Losing Control

This morning, I woke up having recovered from a particularly difficult day at work which led to a particularly happy happy hour. Dehydrated as I was from the three vodka-tonics I’d had the evening before, I groggily wandered into the kitchen to get some water. When I looked around I realized that I’d lost control.

There were dirty dishes on the counter tops, a pile of clean clothes on the couch waiting to be folded; miscellaneous papers, boxes, receipts, and a couple winter coats lying on the dining room table; and an air of general dust and untidiness hung about the room.

After all the hard work I’d been doing to keep my apartment clean, Husband finally pitching in, at some point in the last week I must have gotten overwhelmed and let go. I couldn't’t tell you exactly when I stopped bothering. I think it must have happened gradually. I probably gave up somewhere between being extraordinarily busy at work, and realizing I’d gained twenty pounds and declaring I would go on a diet.

So here I am, back where I started at the end of 2008: fat, in frumpy jeans, a tee shirt, and fleece pullover, hair a mess and pulled back into a ponytail, and sitting in a messy apartment.
But, as I repeated so many times in Mr. Thomson’s high school drama class, “Yes, yes, I am hemmed in on every side, but don’t imagine all my battles lost.” I’m determined to get back in control. This weekend I will get my apartment shining again, and in the meanwhile, I’m going to continue following the diet I started last weekend, and one day I will live within 30 minutes of my office and all these things will be 100% easier.

Wisdome of our Elders

My grandmother, whom I call Mockie, is the poster child for "Better Homes and Gardens," or any other housekeeping tome. Her humble single-story home in Georgia is always immaculate. The garden bursts with perennial flowers every spring; tantalizing scents drift out of her kitchen; and the woman literally vacuums the floors every day. (Am I the only person who thinks that's nuts? I had a roommate once who insisted on vacuuming every day, and I'd be like "um...you vacuumed yesterday...")



Mockie is also the matriarch of a very large extended family with four generations living today. She and my grandfather (may he rest in peace) raised four boys who grew up to be the kind of men you would be happy for your daughter to marry (just ask their mothers-in-law!)



I recently asked her (along with a few other women who have influenced the woman that I have become) how she thinks a homemaker can relate to the Feminist movement. "When I was younger I probably was not ,or did not think of myself as a feminist, there was no such thing at that time," she told me.



She married my Grandad in 1948, a time when America was still rejoicing over the end of the hardships caused by World War II. Women who had joined the workforce while their husbands and sons were fighting in Europe and the Pacific were now returning to their traditional roles as homemakers. "I loved your grandfather, always thinking that if he made the living it was my duty to do my household responsibilities: washing, ironing, cooking, cleaning, and rearing four sons."



I've just finished reading the first chapter of Betty Friedan's iconic manifesto, "The Feminine Mystique," where the author describes how women of this era did not feel fulfilled by homemaking alone but were unable to voice their trouble, thinking that their feelings were unjustified. It is possible that my grandmother felt this way too. She said that she sometimes felt resentful when my grandfather spent his weekends away from the house playing golf, leaving her to look after the boys for a sixth and maybe seventh day that week. "But as the boys grew . . . we began to join him, swimming and picnicking."



"Now I realize that I probably evolved as a feminist," Mockie said, "When our son's married I made it plain to them that as long as their wives worked, and contributed to the income, it was their responsibility to do their part in the household duties and the rearing of the children. "



Husband and I do work together to maintain our home. In fact, recently as I've been making more than my usual effort to keep our apartment tidy, he has been more eager to help out.



Husband and I have only been married for a few months, but we are already learning what Mockie told me about marriage: "It is not easy. It is not always perfect, there will be good times sometimes not so good, but the good outweigh the bad. It takes a lot of working together to make it work."



She finished by telling me that she is "no authority on marriage," but I think the almost 60 years that she and my Grandad spent together speak for themselves.

How I Spent My Saturday Afternoon

This is what my bathroom usually looks like:

This is what it looks like today:

I bought this little cabinet at Target:

I stored my cleaning supplies in it for easy access, because I plan to maintain the current status of my bathroom.

Pay no attention to the man--er--mess behind the curtain!

I'm saving the shower and tub for tomorrow. . .

My Shiny Sink

I decided to get a head-start on my first resolution this evening.

When I told my mother I wanted to work toward keeping my apartment neat and tidy, she pointed me toward the FLYLady's method. The first step, according to FLYLady is to "shine your sink."

When I got home this evening, I got right to work following the sink-shining instructions. I'm sorry, I forgot to take a before photo, but picture a sink full of dishes, coated in grime, and speckled with red candle wax from an incident a couple weeks ago.

This is what my sink looks like now:




The FLYLady was right! My shiny sink literally puts a smile on my face.

Little Help?

Husband and I raised our voices to each other yesterday.

You see, I was running around the apartment trying to tidy up so that I could make a huge mess later with all the baking I had planned for that afternoon.

Have you ever noticed that if you're running around tidying up, and someone else is sitting and doing something more relaxing that it gives you just a little twinge of resentment? Well I was feeling that little twinge for the last week or so, and yesterday it started to grow.

And when I went to do the dishes (the task that I hate above all others) I found the proverbial hair that broke the proverbial camel's back. It was a large dirty bowl filled with dirty water, and a plate sitting inside of the bowl and neatly sealing it off.

"Husband, can you come here a second? I want to show you something," I said in a fake-sweet tone. I walked over to the door of "his room" and beckoned with one finger.

"If you're going to complain about something I do that bothers you can I complain about all the things that you do that bother me?" He said as he reluctantly got up out of his chair.

I pointed out the plate-in-bowl issue and he looked at me like I'd lost my mind. "I just really hate when you do that," I said, "It's hard to get it out."

He then picked up the bowl and tipped it over so that the water came pouring out and the plate went with it. "Was that so hard?"

"Well, I just want a little help around here! You complain that I never do the dishes, so you could at least make it easier for me when I do!"

"No, you just think it's slavery if you have to do the dishes once a week!"

"I've done the dishes four times this week!" (Yes, I had been counting.)

"Then the dishes are getting done twice a day!"

It went on like that for about five minutes. The point is this: how is it possible that I feel like I'm the only one who does any work around the house, and he also feels like he's the only one who does any work around the house? I would really love to have a third party fly-on-the wall observe us and determine who actually does "all the work around the house."

But then again, Husband would probably get angry when that third party points out that I was right and he was wrong. ;)

I want to be a neat freak.

It's been my mid-years resolution, and I started early last summer. Mother stopped by my apartment and, as usual, was horrified by the state of it. She offered to stay and help me tidy up. We ended up spending all afternoon just overhauling the place: scrubbing the floors, doing laundry, organizing the closets, etc. When we were finished and I looked around at my beautiful apartment I promised myself I'd keep it that way.

It's been an uphill battle.

You see, husband and I have different ideas about what "clean" means. To my husband, clean means disinfected, not germy, not dirty, not gross. He doesn't like dishes in the sink or scum in the bathroom.

To me, clean means tidy, uncluttered, looking nice.

So, if husband has piles of dirty laundry on the floor, unless its really dirty laundry, it doesn't bother him, but it drives me nuts! But I don't mind leaving my dishes from dinner in the sink overnight, and husband gets irritated at me for that.

So if I want to have an apartment that is my idea of clean, I need to teach my husband to help me out with some of the little things, like hanging his towel back up when he gets out of the shower, or putting his dirty clothes in the basket.

So far, I've been unable to get through to him. How am I ever going to become the next Martha Stewart (don't hate, I love her!) if my husband can't make the bed when he gets up in the morning?

P.S. I just did a spell-check on this post and discovered that the word "apartment" only has one P. I've been spelling it with two Ps for AGES!