Monday, November 21, 2011

Trash Being Trash

I love my husband. We have been together for six years this December (including dating, engagement, and married times), and we have settled into a really nice relationship. We do that thing where one of us can walk into a room, ask the other person about "That thing," and the response is always exactly what the other person was talking about. Amazing!

But there are dark times, too. There are some really tough moments that make me question myself as a wife, and some instances where I ask why we ever thought we were compatible. Things don't always work for us.

If you are waiting for me to air our dirty laundry, then you will be waiting a long time. But, I am willing to share a major contention between us: our dirty trash.


Ever since we got married, Caleb and I have had a problem our trash disposal. Kids, no kid—it hasn't mattered. I can honestly say that I have lost sleep over this particular wrinkle in our marriage. We have talked about it constantly, coming up with various ways to work it out; our current practice is that I will bag it up and then Caleb will take it out.

I grew up in a house full of girls, so there hasn't been a "man's work" connotation connected to it for me. Admittedly, before we had kids, I was just lazy. But now that we live in a third-floor apartment with two children two-years-old and under, I find taking the trash out to be burdensome. If Lucy could get down the stairs by herself, I could probably swallow my pride and get it done. If I felt comfortable leaving the kids in the house by themselves for an extended period of time, I wouldn't hesitate to walk down all of the stairs, walk a couple of buildings over to the dumpster, and walk all the way back up the stairs. I could use the exercise.

But I think we are at a stalemate. The picture above is how our laundry/trash room looks this morning. Vertically, it shows all of the trash in its stinky glory. A horizontal picture is more aesthetically pleasing, though.


Garbage bursting out at the seams! And all I'm willing to do is take pictures of it. Hate.