For a couple of days I've had the beginnings of a post simmering away in the back of my mind, but it simply won’t come to the boil. Therefore, having just waved DH goodbye until Monday evening, I’m going to go away and get on with an annual activity I both dread and rather enjoy, until the next post is ready. You’ll find out what I’m up to if you go back and read my second post, written this time last year.
If only I could snap my fingers and have it all happen as easily as this!
I'm taking the chance while The Men are away for three days a week in San Jose, working on the house.
ReplyDeleteMy main problem is disposing of the junk as the dustmen's lorry can't get over the bridge to our end of the valley so I have enlisted the lad from the motorcycle shopping service who takes the bags and boxes up to the dump for me - on a hush hush basis!
If rubbish disposal were to be left to The Men everything would be exhumed and returned to pride of place on every available surface.
Good luck!
Try not to get lost in the 'interior', though I doubt you are really as untidy as you claim.
ReplyDeletePut that magazine down, now!
Throw it out, don't read it.
Hopeless I know, but hope to see you emerge from your sparkling house soon.
Tell me about it, Fly! Unfortunately he's taken the car with him and I don't drive our campervan, so I'll have to be devious and hide the bags for disposal til he gets back and I can use the car. I daren't throw his stuff away, so I've put it all in his workshop and office and am now rewarding myself with a nice pot of tea and some shortbread. :-)
ReplyDeleteDon't you believe it, Ray! Since I started blogging, housework is even further down my list of priorities. One good thing though - I so much prefer the blogs I now follow to a lot of the ephemeral reading stuff around that I'm having no difficulty at all this year in putting the magazines and other bumph straight into the recycling. :-)
ReplyDeleteSparkling is still a little way off, but at least I can now see the surfaces that need cleaning.
When it comes to housecleaning, I'm afraid you may now know the worst of the worst. I try. I really do. And when I finally get movement, I usually end up stuck on the junk/file drawer also. Let's just say it is not my thing. And on that note, good luck and have fun Perpetua.
ReplyDeleteGlad to know it's not just me, Rubye. :-) I do enjoy the feeling of satisfaction when it's all clean and tidy once more, but it never seems to last once DH gets home. Sigh.... Still, back to the fray for the moment, before my enthusiasm wanes.
ReplyDeleteI did so enjoy reading your second post, Perpetua, although you could have been describing my own den, with its piles and piles and dust bunnies and all the little notes, to myself, I seem to feel I need that hide between the important "stuff".
ReplyDeleteI know the feeling of enjoying a good cleaning along with the dread. Now, if only snapping my fingers would help . . .
Well, Perpetua, you and others responding have made my day! So I am not alone! Comforting, to say the least! It is impossible to keep up with it all, and I've been wondering if I need to eliminate sleep to even give a fighting chance! I have no answers to the question, but it still is nice to hear we are all in much the same imbalance. Yet I'm having a lovely time with the reading and posting and connecting...maybe that IS balance and I just need to look at it differently! Thank you for that! Debra
ReplyDeleteWow, a year already since that post... how it has flown by, and how I have enjoyed reading your posts in that time.
ReplyDeleteHouse cleaning.... gibber, gibber...have had to do that twcie recently as I had visitors staying over. Have to confess I was very smug once I'd cleaned out the food cupboards though.
Hope you find plenty of 'you; time too.
Glad you enjoyed it, Penny. It seemed a good chance to give a very early post a second airing. :-) Oh, the state of my study seems irredeemable. No sooner do I get all the papers filed and books put away than they start to accumulate again. I swear they grow legs when I'm not watching. And as for the little notes to myself....
ReplyDeleteLOL, Debra! Isn't it good not to feel alone in one's inability to keep on top of things - especially tidying up. :-) I know just what you mean by imbalance and yet it isn't because blogging's such fun and so satisfying - much more so than housework. I still cling to my sleep though, especially because my main book reading time is in bed....
ReplyDeleteYes, a year next week, Catriona. I can hardly believe it myself. We've both come a long way since then.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it funny how doing one of those occasional special cleaning jobs can leave us feeling smug afterwards - a case of look at me, aren't I thorough?
Me time is on the agenda too. I just finished a sock while watching an episode of 'Lewis' I missed first time round. :-)
I am SO relieved you're not a housework sort of person - I find them so uncomfortable! (Being an avoider rather than confronter on this particular issue.) Like you, if I set my mind to it, I can make my house sparkle and shine and quite enjoy doing it from time to time but the daily basis thing is such a chore - there is always so much more to do of much greater interest.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I carry a modicum of guilt in putting housework low on my list and I am now taking a nervous glance around me and having to concede that the dust does need moving a little....snap, snap, click, click...no, it doesn't work! Hi ho.
Axx
I hate housework but I do love it once it's done. One of the advantages of Mr A being away so often is that it stays a hell of a lot cleaner and tidier.
ReplyDeleteGreat minds thinking alike yet again, Annie! :-) The sheer repetitive nature of housework is what gets me. My attitude is summed up by two magnets currently on our fridge. The first I've had for years and it says “Housework is something you do that no-one notices unless you don’t do it." The other, much more recently-purchased, proclaims “You can touch the dust, but please don’t write in it.” Says it all, really…. :-)
ReplyDeleteSnap, Ayak! If only it would stay done. Sigh.... When I've just done a big clear-out of clutter, I can start to see the attraction of minimalism. :-)
ReplyDeleteDon't even mention the word 'de......r'! P & I have been talking about moving somewhere more accessible, but the effort involved in getting the house fit to show prospective buyers around is a moountain far too high! (Being disabled doesn't help, and although P is brilliant at doing things, he is coming up to 80 anf has noticeably slowed up recently - also, the fact that there are 4 other houses for sale in our little cul-de-sac is a bit of a disadvantage too.) I was never a tidy person (sadly for him, P is!) - my mother used to say that I had to take a flying leap from the bedroom door to get to bed!!
ReplyDeleteI trust that the clean-up is going well. Sybille's favourite remark about house cleaning is that, 'I sweep each room - with a glance' :-) Unfortunately, that doesn't make the dust disappear, file the papers away or put the books back in some semblance of order on the shelves.
ReplyDeleteI promise I won’t, J. :-) I’m not really doing a lot of it myself – more sorting things and putting them away, though I’d rather be throwing away in many cases. I don’t envy you the prospect of a possible move, both in preparation and in trying to sell. Let’s hope the market starts to improve a little with spring around the corner.
ReplyDeleteI love your mother’s saying and know plenty of people like that, but I’m not actually a naturally untidy person – I’ve had to learn. :-)
LOL, Ricky! I laughed out loud at Sybille’s saying – definitely one for a fridge magnet.:-) I do plenty of that myself at times, but unfortunately action has to take over from looking eventually. It’s going quite well, thanks, though I have to do the filing tomorrow....
ReplyDeleteMmmm....having decluttered last year, by downsizing to our little house in Hebden Bridge, I was thrilled with how minimalist it all looked...and how easy to keep clean...... a year later.....it looks more like my house again....every surface taking ages to clean because of all the things that have appeared on them. ....and as for the house in France ( where I took all the stuff from our previous home)....no chance. Its good to hear so many people with the same issues though. Good luck with your task this year Perpetua.
ReplyDeleteLOL, Janice! C’est la vie, I’m afraid – or at least it is for me. :-) You’d think that having taken furniture to our little house in France, our much bigger one here would look emptier and easier to keep clean, but no such luck. Being an old house with a wood-burner doesn’t help either. Dust just seems to be a fact of life. Sigh….
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to cleaning, I veer between the Quentin Crisp approach (you know: "There is no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years the dirt doesn't get any worse") and the Kim and Aggie approach, where I go berzerk with cleaning products and dusters. coincidentally, the latter comes around before I've had time to fully test the veracity of the former. But usually only just....
ReplyDeleteLOL! Thanks for reminding me about the incomparable Quentin Crisp, CB. I can just hear him saying it. :-) The trouble is I can’t bear to test the truth of his statement and give in long before. Today I did the filing, which really is a job I leave until I have to do it, and everywhere is looking a lot better, though not finished yet…..
ReplyDeleteThere are rooms in our house that would look fine in Ideal Home magazine and others that are just a complete dump. Every winter - for now is definitely the time to tackle it - I vow I will tackle the problem but somehow life just gets in the way and it's still there come spring.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I was born to be tidy.
Mind you, being married to someone who has never put anything away in his life doesn't help.
Good luck !!
Thanks, Jean. I think most of us need luck where house cleaning and tidying are concerned. I’m not sure any of our rooms would make it into Ideal Homes, but if I can just manage to get rid of (most of) the clutter and have it clean and comfortable, I’m content. Glad to know there are so many others who find it hard to be tidy and struggle with the hoarding habits of their other halves. :-)
ReplyDeleteDear Perpetua,
ReplyDeleteThanks for linking us to your earlier posting from least year. So, you are once again going to spring clean. And your office awaits you. With all that enticing print--books, papers, magazines. Oh, I know the temptation to read just the first paragraph or so. Then one makes a cup of tea and settles in the easy chair and everything else but that printed page becomes as nothing!
If only we could say, "Dust, be gone! Books, find shelves! Papers, find files."
Peace.
Good morning Dee. I’m glad you enjoyed the old post. What I wrote is just as true this year and every year – distraction is the big obstacle to a properly spring-cleaned house, whether that distraction is a tempting piece of print or an enticing new blog post. :-) At least I finished the filing yesterday, which is a good start to sorting out my office. Oh, for that magic wand to finish the rest…..
ReplyDeleteHeavens above! again? Two years in a row?
ReplyDeleteYou'll only have to do it again next year, you know, so you might as well leave it until then.
LOL, Friko! I don't really 'bottom' everything as my mother would have said - and done. Just have a good tidy-up and get things comfortable again. :-)
ReplyDelete