21 Months

There came a moment this Sunday when I thought to myself "I guess this is what it means when they say the honeymoon is over."

We didn't even make it two years.

But let me back track a bit.

Cody and I moved in to our apartment in September 2009. (He actually moved in July, but I didn't live there until after we got married). I love our first home, we have made it very cozy and have a lot of memories here.. but there are plenty of things I don't like.

1. We live in a cave! Our apartment gets zero direct sunlight, which is a problem if you know me because I LOVE SUN! Sunlight is the best accessory in a house in my opinion. We get none.
2. Our view is the back side of garage. Seriously, that is all we see when we look out our windows - about 10 feet of grass/dirt and then a big garage (actually 5 garages in a row).
3. No storage space! 825 sqft. of living space is fine, I have never had that feeling of "Oh my gosh we are living on top of each other I have to leave before you drive me crazy!" that people talk about. Maybe because I actually love my husband and we get along really well? But we have no place to put anything! It is like playing Tetris any time I want to get a pot or skillet out in the kitchen to cook.
4. Last and certainly not least - the bathtub. I have hated our bathtub since I moved in. It is disgusting and stained and just flat out not pretty. I clean it every week, so it's clean, but it definitely doesn't look clean. And we've tried multiple times to get it to look clean - scrubbing bubbles, magic eraser(s), comet + a rag, scrubbing bubbles + steel wool, pouring bleach in the tub and letting it sit.. nothing. works.

So this weekend I was determined to get it clean. I was tired of not taking baths because the idea sicked me out, and I hated having to explain it every time someone came over: "I promise, it is clean, it just looks disgusting..."

So Sunday we went to Wal-Mart and got a few supplies: Yellow cleaning gloves, steel wool, more magic erasers, bleach, and comet (after we got home and set in, I started to wish we had gotten masks too).. We got home, stripped down, and set in.

So there we were, about an hour in to our project, on a Sunday afternoon, delirious from the fumes, yellow gloves on hands, elbow deep in comet, in our underwear, precariously perched on/in/around the tub, and it hit me:

"I guess this is what it means when they say the honeymoon is over."

And I sat there while we giggled, coughed, laughed, groaned, praising each other for our hard work, and I thought how much better this was. How happy I am. How I would take tub-cleaning with my husband on a Sunday over just about anything else. If this is post-honeymoon phase... I'll take it!

And we just so happened to make a really good team.

Before:

Disgusting, right!? I'm sure you're asking yourself how I lived and showered in that for so long, huh? I don't know either.

AFTER:

Sooo so so so much better. I didn't even know it was possible!! It only took 2 hours (!!), but we finally got it white again. Comet & steel wool, people! Just in case you ever need to know. I will swear by it now.