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Tuesday 22 June 2010

Housework Hassles

Housework is one of the most confusing areas in my little world. I do try to keep some sense of order in the madhouse but all too often fail and, worse, feel so bad about myself when I do. The other thing is that I have always had a strong sense of fairness so I really resent that 99% of the chaos is caused by my 3 children and my husband with another half a percent from the errant puppy and his dad.
Let's start with the bathroom. The bath is cleaned about once a month by my husband. At all other times, it is my job and that includes dealing with all the nasties including my husband's leavings from his severe psoriasis. I know it is an awful condition and he can't help it but he could clean up after himself. Then there is the loo which I dutifully clean every day. You can guarantee that as soon as I have scrubbed and disinfected it, along comes a child who does a poo and forgets that little matter of flushing. I have a very creative daughter who does clean her teeth thankfully but also smears the toothpaste and makes pictures on the tiles. Amusing on a good day, soul-destroying on a bad one. I have also had my little one put complete loo rolls down the toilet for fun and usually when it is the last one in the house. What keeps me sane in this room is the daily cleaning of the loo - if I am doing this, I must be a domestic goddess really, right?
The children's bedrooms are a nightmare too partly because they have hundreds of toys so have no real chance of tidying them all away. Believe me, I have bought every type of storage solution and my daughter does attempt a level of tidiness but my oldest boy just leaves everything out. As he is a lego fanatic, this includes thousands of tiny plastic bricks which I tend to stand on whenever I am going barefoot. The other thing is that I buy them far too many clothes so we constantly have "clothes for putting away" work in progress with no end in sight. Then darling Him Indoors will arrive home from work and start on one of his Widow Twanky sessions despite me protesting that we need to put away before we start on yet more washing and drying episodes. Aaargh!
The lounge usually resembles a bomb site by the time the children set off for school. Pyjamas are thrown wherever, there are cups and plates to be moved plus the toys from the night before's play session all too often. Artistic daughter is very prolific so there are ribbons, sellotape and paper models to tidy too. Other Half will have strewn his post here, there and everywhere to add to the mayhem.
The kitchen is more hard work for this would-be writer who should be creating and not in the scream and shout sense of the word. Since I found white vinegar, I scrub furiously and now can clean microwaves, cookers and work surfaces well and in seconds. I highly recommend white vinegar. If I ever do get a novel published (sorry, that should be when I get a novel published!), I think I will dedicate it to the love of my life known as white vinegar, only 38 pence from Asda don't you know? Washing up is a pain and comes in huge quantities in this house due to the 75 snacks a day my youngest son insists upon.
I would love housework if you could do it and gaze at the results. Ideally, I would like to live next door to my family and keep my little place perfect and then just visit them for family life sessions when the mood takes me. And yes, I know that makes me a terrible wife and mother but in the words on a music class song, I couldn't be anything else!

3 comments:

  1. There are 5 of us living in our house but only 1 of us does housework, it's a constant round of picking up, washing up, ironing,sorting, putting bins out, blah blah blah! It's a pain in the backside and I hate it. When I get rich I will pay someone a lot of money to have the pleasure of doing the housework. That will probably be around the 12th of never. :-(

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  2. I can totally relate to your post. And the comment above. It's soul destroying having to be a domestic goddess when there are so many more interesting things to be doing in the world... great post though. Keep up the writing, if nothing else, the blog posts will be a good form of stress relief!

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  3. I totally relate to you! My kids are sooo messy and I am a bit OCD lol. You just can't keep on top of it can you?

    One day, in about 20 years I'll have a tidy house x

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