This post over at it's probably me got me thinking about cleaning.
I am pretty much the worst faux housewife ever. (faux because 1. I am not yet married and 2. I don't yet live in a house)
Don't believe me? Consider the following:
1. If left to my own devices (i.e., living alone), I typically ignore the dishes as long as possible. I rinse them off, of course, because although I might be a bad faux housewife, I am not disgusting.
2. I never vacuum. I am really, really allergic/sensitive to dust, so vacuuming, even with our "awesome for allergy sufferers, promise!" vacuum is borderline torture, post-sucking. And yeah, the "never" is a bit of an exaggeration. I typically use the dustbuster every few days under our kitchen table, since it is on carpet, the horror. I also actually vacuum about every two weeks. (So yes, for those of you keeping track at home, I am not only a bad faux housewife, but I am also a liar.)
3. I never dust. See above. Okay, so I dust when people are coming over, but otherwise, let the dust bunnies/tumbleweeds/monsters take over!!
4. I don't cook. I will leave the title of Delicious Dessert Diva to Julie.
And just to prove I am, like, the suckiest faux housewife ever: I can't even think of any more of my terrible housewife traits! I guess I should get back to doing what I do best: reading the Internets while eating bon-bons, while I let the dust monsters accumulate and the dishes stack up.
15 comments:
From my personal experience: you can preserve all of these habits easily even after you are married. :-) If this is who you are, it's perfectly ok, and there is no need to change.
I'm a horrible housewife. I don't do laundry (Dr. Man does this) and I don't like to sweep (therefore, I put it off as long as possible). I am, however, obsessive about keeping my toilet clean.
Maybe there's a twelve step program or something?
Huh. I consider myself at least fair at keeping house, yet I vacuum even less often than you. We have mostly hardwood floors, though, so perhaps it's not necessary to do it more often?
Clarissa: I am definitely better about cleaning when I am living with people. I'm the main housecleaner out of N.A. and me (although he does an insane job on the bathrooms). I still am in awe, though, at how shiny some of my friends' houses are in comparison!
Amanda: Ew, I totally forgot about sweeping... yeah, I don't do that very often. I spot sweep, sure, but I don't sweep everyday. Yikes.
EcoGeoFemme: Yeah, with hardwood, definitely you are off the vacuum hook!
The number one lesson learned after living together with Mr. FAW for a couple of years: get a cleaner because we have different thresholds.
Also, I used to spend hours cleaning up before the in-laws would come around, aside from preparations for dinner or whatever. Now, the cleaner comes a couple of hours every week and I'm way less stressed out!
huh? I thought dusting and vacuuming was the d00ds job. I'm not f...ing doing that ever. I do the dishes however.
If N.A. will do it for you never start! I didn't cook for the first several years of our marriage, and I learned over the summer while my husband was away (a girl can only eat so much frozen pizza), and now he wants me to cook for him. Learn from my mistake :)
I also do the cleaning because my threshold is much lower.
Vacuuming once every two weeks is a hell of a lot of vacuuming in my book. I can't stand to leave the dishes in the sink for very long, though, because I know it's less painful if there's less to do. Also, I don't have many dishes.
And I can't remember the last time I ironed a shirt.
This is a very timely post! Just yesterday I asked Mr E Man "does it bother you how messy we both are?". He said no, I say... kinda. I've been extremely messy since I was a kid (I remember being told off in front of the class by my teacher when I was ~7 for how messy my desk drawer was), and sometimes I have severe envy over how tidy my friends' homes are. But I just really hate tidying and cleaning... and I suck at it too! No matter what combination of liquids and cloths I use, the bathroom mirror is never actually smear-free...
We have a cleaner come in for 2 hours every second week, but I'm thinking that every week might be necessary. I'm forced to tidy more if I know she's coming in!
Cath - my mom has a housekeeper who comes every week, for that very reason...but it drives my dad insane! His stance is that if she's just going to clean for the housekeeper then why hire one?
How did I wind up getting suckered into the housewife position when so many other people seem to have weaseled their way out of it? I do ALL the cooking (though, FAR less now that Husband has moved away... I never realized how little I eat in comparison to him!), all the dusting/vacuuming/sweeping, all the laundry, all the housewife-y errands (dry cleaning, grocery lists, etc.)... pretty much the only thing my husband did was load/unload the dishwasher and wash any pots or pans!
I think it is going to be a tough adjustment when we move back in together... I am getting spoiled by the lack of cooking, less laundry, no more picking up rogue socks from the living room floor, etc!
We only scrub/vac/dust the house about one a month-splitting the chores evenly, but usually when that time comes around we end up putting it off so it's probably closer to every 6 weeks. But in general we keep things tidy and wipe up the kitchen when there are messes, sometimes dishes sit a couple of days but we have a dishwasher so the job is much easier (in my opinion). I think few people these days live up to the "perfect housewife" standard from the 50's. I've had to lessen my standard so I don't feel like I do all the work.
We just visited my in laws, and my mother-in-law irons everything! She works full time, so Sunday is ironing day. I just must wear less demanding clothing, or not care that much about a few wrinkles.
A fellow dust allergy sufferer! As much as I hope to vacuum every day to avoid dust accumulation, it's just not feasible. Thus, I never look forward to the day I have to vacuum because I would be sneezing for next couple of days guaranteed. Maybe dust free houses will exist in the future...hehe.
Can N/A vacuum? I hate it (no allergies though, thankfully), so R gets to take care of that. I do all the cooking, and we try to split the rest sort of evenly. I keep the kitchen fairly clean since I once found a crockroach there (mediterranean climate does have its drawbacks), but the rest of the place can be rather messy... it's not even the cleaning itself, I find, it's the stuff that is lying around and could be moved back to a shelf or so, but we're often both too tired/lazy to do it. Yet every time we do clean up properly I find it much nicer and intend to keep it this way... until the next long day/night in the lab after which we're too tired to do much of anything around the house.
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