Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Laundry and life

Before Rich and I purchased our charming Victorian cottage, I lived in a small apartment.  I spent many a Sunday cleaning the entire space.  The floors would be vacuumed and mopped.  The bathroom would be spotless.  All the laundry would be clean and fresh and put away.  I loved being able to plop down onto the couch that night and watch a Lifetime movie surrounded by a clean, organized space.  There's something about a decluttered, neat house that makes me feel calm and motivated.

Nowadays, I have trouble keeping up with the laundry.  Never mind all the other cleaning.  And this is with Rich helping out.  There's always housework to be done and I know I'm not alone in this.  Admittedly, sometimes I give up.  Will the girls remember the skirts I sewed for them or the fact that the house was really clean?  They'll remember the skirts.  Which is why the house isn't clean.

There's a laundry basket in my bedroom overflowing with the girls' clothes that need to be ironed.  Some items were air dried in my room on a drying rack and just need to be put away.  The pile's been growing and growing.  Emily picked out a shirt to wear to school this morning.  She came up to me as I was getting ready for work with the shirt, asking if I knew where the skirt was that she usually wears with that particular shirt.  I pulled a pink skirt from the basket.  Nope, not it.

"Allie has the same one, only in purple.  It's pink and gray with stripes and there's a bow on the elastic."

"I have no clue which skirt you're talking about, Em."

"I'll draw a picture."

And she did.  Would you believe I looked at her drawing and immediately knew which skirt she was referring too.  I was going to take a picture of her drawing to show you but of course, I can't find it now.

So instead of spending an hour ironing tonight, I ran on the treadmill and then I sat on the couch for an hour.  There's always tomorrow.  I'm actually hoping for a really productive day on Friday. I made a skirt for Emily a few weeks ago and I have fabric ready to sew a matching skirt for her AG doll.  I just need to get through some other projects (and cleaning) first.

7 comments:

Siné said...

I think it is definitely worth letting go a bit on the cleaning. I have been trying to get my 3 yearold to help me a bit with putting laundry away. Mostly he just helps with dishcloths and cloth diapers, but I know in time he will be able to help more and his sister will be able to take over learning to fold dishcloths.

Cynthia said...

I love that you could identify her skirt from her drawing :)

Anonymous said...

Why don't u hire some cleaning help for once a week

Katie said...

I comment on the fact that laundry is overtaking my life pretty much every.single.day.

Sarah said...

We've had cleaners on and off. They are on again now - come 2ce a month for an hour and only do half the house. The same half each time. I don't want anyone cleaning the bedrooms or the kids' playroom. Don't want to come across as ungrateful because it does help.

Anonymous said...

Why don't you want them cleaning those areas?

Sarah said...

Well, if the bedrooms are picked up, there's not much for them to do - run the vacuum, which takes all of 5 mins. I'm not going to have someone change the sheets and run laundry or pick up the bedrooms. That's the difficult part.