Why my boyfriend rocks:

He indulged me in one of my OCD projects without laughing. The first thing we did when we bought our new condo was rip out the closets. Then we patched the holes and painted everything white before we installed our Elfa closet systems. But we didn't paint the baseboards because we still had to get the floors refinished. Now that the floors are refinished and the Elfa systems are installed (and most of the clothes are stuffed in, awaiting organization), it still bothered me that we hadn't covered the OLD white paint on the baseboards with our NEW white paint. So Friday night instead of doing something productive, the boyfriend helped me pull out all the stuff along the floors of the closets, tape off the baseboards, scrub away any dust and finally get the closets COMPLETELY painted. And now I can sleep all the way through the night.

Obviously I didn't go home to Iowa this weekend for my nephew's birthday. The weather was iffy enough that I decided to wait until Saturday morning to make a decision, but that would have left me with only about 20 hours to visit the family, so I just didn't go. My sister reported that my nephew seemed OK with the idea of Uncle Jake and his mysterious new roommate coming some other weekend (when he learned I was moving in with someone, my nephew's immediate response was: "He's moving in with a BOY?") so I stayed in Chicago and did something even more exciting than getting hugs and eating cake: The boyfriend and I painted our first room—the master bedroom—together. And we didn't get divorced.

I splurged and got the top-line paint from Sherwin-Williams—the stuff that comes in the fabulous square cans—and I was all set to report that there is indeed—finally!—a paint that gives complete coverage in one coat, but when the stuff dried, it dried in about three shades of shiny. And not shiny shiny (we're not circus people) ... it just dried in a way that lots of roller strokes were extremely visible based on the way they reflected light. So yeah, I guess we're now circus people.

So today we'll do a second coat and hope for the best. Then we have to tape off and paint stripes in a subtly contrasting color. And then—of course—redo the baseboards. So we still have miles to go before we sleep … at least in that bedroom.