Copa

Three showings already lined up for tomorrow!

@hfantods It took us basically all of 2020 to finally come up with this plan. But to be fair, we had a plan — that I’d move into his place and deal with a less-than-ideal commute for awhile — then COVID got real here. Initially I was freaked out at the thought of having movers in my place when we knew so little about COVID, but by June, my worry was about having enough space if we’re both working remote until probably sometime in 2021 and wondering if we should push out our timeline to give us more space when needed.

TBH, the older I got, the less I wanted to live with someone before at least being engaged. Though I ultimately did decide we should move in. I would’ve preferred to rent together first once selling his place was back on the table, but am fine with our plan. I know some people would balk at the idea of contributing toward someone else’s mortgage but meh. If you’ve been saving to buy anyway, you could always do something similar. Looking at new places has been fun — we get all geeked talking about what we’d do with different spaces in units we both loved — so I hope you guys are finding some enjoyment in it too.

Kind of a non-update update in my relationship but we finally have a move-in-plan. Woo! BG has decided to sell his place and it’s going on the market early next week. We toyed with the idea of buying a place together (with some additional agreements in place between the two of us to protect us in the event of a split) but I ultimately didn’t feel comfortable with that. And he doesn’t want to go back to renting unless he absolutely has to. So he’ll buy a new place alone but with my input and I’ll move into the new place. We’re hoping it sells fast so he can put an offer in on a place we saw recently that we both loved — it has it’s own private rooftop! 😮 The current owners have temporarily taken it off the market to do some updates, which I thought was weird (why not just lower the price and let the new buyers update to their own tastes?), but we’ve been in contact and they don’t plan to raise the price after the updates and also won’t be showing it during this time… so this decision, though odd to me, buys us some time. Or, since I’ve been reminded by a couple friends not to fall in love while house hunting, maybe it’ll be another awesome unit down the road. We’ll see! But I feel so relieved to have come to an agreement together that we are both comfortable with. I’m tired of the schlepping back and forth between our places. And as someone who has lived in 100+-year-old buildings for years, I’m also pretty excited at the idea of things like a modern kitchen and central air.

@ktfran My company is HQ’ed in Springfield and on our Monday morning department call yesterday, my boss mentioned that most establishments near him aren’t following the rules and they’re finally starting to crack down on noncompliance. My coworkers there, some of whom live in small towns between there and STL, keep telling us how different the atmosphere and attitude is in southern IL. Our Springfield office is reopened at 50% capacity, but only for employees who want to be there and feel they cannot work efficiently from home. The Chicago office is still closed, though I think our office manager does go in every week, but I do think I’d feel okay there. As long as I’m encouraged to work remote, I’ll continue to do so. (As an aside, my last company also had kinda unclean common areas and I found that frustrating even under normal circumstances. I was shocked when I started there by how gross people could be in shared spaces! I stopped bringing lunches that needed to be heated up because I couldn’t believe the mess in the microwaves.)

I finally went back to my gym for the first time yesterday, which was one of my favorite parts of my routine. My gym was always small group classes only, and they’re now holding outdoor classes in an open field, weather permitting, with a max of six people per class. It was good to go back and I hope to make a routine of it as long as it continues to feel safe.

Happy thread-iversary! I missed the first few years of this thread but safe to say I was going on bad dates with the rest of you. Honestly seems pretty weird still that I’ve been seeing my boyfriend for two years. It’s flown by.

@veritek I’m sorry to hear about your pregnancy and hope you are doing ok. Your SIL sounds like a nutcase, as usual. A screaming match with her parents sounds like something a spoiled 13-year-old would do, not a woman who is old enough to be getting married. I can’t recall her age, but isn’t she like 30 or something!? Ridiculous. I’d probably avoid her, too. She’s also the only person I’ve heard of to act like a global pandemic is only affecting her in this way. Literally everyone else I know whose big plans were put on pause or had to be seriously altered — and there are quite a few of those people at this point — have been pretty disappointed, sure, but they’ve all handled it like adults. Even with a bit of humor in most cases!

And happy anniversary! A lot of our at-home date nights are cooking (now that it’s warm, grilling) and boozing these days since we’re still spending quite a lot of time at home. He has a backyard, so we’ll do dinner out back on nice nights. I’ve mentioned this on the COVID thread, but in maybe early April, we got a book called How to Cocktail and have had fun making our own cocktails. This weekend we’re hoping to do a long bike ride.

Brief relationship update on my end. My boyfriend now seems pretty set on selling his condo in the next couple months. We haven’t decided our own next step — he might buy something new that gives us more space or we might rent. We’re actually going to look at a couple condos with his old realtor tonight. But everything is up in the air at this point so it’s looking like I’ll be signing another shorter-term lease on my place. And I’m okay with that. When it hit me that I’m not going back to the office anytime soon, I got nervous about giving up my place. We’ve had relatively few issues spending as much time together as we have the past few months, but it’s been nice to have my place to go back to if one of us wants a little solo time. And talking to friends who haven’t had that option at all, I’m grateful for it.

How’s everyone else? @Moneypenny? @hfantods? @TheHizzy are you still around!? …@MissDre!?

So one of my friends lives in London with her husband, a doctor, and their month-old baby. In March, her husband got sick with something flu-like but they didn’t know whether or not it was COVID. They had to do their best to stay away from one another in a small condo, wore masks at home and tons of hand washing and deep cleaning. She was pregnant at the time and scared, totally went off the grid for awhile. They just (finally!) confirmed he indeed had COVID. She’s now super curious if she caught it and had no symptoms. I’m so glad they’re all healthy now — baby, too.

@ktfran That’s too bad. We did Alinea for the boyfriend’s birthday last year and it was great. The price tag is kinda out there but it was a super fun experience. I’d go again. I hope you guys can find a safe patio soon!

Alinea is dope! I read they were making a coronavirus themed course that they serve at their rooftop pop-up, which seems kinda tone deaf, but I’m sure it’s delicious. Have a great time!