I am a housewife - this is true. And, as part of being a housewife, I do - wait for it - housework. I am fine with this, in fact, I’m happy to do it as for me it is just part of the job; it’s a way for me to contribute since I am not contributing financially at the moment. And, I could be doing the housecleaning while also working full time (which I did for many years) so I count myself - wait for it again – privileged (get it, a privileged housewife). :-)
Housework is also an excellent way to get immediate gratification for a task well done and, if nothing else, I am motivated by goal completion (you should see my star status in the Starbucks app and I’m not even a huge Starbucks lover). I do try to keep on a general schedule for my chores, spread out the deep cleaning so it won't become such an overwhelming ordeal (which might cause me to avoid it further by heading to Starbucks for more stars). And, I do very much believe having a clean home helps me stay organized and focused in other areas of my life as well as show my family I care. It is one of my “Life Shoulds” after all.
However, there a few tasks that I just flat out HATE doing. I could not tell you why and there is no rhyme or reason to it. I just hate them. I avoid them, dread them and can barely bring myself to ultimately do them. For instance, changing a light bulb. Can’t stand it. My feeling is not logical, it’s just something to do with the process - do I have replacement bulbs handy (which I never do), then having to get the stepladder from the pantry (which I find incredibly inconvenient for some reason, I climb on counters and chairs before getting the step ladder), then being careful not to shake the new bulb around too much nor drop the old one after I’ve removed it (as I’m typically balancing on an unstable chair or awkward counter angle, it’s a real possibility). It’s just too many steps, so much so that before I was married my husband on more than one occasion arrived at my home to find no less than 3-5 light bulbs out at one time (it was a very small house) and no expectation that I would be replacing them anytime soon – so he would. I would live in close to darkness before changing a single bulb. And now that we are married, there is no question as to who will change light bulbs in this house.
The second task I dread is changing sheets. I find it exhausting. The fitted sheet is always too tight and no matter how often I do it, I always start with the wrong corner (I even use the “remember which corner the tag goes to” trick and I’m still wrong), which means I have to rotate the fitted sheet around, and around, and around. I have yet to master the perfect hospital corner and quite honestly, don’t care. The comforter is cumbersome to put back on, and why on earth do I have so many pillows on the damn beds? I laundered the sheets for the guest bed in April; they are still sitting on top of that bed, unmade, today. I have resorted to purposefully avoiding entering the guest room just so I won’t have to see the unmade bed and be forced to change it. I can guarantee I will not make that bed until the morning of our next guests’ arrival. And once I’ve changed sheets, I usually sit down for a few minutes just to recover.
The last task that plagues me is ironing. The real problem with this is that I love things to be ironed, ironed sheets, ironed linens of all types, crisp ironed clothes, all of it – I just don’t like ironing them myself. A conundrum I know. There is always a stack of linens and clothes folded in my closet (conveniently located so I don’t see it too often) waiting to be ironed. I have to “gird my loins” periodically and spend an entire evening doing it all then carefully choose my outfits thereafter so I don’t have to do it again for awhile. You can often find me the morning of or night before a brunch or dinner, cursing as I feverishly iron the table cloth I want to use because I didn’t iron it after last washing it because, well, I hate ironing.
I can say without hesitation and absolute certainty, I will happily clean the dirtiest toilet over and over again before I do any of the above chores. But then, I’ve never said I was rational. I’m my own special kind of crazy.