BC so exciting to be planning for a new place!!! I put some cork flooring in my bedroom and while it is delightful to walk on barefoot it also dings and scrapes *really* easily. And I sealed it very very thoroughly...so even with glides on furniture you wouldn't want to be dragging heavy furniture across it. I went with some super discounted click lock laminate flooring from Lumber Liquidators. While i hate laminate on general principle, it's amazing stuff. Utterly resilient (dropped a hammer claw side down from the top of a ladder--not a mark) and so very easy to keep clean. I hate carpeting with a vengeance (allergens, the hassle of vacuuming, cats) so my only real quandry was what kind of flooring surface to go with. I'm very happy with the click lock laminate which was also insanely easy to install. Most places you buy from should offer pretty good installation rates, or a general handyman. The guy doing my bathroom remodel loaned me his kit for floor installation, so i expect just about any handy-person either has already done some floor installation or can figure it out easily. My Dad did mine and he has a PhD in contemp English lit...not so much of a DIY dude.

Newer blackout curtains are quite good stuff and don't have to look hideous. Nothing is as effective as taping tinfoil to the window or shoving in styrofoam, but the curtains definitely look nicer if you care about what the neighbors think.

Smonster, I hope things look better to you when you wake up today.

Wow, I could do with more sleep. Three insecure cats in my house = a lot of incessant miaowing at about 4am. After finding one of them fighting with a neighbour's cat in the garden at midnight.

I know from past experience, my crutch can sometimes trip on that. Sounds crazy, I know.

Nope. We took up (almost) all the carpet in our house for the similar reasons (and because of The Girl’s dust allergies). I get along much better with a carpet-free surface. Your place looks great, omnis! Great view.

I never thought I would end up with a guy 5 years younger than me -- didn't discount it, just seemed more likely that I would suit someone my age or a little older.

I didn’t have any views on this, really, but it was still a little weird to start dating The Girl and find out she was five years younger than me. Less weird now (although I do get a bit mad when I remember she’s *still* in her twenties. That’s just not fair). But 16 years would have made me think hard about whether it could work. I know people with that kind of age difference who have made it work fine, but I teach students where there’s less of an age gap, and it would feel odd. But I can also see that it’s less likely to bother other people.

Thinking of you, smonster.

My wife is 19 years younger than me. We saw each other at conferences for years and became friends, but the age difference was a little disconcerting. At some point somewhere in the south of France we sat across the table from each other and said "Look, its already been five years, are we going to waste another five?" We didn't. Four years later we were married, had found jobs at the same university, and had two kids. Glad we had that talk.

Aw, that's a great story, Rick.

I can imagine dating someone much younger than me, but not someone a whole lot older (Like >10 years). I don't know if it's because I'm immature or if I'm a dirty old lady.

My husband was 15 years older than me and it was really right for us.

There was the occasional "Is this your dad?" but that was mainly because I looked impossibly young until I was about 35.

If I'm honest, I was always the adult in that relationship, regardless of chronology.

It makes me a teeny bit sad that, having heard this from a facebook connection, the DEXH does not want me to see him be 'old'. We were friends for a long time after we weren't married any longer. It's too ironic and bit of too bad that age was never an issue at the beginning, but is here at the end.

My mother is 62, and her husband is now 80 (they got together when she was about 40). He was quite energetic and vigorous until the last couple of years (didn't retire until 75 and then only because of nerve problems making him unable to have the precise control necessary for dentistry), but now he is clearly aging (although still energetic enough that they are in Prague as I type.) She worries about him a LOT now, and sometimes finds herself thinking, "why am I sitting around with these old people?" when they are with a group of his age-mates from their church.

TCG is 10 years older than me, which was never a big deal for either of us, and as far as health and energy are concerned, he certainly has the advantage.

My parents sent me a family genealogy recently, and it was intersting to see how many of my male ancestors had children late in life.

People from the rural population around here often submit pictures to the newspaper showing five generations at one time: baby, parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-great-grandparents.

It's hard to imagine that with my toddlers. They have a great-great-grandfather who was born in 1844. Chances of a photo-opp are slim.

"why am I sitting around with these old people?"

I had a conversation with my mom recently about how neither of us really believes that golf is a real thing that people choose to do - I tend to think it's a sport for fictional people and she thinks it's something for old people to do. Like drinking hard liquor. And since she doesn't do either of those things, she's not old.

Which reminded both of us of how my great-grandmother always complained about living at the retirement home because it was full of old people. She was in her 90s at the time and those "old people" were all younger than her, strictly speaking.