My Toilet Era Comes to a Close

This year I've successfully removed and installed 3 toilets. I think I'd like to put that on my Christmas card right next to a picture of me and my dog and Santa. Or maybe me and my dog and Santa can be sitting ON the toilet. The recipients of this proposed xmas card may poo themselves in confusion and/or glee (depending on their own awareness of my new found expertise as an amateur plumber). 

Slowly but surely I am becoming my own expert at Singlutionary home improvement. I've always loved figuring out how things work and taking things apart but I never thought I'd become my own handywoman. But being an unemployed home owner has left me without many other options: I've had to figure out how to do it and do it on my own because paying someone to do it simply wasn't an option.

In January, included in the new incarnation of this Singlutionary blog, will be a weekly post on do-it-yourself homeowner projects. I've been asked before to write about homeownership for single women-- or singles in general (and I've been trying to get to it) but in addition to offering advice on the home buying process and the basics of home ownership, I'll also write about how to fix/replace/improve stuff on your own. I think that most single people feel intimidated by tackling projects on their own (especially since many projects require more than two hands and who knows if anyone will be around in that moment of desperation when you realize that you need someone to hold this while you drill that) and with a single income, it is sometimes impossible to just hire someone to do all the work.

Buying a house is something I did without even thinking about the fact that I would have to take care of it all on my own. My desire for homeownership would wait for no man. In fact, it never occurred to me that I ought to wait to buy a home until I was "settled down" or in a relationship. But once I bought the house, I started to realize why domestic chores are divided so clearly down the gender line: there is too much work for one person. Or so it seemed at first. How was I supposed to keep up with cleaning and the yard and also fix the sink and also take out the garbage and also paint the ceilings and also decorate on a budget? How was I supposed to set up beds and move sofas and fix the garbage disposal all on my own? 

But after two years, I've finally got things under control (with a little help from my friends and plenty of frustrated phone calls to my veteran do-it-yourself parents). Yet, I am still the only single female home owner I know and, aside from one inspirational friend who actually is a professional handywoman, I am the most capable person I know. When I began Singlutionary, I was the only non-seeking single that I knew. And now I have a whole community. I hope that by writing about homeownership/repair/improvement for singles, a wonderful community of joyful home owning Singlutionaries will grow.

So, one day a week in 2010 will be committed to the single homeowners and the wannabe single homeowners of the Singlution.

I'll write from my own experience and be sure to mention at the beginning, when and where in the process a second sent of hands would be ideal or, in fact, necessary. And I'll try to make it funny. So, even if you live in an apartment or a condo or a tent, you'll be entertained. At least a little bit. 

Singlutionary on Vacation (and Giveaway Winner)

I had a fantastic Thanksgiving. My parents came into town and helped me with my house and then afterwards I went to the next city over to visit with my best friend and my sister for the weekend. Being unemployed is nice because I got to spend a great deal of time with them. But now the impending doom is setting in. I have been out of work for a month.

I have lots of distractions in my life right now: a broken washing machine, unpaid bills, unfinished projects, runaway chickens and an extra large post-Thanksgiving sized stomach. 

Some of these distractions may be to blame for my inability to post as often or as insightfully as I would like to. I have plenty of things to write about so that is not the problem. The problem, in addition to my many distractions (which were always there), is that I need to discover a new approach to writing Singlutionary. When I began this blog I was in the midsts of a personal revelation and I was rapidly changing and discovering awesome singleness and that is what I wrote about, as it occurred to me. Now that I am solidly single and am no longer so much in awe of the awesomeness that is my life, I am not sure where to write from. I want to keep writing but I lack focus on all fronts. 

Writing this blog and engaging with other bloggers and with commenters has brought me so much comfort and encouragement over the past year. And I want to continue to write Singlutionary and to read and comment on other singles blogs. But for the next month I am going to take a step back and figure out how I want to continue. You might not even notice a difference when I start up again. My writing won't change. I will still try to be funny and fun and hopeful. But it is important to me that when I do post, my posts are well thought out and well written and at this juncture (between been unemployed and having so many projects which need finishing) I don't have the focus to post well AND often. 

I suppose that both I (THE Singlutionary) and the blog (Singlutionary) are having a mini identity crisis of sorts. I've accepted my wonderfully single life and now instead of looking back at all the mistakes I've made or looking forward towards a Happily-Ever-After rescue from my own demons by some imagined Prince Charming, I am merely looking at my real life in all its glory and asking: What next? Where do I go from here? Where do I take my real life? What kind of a career do I want to have? What do I want to do with this blog? What is the purpose of Singlutionary? How fitting to be thinking these thoughts at the close of the calendar year.

I want to make this blog better, connect with more awesome positive singleness sites, profile inspiring people, offer once-a-week single-friendly giveaways, tell good stories and keep the Singlution growing. And in order to do that I need a little time to get the rest of my life in check.

So I won't be posting much during the next month. I will be twittering so please find me there (you can click through using the twitter feed over on the right side of this page). But I'll be back with a vengeance in 2010!

In the meantime, I encourage you to post in comments about other great sites or blogs or articles or any other various inspirational singleness that we can redirect to. I've tried to keep my blog roll up to date but I know that there are many wonderful single writers out there that I have missed!

**The giveaway winner from last week (from a random drawing from all entries) is Stevi! Stevi, I need your snail mail address so I can send you the GO Smile travel kit courtesy of singleedition.com

Sundays will continue to be giveaway days in the new year! 

In the meantime, comment to your hearts content. And I hope to be doing the same. Just reading and twittering for one whole month. Oh, decadent bliss. 

Dang It. I am a Twit.

I've decided to start twittering. It takes me a lot of energy and time to put together an actual blog post but I do have lots of single sentence Singlutionary thoughts through out the day. My twitter account also tweets comments I make on other blogs through backtype. 

So please follow me: http://twitter.com/singlutionary

And please sign up for this week's giveaway.

I promise to start posting regular thoughtful posts again after the holidays.

Expecting Less of Myself (and Giveaway*)

Last week I experimented on myself: I refused to make any lists for one whole week. 

I am a compulsive list maker. I am constantly making lists of things to do and when I am going to do them. I am very detailed. Instead of just "work on the yard" I list out every single thing that needs to be done in the yard. I try very hard to be super productive but often times I find myself at the end of the day with only a portion of my list completed. I am constantly under-budgeting my time and over-budgeting my tasks. This whole list thing also makes me feel trapped because suddenly these things which I enjoy are no longer enjoyable simply because there are so many of them to do and not enough time to do them in.

In an attempt to be more open and allowing things to unfold in my life instead of controlling every second of my existence, I decided to commit to a week with NO LISTS. And it hurt. It really hurt at first. Every half an hour I would think something like "well, I better go see what is on my list" or "I should add that to my list" or "I need a list for that". Last Saturday I didn't know what to do with myself. I kept telling myself to just "do what you want to do now" which was actually pretty helpful. 

At the end of the 2nd day, I had accomplished a great deal of little things. Some of the things I wouldn't usually feel good about because they're not typically on my to-do list. Like talking to my mom for example or going to a movie with a roommate or taking a nap. I also set out beans to soak overnight, did SOME work in the backyard and tidied up. I also found myself becoming obsessed with this Farmville game on Facebook  which may explain why I didn't post a single thing on Singlutionary for the rest of the week.

Of course, I still haven't fixed my toilet or painted the downstairs hall either.

Anyways. I think that all of this is important in regards to wanting a relationship. Teapot doesn't seem to be very proactive about calling me and I've decided to just wait until he makes a move. I don't know if he will but it doesn't matter because I have been plenty busy doing my own thing and enjoying life and doing what I want to do in the moment instead of trying to budget in time to spend with him around my crazy home improvement schedule. In the past I would be agonizing over every second that went by without a word for him. I'd be angry and offended that he hadn't called but also desperate to hear from him. 

So I guess what I am saying is that I am trying to learn how to go with the flow of my own day and I am hoping that by letting go, I allow even more grace and beauty and wonder into my life.

I already know how futile it is to be Type A about finding a partner but now I need to apply that concept to my whole life!

*Today is Giveaway day! 

The winner of last last week's giveaway drawing is: Jenn

Please email me with your address so I can mail your Revolution Tea Sampler prize to you!

In honor of the long overdue teeth cleaning I had this week (it sucked to be at the dentist but my teeth feel SO GOOD now), I am giving away a Go Smile Go Travel kit. This is the perfect little package for anyone who travels a lot and is obsessed with good dental hygiene.

In order to enter the giveaway, please leave a comment and do ONE of the following (if you haven't already):

1. Post my button (copy and paste the text from just below the button found on the right side of Singlutionary.com on your blog/website)

2. Link to my blog on your blog/website in your blogroll or otherwise

3. If you don't have a website/blog, email a couple friends about Singlutionary and CC me at Singlutionary@gmail.com

This week's giveaway is possible because of SingleEdition.com!

Check back next Sunday for the results. The giveaway deadline is 6am Sunday morning. 

Struggling to Keep Up with Singlutionary

I need to post the winners of last week's raffle giveaway and post the new giveaway.

I need to write all the great posts running through my head about my crazy life and my big girl bed and my dog and Teapot and my week of list-less living. 

And I will.

Please bear with me.

Real life keeps taking over.

And I am one of those crazy (annoying) people obsessed with Farmville on Facebook.

FORGIVE ME!

Bored and Boring (Another Toilet Story)

Tonight I was going to take out my toilet, replace the toilet shutoff valve and the hose and then tomorrow I was going to put in the new toilet. This is the last of 3 toilets which I am replacing in my house. The other two replacements were a pain in the ass and a learning experience and are now gleaming white monuments to water conservation. 

This last toilet is my toilet: My daily flusher. It is a vintage throne from the 1970s with a giant tank, a perpetually stained seat and a permanent water ring in the bowl. It also spontaneously gurgles and gushes due to slow leak from the flapper that I haven't fixed because I've been planning to replace it every weekend for the past 5 months. My toilet was also going to be (once upon a time) the guinea pig toilet. It was downstairs, so if I did something wrong (as everyone seemed to think I would), the water would leak out onto the cement slab and the not down into the kitchen. It was also the hall bathroom so if I screwed it up, I could use the upstairs toilet until I found an affordable plumber. 

But when I set out to begin this toilet adventure, I found that the little valve behind the toilet that shuts off it's water was rusted. In order to replace it, I would have to turn off the water to the whole house. That could be a disaster. I didn't know how long it would take for me to replace the little shutoff valve and with 4 women in the house, all of whom eat are eaters of vegetables, it wouldn't be long before there was a major stinky meltdown mess worthy of its own reality TV show in the house. 

So, on this fine Friday night, I was getting excited about my date with Mr. Toilet. I went out to the street to turn the water off to the house. It took me a while to unearth the shutoff valve because it had gotten buried under dirt but I got to it. And I turned it. But it wouldn't turn all the way off. Its rusted just like the one inside. I called the city and talked to a fellow who thought I was a little stupid. He told me to put WD 40 on it. He also told me that that valve is my responsibility, not the responsibility of the city. I sprayed some lube on it and decided to wait until tomorrow.

So instead of spending a perfectly good Friday night on a perfectly productive plumbing project, I am sitting around in pajamas. It is only 6pm. Other homeowner projects on my list include working in the backyard (which ideally utilizes daylight and requires getting free woodchips from the city which are only available on weekdays), painting (which requires sanding and creating a giant mess which I am not ready for), more plumbing stuff (which, again, requires shutting off the water) and getting a big girl bed (which is the future topic of a long overdue blog post). 

It is Friday night and thanks to some rusty valves, I have nothing to do. 

There is no word from Teapot who seems to be uninterested in traditional dating schedules (I can't blame him) and who has also explained to me that he is "Type B" and I am "Type A". He pointed out that Type As get bored but Type Bs are OK no matter where they are.

I get bored a lot. 

But life isn't boring for long. Even while I was writing this post I talked to one roommate about going to a movie and my fellow Singlutionary, Handy Woman called. My parents called too.

*If you haven't yet entered my this week's giveaway remember to post a comment before the end of the day on Sunday. And never fear for there are many more giveaways to come.

Teapot (and Revolution Tea Sampler Giveaway from Single Edition**)

It has been over a week now since my first date with Teapot. I like Teapot and Teapot likes me. At least I think that is still the case. I usually never get past a constricted first date with guys. I know right away that there is a problem with them or with any potential "us". Most first dates make me want to cry and barf at the same time which is why I rarely go on them. The last time I got as far as a second date was with the Porsche driving Pedestrian Bridge Makeout Boy. Either he didn't like the way I kissed or he just wanted to get laid because I never heard from him again. That was 9 months ago.

Lately I've been having a hard time posting because I feel some conflict as a Singlutionary. For the first time in a long time, I actually have space in my life for a relationship. And I want one. Christina at Onely wrote not too long ago encouraging folks to ask themselves WHY they want a relationship instead of wanting to be single. I think this is a valid question. Most times when I have asked myself this question in the past, I have gotten an answer that wasn't quite right and was something I actually wanted in myself instead of needing a partner to fill it: Financial stability, someone to hold the ladder while I go on the roof, someone to get groceries on the way home from work, a house/home, someone to travel with. As I became more and more Singlutionary, I realized that many of these reasons for desiring to couple were merely deficits that I saw in myself and I figured out how to overcome them. I was able to buy a house on my single income (when I had an income-- I am now unemployed), I can always ask a roommate to hold the ladder, I've accepted that there is no such thing as financial stability in this day and age and I have created a wonderful home which I share with my roommates and my friends and adopted family. I have also accepted the challenges and joys of solo travel.

I know now what I do NOT want. I do not want someone to complete me. My life is already complete. In fact sometimes it is overwhelmingly full. I do not want someone to follow nor do I want a follower. 

I have learned to be a wonderful companion to myself. I also have fantastic roommates who I share stories of my day with and who I can tell about getting fired and other disappointments. I even have a friend who I can regale with tales of taking out toilets. 

I have a best friend in the same state and a sister in the same town. I have best friends from childhood in the same city. 

But all my friends are busy. And partnered.

I used to want to partner because I missed my friends and I felt that the only way to spend time with them was to partner myself so that we could do couple things together (this is when we were in our early 20s and they were newly married and wouldn't do anything without their "other half"). But my desire to have a companion now has less to do with wanting to see my friends more often (I would see them one-on-one now if I so desired) and more to do with having the space for a new friendship.

I have space in my life for a new relationship and I crave the growth and expansion that comes from engaging with a new person and making a new friend. Anais Nin wrote:

Each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.

I have always felt this way about friendship-- that it is something powerful and sacred and truly important. I am ready for a new friend.

Why does this friend have to also be a romantic partner?

Because in our culture it is hard to not let friendships fall by the wayside. I already have a best friend and a sister. I have lots of women in my life. I would like a best male friend. And my experience with best male friends is that can be ripped from your life by a jealous wife/girlfriend. 

I am looking for a best male friend/partner. Because that kind of relationship is easier to keep forever. Most of my friends are forever friends. I don't really have too many of the other kind. 

I haven't heard from Teapot for a few days. I am assuming that he is busy with work and I don't mind because I am busy too. I don't have space for someone who wants to see me every day. Teapot might disappear too and then all this thinking is for nothing. But even if he does stick and I find myself coupled, I will still write and I will still be Singlutionary.

There is a Singlutionary way to be single and there is a Singlutionary way to be coupled. Either way. I am still living the Singlution. 

**Today is the first day of my weekly giveaway series. At the end of each Sunday post (yes, I know it is Monday already and I am duly embarrassed), I will state the giveaway item and the criteria to enter. The winner will be drawn from a hat of commenters. For this first giveaway, all you have to do in order to get your name in the hat is to comment stating that you'd like to be entered. I will post the winner at the end of next Sunday's blog along with the next giveaway item/criteria for entering.

Today's giveaway item is a Variety Tea Sampler of 5 teas from Revolution Tea. 

Today's giveaway is sponsored by SingleEdition.com