LowLevelRebel's Profile

I'm totally with you! WHAS was my first purchase back when DVDs were still stored under lock and key at my local Blockbuster. The guy behind the counter wouldn't sell it to me because he said it was "terrible. and [he was] a film major - [he] could recommend a thousand movies that do what that movie does better". Yeah, thanks but no thanks, wiener.

I was confused and unimpressed for the first 20 minutes, then "got it" and couldn't get enough. I must have seen it a dozen times by now and my sister and I constantly quote it. Love the scene you described but the one that got me "on board" was Paul Rudd taking the kid to a "Secret Pizza Party"

"I love secret pizza parties!"
"Yeah, well..."

My father puts up a fight every time he has to use his dishwasher and it drove my sister and I crazy growing up. When I moved into my first apartment I didn't even have a double sink, never mind a dishwasher, and having people over for dinner meant that the next evening would just be filled with washing and drying mountains of dishes.

When we moved into our house, the sight of a dishwasher and a double sink pratically made me salivate. Now we save up our "washables" (large pots, wooden cutting boards) but use our dishwasher probably every 2 days or so. My boyfriend grew up with one his whole life so he's much better at the empty/fill cycle than I am but we're both delighted to have it. It makes entertaining so much more pleasant.

Mooj had it right on. It's not about the rusty trombones. So, so wise.

Congrats, Ms Big Step! I bought a house with my boyfriend in September and here are some of my humble little tips that have (so far) helped us make it work.

1) Our house didn't feel like a home until we had art on the walls. It was seriously the one single thing that made us love our place and made it feel like "ours". Since most of the furniture was mine, it was nice to have something we shared equally. My bf (who hadn't hung most of his art before we got the house) was so excited to see the things he had loved all laid out on the walls and I saw my art in a new way as it intersected with his

2) First meal: Honestly? our first meal was Indian takeout because the idea of cooking after moving was near impossible. However, one of our favourite meals those first few weeks was a combination of sorts. We each made one thing we're good at - coleslaw (me), cherry pie (him), and each made one thing we'd never made before meatloaf (him) macaroni and cheese from scratch (me). The meatloaf was my mom's recipe and the macaroni and cheese was his mom's. It was kind of corny, but we loved the idea of bringing together our strengths, our mothers' strengths and making new traditions, all in one meal. Plus, if we totally screwed up, at least we had coleslaw and pie to rely on!

3) Give each other space. We have a very small second bedroom that I wanted to use as a guest room. In addition, I had a longish desk to put in that room. The bf has a gaming desktop and wanted a place to play his games where he could remain undisturbed and not disturb others. We ended up compromising and putting a double bed against one wall and his small, corner desk against another. Now the room looks pretty cramped but so what? It's clean, it's fairly tidy, and he's happy having a place to work. Him having his own space when everything else is shared matters to him, so I was happy to do it.

Similarly, for the first 2 months our socks, underwear, my tights, and bras all lived in the same small 4-drawer dresser (and a few cardboard boxes to share the overflow). It made mornings incredibly aggravating and made me mutter some unkind words under my breath on more than one occasion. Once we found a wonderful old chest of drawers for him off kijiji, occupying the same bedroom became easy. It's funny how one simple piece of furniture killed almost all our morning bad moods.

4) Make your bedroom an oasis. Our bedroom is one of the few rooms I'm the happiest with. It has sloped ceilings with exposed beams, which makes it feel like a cabin. Even though it's very tiny, it's cozy, and it's a perfect respite at the end of long day. It's where we chat and plan our day and laugh about stupid jokes - I really try to take any arguments we have out of that space because it's usually such a chill location. We bought the bed together, which was a good call, and splurge on good quality sheets (thank god for sneaky sisters who work at HomeSense). We tried to bring no boxes in there when we moved so that it could be a place of (somewhat) serenity when everything else looked like hell.

5. Choose your battles. Yeah, sometimes I'll still get annoyed at water glasses left everywhere or 3 or 4 pairs of socks discarded all over the living room. But before I bellow for him to change it - I think: how much do I care about this? Often, the answer is close to nil. I've accepted we just see mess differently. It doesn't mean he won't do something Yes, I clean the kitchen more than he does but he packages and takes out the garbage even in -40degree weather. I tidy more than him and go through the mail and pick up clothes off the floor, but he fills and empties the dishwasher more, and doesn't complain at the huge amount of hair i leave behind when I straighten it in the morning. Decide what's a dealbreaker and needs to be addressed, but don't harp on everything, and don't accept him doing the same. Separate the wheat from the chaff and you'll be happier for it.

It's so exciting! Good luck!

Seconding the thanks for a wonderful idea. Because of The Cure I finally got three pictures framed, with two of them hung on my art wall and one put up in my office, organized my toiletries, bought my house flowers (something I plan on keeping up!), given away 3-4 books (a *huuge* accomplishment for this packrat bookworm) and a dozen pieces of clothing, put up a shelf in our guest room that had been lying around for months, got all my boyfriend's DVDs out of the basement and into a unit next to the tv, and pretty much decided on what kind of lighting we'll put in our living room. While I didn't get everything done, I plan on using the cure in future months to organize what seems like a monumental task. My sister, boyfriend and I will enjoy our "get together" this weekend and I'll be sure to relax a little more. Thanks again!

Oh my lord, e-town.. I had no idea. People kept telling me how far it was... I guess most of them lived in the suburbs. This is so exciting - thank you!

Delighted to see other car-and-license-free citizens! I thought I was practically alone in this world!

Moving downtown (and having incredibly kind parents) has meant that I don't really long for a car. But if I had one I would definitely go out of town, probably to the Nordik Spa in Chelsea, QC, someplace I've longed to go but is inaccessible without a car. I used to love Sunday drives with my family when I was a kid, searching out small towns and hamlets, stopping for ice cream, etc.

Of course, I'd probably just end up doing something much more mundane like dropping off electronics at Future Shop or picking up a load of things I don't need at Costco ;)

I talked about this with my boyfriend last night and he admitted that he'd always enjoyed playing with his sister's dollhouse and, further, was always amazed as a kid at how perfectly Barbie's shoes fit on her feet!

I used to work in the children's department of a book store a few times my heart just broke for the boys who desperately wanted a book in the "Rainbow Faeries" series and instead were told that they had to get a book on dinosaurs that they were massively disinterested in. Furthermore, after I left the store, they insisted that the rapidly-expanding toy section be further divided by gender lines, with vacuum cleaners and broom/dustpan sets being placed in the "girl" section and, infuriatingly, the dress-up doctor kit be placed in the boy section.

The fact that the girl with a slingshot (there's one with a nerf gun in the catalogue as well) and the boy vacuuming don't look really out of place just shows how silly the preconceived notions of gender-based play are. Kids will play with what they want and often only make "boy" or "girl" decisions based on cues from adults.

My thoughts exactly! Nothing like seeing where your dinner's going to end up to set the mood...

My old apartment in Ottawa (the same apartment as