Picture it: it's 12:45pm on Wednesday March 23rd 2011. I have just laid Liam down for his afternoon nap. I am cleaning away my planner and other photography related stuff off the kitchen table left over from my phone conversation with a potential bride this morning. I look over at the pot on the stove and remember to go clear away the boys bowls from the dinning room from their mac N cheese lunch. I see many things as I walk into the dining room. Cheese hand prints on the back of the chairs, macaroni shells on the floor, a firetruck under the table with a naked barbie riding on top(didn't even ask), and an empty icy pop wrapper leaking the last bit of unconsumed blue icy pop onto my beautiful antique drop leaf table. *sigh* In the back of my head are several monsters starring me down and demanding my attention: Laundry, wedding picture editing, returning client emails, and what's for dinner. So what do I do? I sit. I sit down in a chair in my dinning room and I just think for a few minutes. What can I possibly do to simplify our life just a little? How DO you stay on top of laundry? How do you keep up on pictures and housework and being a mom and being a wife and being a friend and being a helpful and easy to communicate with photographer? Is there some proper balance of duties, work, fun, and responsibilities that I am somehow missing or that no one has decided to tell me about yet? Every direction I look in regardless of where I am sitting in my house I can see things that need to be done. In the living room I see toys scattered, couch cushions scattered around the floor and sip cups. In mine and the boss' bedroom I see laundry baskets, a plastic storage box of my summer clothes that need to be washed and hung up, and dust on every surface. The kids rooms like the toy boxes had a stomach virus and couldn't make it to the garbage can in time. The Bathroom is littered with moist towels, hair care products and muddy footprints. The laundry room perpetually looks like Zeus himself took it off the house, shook it like a snow-globe and sat it back down for his own amusement. I can hear him chuckling every time I walk by.
The laundry is the one that kills me. I just can't do it. I have tried so many methods it's not even funny(if you even remotely think about suggesting fly lady to me in the comments, so help me, I will slap you). Once I figure it out I promise to write a book entitled "How to keep up with laundry as a stay at home mom in a family of 5 while working another job and making sure that you are not neglecting the rest of the house, the kids, the husband, the other job, home cooked meals, and yourself" I promise, I will write that book for everyone else like me who just can't figure it out yet.
As I haven't figured it out yet, I just got up from my chair in the dinning room and with fresh macaroni stuck to the ass of my pants, and got back in there. What else are you gonna do, right?
on a side note: I have got wind of this weird, crazy, and ridiculous "rumor" that I have given up blogging for Lent. I am going to put that to rest right now, NO, I didn't give up blogging for Lent this year. That would be like me giving up failing at housekeeping for Lent. Might work on Tuesday, but the rest of the week? Ehhh not so much. I'm here and have lots of fun house related things to talk about soon. You know, just as soon as I have time to take some pictures of things and think of something to say about it. Today I am just content to keep grumbling about being a crappiest housewife on the face of the planet.
*sigh* back to work!
11 comments:
I feel like a crappy housewife too like now I am on the computer instead of putting away the mountain that is our laundry. It takes over our bedroom which is supposed to be a good example for our children of how to keep your room neat, but no, it is a mess. I dug the pack and play out of the basement and use it just for laundry so it wasn't a mountain pile in our room enticing the kids to jump in it. You are not alone my friend!
LoL Beth if you were in front of me right now I would kiss you! LoL. I hate that I can't stay on housework. Like you said, right now I am on my computer but I am really only on here in 5-10 minutes increments. I check my stuff and get up to answer another call to duty. I also feel pretty crappy about the fact that our bedroom is always so messy and we stay on the kids about keeping theirs neat and tidy. I honestly don't think I make our bed more than once a week. It's sad. The only housewifey thing I have on my side is that I do cook almost every night and make an effort to tidy up before Seth comes home from work. I hate for him to always come home to a messy house, but regardless of my tidying up, he always walks in and immediately notices something messy, dirty, or not where it should be :-( I feel like my whole life story should be on FAIL blog.
Sounds like we are on the same page this week. Striving to be Superwoman is so exhausting! I keep waiting for the day somebody will take the kids out all day long for the sole purpose of letting me clean and organize, but it's never gonna happen.
As dirty as your house my be at times and as busy as you may be from day to day, at least your kids know you love them and you make time to spend with them. That is the most important thing. Being a wife, mother to 3 young kids, business owner, cook, and cleaner of a household of 5 is an enormous job. Cut yourself some slack. :-)
thanks sister, love you :-)
As I read this I looked around and thought..."yep...my house is also in Zeus' snowglobe collection." LOL!
We dig clean laundry out of baskets for days on end, we wash dishes as we need them at times, and basicially everything is almost always a WRECK. I REALLY clean weekly and it is awesome for that day....next day...everything goes to the crapper again.
The only people who are welcome at my house at any given moment are CLOSE family (basically my mom, Jamey's mom and the family that live here and are responsible for the mess) and people who also have small kids and who I know for a fact have houses as wrecked or more wrecked than mine!!!! If you do not fit in at least one of those two categories you must call before you visit....48 hour notice please or your butt will stay on the porch! :-)
Can I join the club? My house, job and life will attest to what you've said. I had a mild breakdown today trying to plan a business trip to San Francisco for a week (with only 2 weeks' notice mind you) and the thought of what I'll return to....
....and I have to say, the pack n play as a giant laundry basket....genius!
Women who have 2 jobs (full time mommie and the other one) must accept the fact that your house is going to be messy while the kids are little. Something has to give and it is usually the house. I have my youngest son's handprints in a frame next to this poem and it is so true:
Sometimes you get discouraged
Because I am so small
And leave my tiny handprints
Up and down the wall.
But time has a way of
Passing, oh so very fast and
The memories of my handprints
Will not forever last.
So here's to my childhood and the
Cleaning of the wall, for
The next time you look around
I will be very tall. (Author Unknown)
I remember how hard it was, but now I'm alone and get to enjoy a neat house everyday. Sometimes a mess wouldn't be so bad!
Laundry is my nemisis!!!! I have thought that I should put it all in the car and take it to the laundry mat--just have it all done!!!
Love the pack and play idea. HOw sad is it that I began trying to figure out where our pack and play is stored---HELP ME!!!
Julie
isn't it refreshing to know you're not alone? Sometimes I feel like I must be the only one who doesn't have it all together. I understand the joys of balancing everything you are trying to balance, and it isn't easy, not at all. I don't think there is a right way to do it, or a wrong way. There's what works for you- and the challenge is that that one thing that might work today- yeah, it might not work out so well tomorrow. You are an inspiration to me, April, in so many ways. You rock. :)
Oh, and flylady sucks.
Yes It is VERY refreshing to know that I am not alone! Sometimes I hate facebook for the simple fact that all the housewives I am friends with are homeschooling, baking cookies, doing activities with the kids, and planning their lesson for the sunday school class that they teach every Sunday morning. They must be having better coffee than me!
Cynthia-I also appreciate your perspective :-) It's always good to be reminded that they won't stay little for very long so we don't take it for granted so often. That poem made me all misty eyed!
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