meme

Be Honest from Jane

Spring has obviously sprung. At least in blogworld. All around us are stories of cleaning, or the lack thereof. Some people hate it, some perople are resigned to it, me I just do it, occasionally. At What about Mom? she's put up a post about home and hearth. And, asking you all to be honest in your answers. I decided to copy it. Sortof like a meme (plagiarism at its finest). heh. (even moreso from me, as I stole this from Robyn! word for word, well except for my answers!) So give it a go.

1. How big is your house? How many people do you have living in it?

About 1400sf. 2 people currently, however we will host the Electrician and his wife the R.N. for a bit until their escrow closes. Also to be noted is that at one time this same house was the home to all of our 5 kids, who shared two rooms and one bathroom.

2. How many hours a day do you spend cleaning?

Depends on the day. Usually about an hour, unless you add up laundry and then it go a bit longer. With just the two of us the cleaning has gone way down.

3. Do you work for money in or out of the home? Do you clean more/less if (now that) you have a paying job?

I am what I like to refer to as a full time volunteer. When I worked outside the home I cleaned considerably less, I was not a good working mom,nope, not at all. I was horrible at it in fact.

4. Are you successful at getting hubs (or wife, my two, dear male readers) or kids (what age?) to help? HOW?

Each member of our family was/is responsible for their own laundry. WE help each other out often by shouting "ANYONE HAVE ANY WHITES (DARKS, TOWELS, etc) THAT NEED TO BE WASHED?" and wait to load them up until all are gathered to make a full load. (When you do your own laundry it gets done to your specific preference, folded your way, ironed if needed.) Dishes were assigned daily, as were other household chores (even when I did not have to work outside the home). We have a philosophy of we all live here, we all need to maintain the house, yard, etc. The "HOW?" part of this began when they were very little toddlers. It was easy then, it was a "priviledge" to help out mommy and daddy. If you weren't a good boy/girl you were not allowed to help. We taught the kids that work is a virtue and also a commandment and responsibility. Some how that worked well for us and the kids cooperated most of the time.

5. Do you clean frantically before guests (your mother-in-law) come?

I used to when the kids were little and the house was a wreck most of the time. As they grew and helped out more, I relaxed. Now the only time I clean like a fury is if I know I will have "certain" people over who I know will judge me in a bad way. That's honest.

6. Does housecleaning/house-messiness/housecleaning-inequity affect your daily contentment?

House cleaning no, the house being a mess yes. I don't like it when the house is a wreck, it literally does affect my mood and if it goes to long I can't handle it.

7. Have you discovered how effective blogging is at procrastinating/blocking out messes?

Blogging definitely effective at keeping me form things that I should be doing, however, if the house gets ugly I have to get it done or I go over the edge.

Now an addendum: I have been asked to go into other people's homes, and also teach classes to groups on how to effectively clean and organize. I am pretty anal when it comes to certain things and when I am working with others I am seriously organinzed. HOWEVER, people assume (incorrectly) that because of this trait, that my house would be immaculate, not so. In fact much the opposite. Most of the time it's controlled caous, a project always in the midst, and who knows what. Living where we do there is always always always dust and it drives me crazy. But, I am still organized, I can find whatever I need immediately (that's the controlled part). Any who. There you go.