We are obsessive listers. And planners. And rethink and reevaluaters. Sometimes to the point that it’s hard to get anything done. We love taking on new things. We get easily board of old things. We constantly need to reinvent everything to keep from getting sidetracked.

We spent the last week or so of our lives taking everything apart. Not literally; the house and furniture are still in one piece. But we questioned everything we’re currently doing with our lives. I’ll spare you the details.

Rather than quitting everything and starting off new somewhere else (which happens fairly often when we get into these moods), we’ve made a few small changes around here and are back to being very happy.

The biggest one amounts to a division of labor. I am in charge of outside of the house, including the garden, the chickens, the honeybees, the yard. K is in charge of inside of the house, including renovations, maintenance, the cats, and most never ending housework. Little Alexander is still a shared enterprise, as is cooking, and we plan on recruiting each other as help on bigger projects in both of our separate realms.

This means when I go inside at the end of a long day working outside, I do not feel overwhelmed by all that needs done with the house; K is on it. This means I get to show K all that I’ve done outside in a day; she can be impressed, and I can feel a sense of personal accomplishment. And vice versa.

When we moved out here, we were really excited to get to spend all our time together and to work on everything together. And while we both love never being out of earshot of each other, as it turns out, we’re happier with a little more independence. And now that we’re both not so overwhelmed by being jointly in charge of everything, we’re getting lots more done.