Housework

I would so much rather do other things than ‘housework’!!

I am happy to do the household shopping – most times, anyway.  And planning and cooking the evening meal is something I enjoy doing most nights.

But I am not naturally neat and super-tidy (definitely not a tidy-tidy person like my friend Gael!).

Having places where things belong makes it much easier to tidy up.  Thinking back to the first few houses we lived in, I didn’t make sure that there were enough storage places.   I think I also got overwhelmed by the task of tidying up at the end of a busy day with four young children, when I was desperately tired.  As a result, when Vern came home there were toys and mess everywhere... which he found hard to cope with.

I did tidy the big downstairs room in the North Turramurra house at least once a week though(!), because we had a morning tea there every Tuesday.  I can remember being pleased to have a good reason to tidy....even though it needed to be done again by the end of the morning after maybe as many as ten small children had been playing there!

I tried having boxes where the toys belonged to make it easier for the kids to help.  I had a number of rectangular plastic washing-up bowls, and on the outside I drew a shape – a car for instance – and shaded it in using black texta, so that was where the cars went.  But this was only moderately successful.

There always seemed to be piles of washing to be done, and then clean clothes to be sorted!  I think it was soon after the children each had their own bedroom in Westbrook that I gave each one their own named laundry basket and treated each child’s clothes as a separate wash.  This way I didn’t have to work out which socks and underpants belonged to which child!  And as they got older they were responsible for their own washing and ironing.  Vern was very good – he looked after his own clothes too, and even ironed his own shirts.

Once the children started school they had to wear lace-up shoes which needed cleaning.  Without actually discussing it, I waited for Vern to do this – and he waited for me.   It took us a while to work out that in his house his mum had cleaned the shoes – whereas in mine, it was my father!

I have to confess I am not very good at making the bed every morning, nor remembering to wash the towels and sheets every week!  I can remember that when our house in Wahroonga was for sale and we had to keep the whole house clean and tidy – and the beds made every day, I said that maybe this would help me develop better habits!  I am much better at doing a ‘spring clean’ when I move a bit of furniture in a room than following a routine cleaning schedule!

I was certainly spoilt by those years in PNG when we had someone who would come and clean, wash and iron every day....  (When we first arrived we weren’t going to employ anyone because we thought it was the ‘wrong’ thing to do!  But after we had about seven different people come to our door in the first week asking, pleading for work we decided to take the next person... who turned out to be Leo, who was young and inexperienced and ended up being trained by John, who was our neighbour’s house-boy!).  And then for 15 or so years in Wahroonga, when I was very busy doing volunteer work we had Mrs Kim (who also cleaned for Gael) come every week – she cleaned upstairs one week and downstairs the next.  She wasn’t the most brilliant cleaner – but she was exceptionally honest and I was very happy to trust her with our house key.

I am very fortunate that now we live in Wingham Vern has taken on the responsibility of doing the vacuuming each week.  I feel a bit guilty that I am not doing the dusting as regularly as I ought.

But I am getting a lot better these days at making the extra effort to pack the dishwasher with the dirty dishes after the evening meal – most of the time, anyway.  I am finding that I do enjoy seeing a tidy kitchen first thing in the morning....  and helped by the fact that when the sun shines in to our kitchen every single little spot of dust shows!