typical "girl" in our relationship and over think just about everything:)  i may not always tell him this, but i still think he knows lol.  one of my largest was my family.

i grew up in a fairly conservative, mom dad still married, i am the oldest sister household.  i have one younger brother and we had no pets.  we are a very tight knit family, the four of us are the only ones we had in las vegas where we were living.  while my family is pretty supportive in the things i do-tattoos and piercings, not so much hehe-i knew the moving in idea was not going to go over well. 

i kept things very quiet until things actually happened.  for awhile it was great to keep the secret just between us and have this thing we had done together and were so proud of.  then reality set in and i knew that i had to tell my parents.  now, i do have to say that being completely upfront honest with them was the best policy, as cliche as that sounds.  i got to the point where i set reasonable expectations for what i actually wanted from them.  i knew they would not jump up and down for joy, i just wanted them to eventually be ok with this idea.  i decided, much to richards relief, that this was best done on my own.  when i told  mom, she actually said she already knew, it was just a matter of time.  then inevitable questions started, thank goodness i had so much time to think, i actually had the answers.  dad did not react quite as well as mom.  he did react thou, exactly like i expected him too.  "on the one hand, i am very excited for you, because you sound extremely happy and ready to make this move.  on the other hand, i am still your dad.  and as progressive as i am trying to be...you are still my daughter, living with a boy, before you are married."  the rest of my very large extended family as been pretty supportive as well.  i mean hell, my aunt sent us a housewarming box full of kitchen towels:)

so with this beginning, i bring my journey of a 25 year-old girl in 2010 just starting out her newest adventure of living with her boyfriend:)