chores

[millysdaughter]

Once upon a time, when I was young and dinosaurs roamed the earth, Saturday was set aside for chores. Washing and scrubbing and cleaning, oh, my!
Drummed deeply into my brain was the rule "you cannot go anywhere until all your chores are done and everything is clean."
(My brother spent Saturday morning just laying on the couch watching cartoons, but he was the boy and boys did not clean/wash/scrub, as that was "woman's work.")
However...this also drummed something else into my head that I cannot break:
as chores - cleaning and laundry and scrubbing and straightening - all must be done BEFORE one leaves the house, I cannot come home and "get busy" with housekeeping matters. (I also cannot delegate, but that is a different rant)
I go in late every day but Thursday, so I do cleaning and laundry and straightening oh my four mornings a week, but Thursday is off the table. That is the day I get off early, so I can go run errands -- I try to save them all up for my Thursday jaunts. Most of the time it does work, but not always.
I was getting stuff done on Saturday mornings for a while there as well, but our schedule somehow morphed into going to the commissary on Saturday morning instead of Saturday afternoon, taking any possible Saturday cleaning off the table.
So in my traditional manner of borrowing trouble before it arrives by itself, I am worrying about next year. We are dissolving at the end of this school year, and our school will no longer exist. There are current openings aplenty in the system, and theoretically we get "first dibs" on the spots for next year, but I have yet to see any of the "other jobs" out there that would permit me to write my own schedule.
Flailing around, looking for answers -- but it is a real challenge to search for answers when I am unable to even formulate the question, much less articulate the question.
What do I want/need?
Do I need to learn to come home from work and embrace the whole cleaning lady thing?
(possible need, not a want)
Do I need to learn to delegate?
(probably, but I have serious doubts as to my ability to do this one. I have never mastered (nor even attempted) the ability to ask the cute guy "can you do this chore?" and I was not even particularly good at telling my kidlets to "go do this chore right now"
The Jesuits were right, you know
All the crap drummed into our head as a kid is there forever)
-
I am also struggling with one of my goals/tasks/items on my KateGoalSheet. To be honest, I am scoring a total fail with this one.
Total fail.
It sounds "simple enough" to anybody else -- neither an onerously hard task, nor a particularly time-consuming one...but I cannot seem to do it. It contains enough emotional minefields to blow up the country of your choice, doncha know?
It makes me cry.
And cuss.
And feel sorry for myself.
Kitchen floor: on five days per week, for three consecutive months, I will sweep the kitchen floor. On one day each week, I will also mop the kitchen floor.
Sounds so innocent, does it not?
Riiiiiiiiiiiight.

Comments

[adoptedwriter.livejournal.com]

I hate delegating. The price I pay if I do it is becoming an evil, fist-pounding, foot-stomping bitch. It annoys other people, and I don't have the energy for it. AW

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

Yes. This.

[kayjayuu.livejournal.com]

So, just a question here:

What happens if something doesn't get done?

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

Nothing, I guess...

[kayjayuu.livejournal.com]

:D

And that's a bad thing? At least, in the short term?

I often find my anxiety levels rise over things that I think are important but that in the grand scheme of things... are not so much. Letting go becomes an exercise in self-care, which is more important in the long run than having a clean floor every day of the week.

Just a thought. :)

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

**hugs**
Food for thought, indeed.

[mattiescottage.livejournal.com]

I agree.

Of course, I understand that letting go of engrained thought isn't done overnight. I have had my own expectations that I have had to learn to release.

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

Some days, my "expectations" are all that holds me together...

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

Aside from hearing random occasional crunching sounds, the only problem with a floor being dirty for a month is knowing that the floor is dirty.

[mattiescottage.livejournal.com]

Ha! I have the home to prove that I let housekeeping vie for its place amid a list of other priorities in my life. It does lead to a more peaceful existence in many ways. I do really admire people who can maintain a good sense of proportion and still keep things tidy. My housekeeping goal of the year has been to vacuum at least once a week.

If you don't already, I encourage you to try to allow yourself to not feel guilty about taking one sabbath day a week to rest from your labors. It is so worth it. When I was a grad student, I tried working through the weekend thinking I could catch up, but I was so worn out and not very productive. I did so much better after I took at least one day off.

Would it work to get up earlier, in the wee hours of the morning, to accomplish your desired morning tasks? Or at least those you could do that wouldn't wake others up?

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

I think that is my problem -- there is no "day off / day of rest" as it were -- work Monday - Friday, grocery shopping on Saturday, the wee ones all day on Sunday.
I need to rethink this schedule, indeed.
-
Me + wee hours of the morning = not a pretty sight. The cute guy is a light sleeper and early riser, so if I somehow *did* manage to wake up and get up at ohdarkthirty -- it would wake him instantly.

[trekchic.livejournal.com]

I've always had issues with delegating but if I had to do it over I would be the Queen of delegating.
One way I worked around getting it "all" done and not making myself crazy was to hire a cleaning lady who came twice a month. It meant giving up some "stuff" to afford it but it was well worth the sacrifice imo.

*hugs*

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

That has crossed my mind. Everybody I personally know with a super-spiffy-clean house has "a lady" that comes in to "help" on a regular basis. Nobody ever uses the words "maid" or "cleaning lady" -- they all use the polite fiction of "a lady that helps out." I think at least half of them have convinced themselves they are doing the lady a favor, to be honest...

[http://users.livejournal.com/_luaineach/]

Having the cleaning girl is totally what helps keep me on track, as well. Not only is it just nice to have the house totally cleaned once every [however many times she comes; sometimes it is once a week, sometimes every other week, sometimes we have to reschedule two weeks in a row so it is not until the third week...] but it serves as an external motivation for me to keep things under control in the meantime. External motivation being something I apparently need because for my own self, I'd much rather do pretty much ANYTHING than clean up and I can tolerate** a pretty large degree of mess.

So, knowing she'll be coming makes it much easier for me to keep things tidied up in between. We got into this habit back when we had an actual cleaning service instead of the actual girl we have now. The cleaning service wouldn't do certain things (like, the dishes). They more just full on cleaned things as opposed to picking up things and putting them away. So, we always called it getting or keeping the house "maid ready." And then, of course, it is always easier to maintain the house once it is done than it is to get it done in the first place.

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

Heard a few odd things about some cleaners -- one pal of the daughter's had a cleaner that would NOT pick up random objects off of a floor they were vacuuming -- they would vacuum around a stray sock or library book, leaving it on the floor.

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

I think bass has a better idea -- weekly is my new goal to aim toward.

[bjbass.livejournal.com]

How about sweeping the floor once a week, and mopping when it gets too sticky? Anybody as busy as you can justify a little dust.

Set your priorities. How high on the priority list is dust? If it doesn't make the cut, let it go. If your husband or daughter can't stand it, let them deal with it.

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

Your schedule would be far more plausible!
(I do not think they would notice it either way -- unless they actually stick to the floor while walking across it, they would not care if it was mopped twice daily or twice annually...)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_luaineach/]

I cannot come home and "get busy" with housekeeping matters

I totally have this mindset as well. If I don't get things done in the morning, it's pretty much impossible to start them later in the day. It just doesn't feel right and I just can't do it.

I really enjoy the planner at Confident Mom. I am a to do list lover and for some reason it works way better for me to have an "official" to do list than one i make myself. It is too easy to rationalize myself to myself, I guess, and make deals with myself talking myself out of things. I can work better according to an "OFFICIAL" to do list. At any rate, the planner at the confident mom site has been the one to work best for me because it is broken down into various daily babysteps that don't feel onerous and yet somehow at the end of the week all the things are pretty much done.

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

I will check out that site.

[rev-mom.livejournal.com]

Hire someone to do he crap jobs. Period. They need the work and you need the peace. You ARE worth it.

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

I just may need to rent a tween...