I hate it, hate it, hate it !
I wash dishes, more just find their way into the sink. I do tons of laundry, but the basket is never empty. I dust and within seconds, the dust is back all over everything. I can spend all my days vaccuming and I still have dog hair tumbleweeds rolling across my floors.
I fucking hate it !
Preach it sister! I spent my entire weekend cleaning my house, and it’s only 3 1/2 rooms. Now that it’s tuesday, do you think it’s possible to even tell that I spent 12+ hours scouring the place? Hell no.
I’ve now remembered why I do it as seldom as possible.
My cousin has a sign in her house that I think of often when I clean.
Cleaning the house while the kids are still growing
Is like shoveling the walk while it’s still snowing…
Put the little ingrates to work, why dontcha? My mom had us doing dishes and cleaning bathrooms, dusting and sweeping and vaccuming and folding laundry and putting it away from a very young age.
Oh course, I hate her and will never forgive her for it, but that’s neither here nor there. You’ve got free labor right there at your disposal. Start crackin the whip, I say.
Ignore the dust. Unless you’ve got allergies dust will not make you sick. Keep the bathrooms and kitchen clean and make the kids do their own laundry. Seriously. Have you ever visited someone else’s house and actually looked to see whether or not their baseboards were dusted? Nobody ever looks at your baseboards either.
I found one thing that helps me is to have company over every week. I also recently embarked on a system of doing one unpleasant infrequent chore a day. Last week I filed two years worth of documents that have been sitting on my desk. Today I reorganized the food in the pantry, because I couldn’t find anything. I think tomorrow I’ll reorganize the food in the fridge and freezer and Thursday I’ll tackle the primary food cabinet. I swear, I stumble across $100 worth of food when I do that.
The kids do some of the housework, my son takes care of the dishes, when he’s home and my daughter takes care of the dogs.
It’s not so much that I hate doing it, it’s that it just never seems to be finished. I feel like cleaning my house is almost pointless.
You could clean something and then wrap it in plastic. Stop before you get to the dogs.
The trick that works for me is to set a timer for ten minutes, twenty minutes, whatever I think I can handle. Then I promise myself I can quit when it goes off. A lot of times, I do quit, but at least I’ve accomplished something. Other times, I get into what I’m doing and really kick butt.
On a side note, I’ve been wondering how you’re getting along, dragongirl. Good to see your post.
I feel your pain. My problem is that every time I really take the time to look at my dirty home, I say, “I’m cleaning that as soon as I can,” then I wander off to finish what I was doing, then completely forget about the area I was going to clean. For example, I was writing some retail copy this morning and walked into the kitchen for more coffee. I saw the state the kitchen was in and thought, “Crap, it’s dirty in here. I’ll clean it as soon as I finish this copy block.” I finished the copy, then wandered into the bathroom to pee. “Hmm,” I thought, “I’d better shower. I’m expecting a client to send a courier, and I’m still in my pajamas.” I took a shower, got dressed, then fed the cats, then decided to work on the copy some more. I remembered the kitchen and meandered down the hall to do it, but decided to throw some laundry in on the way. So I did, then walked into the bedroom to find an old T-shirt to tackle the kitchen in, and wound up absently folding a couple of socks, then a good idea for this copy occurred to me while I was folding, and here I am again, working on more copy. Hopefully I’ll get it done during lunch. Yeah, right. :rolleyes:
Obligatory link: http://www.flylady.net It’s corny as hell, it worked for me. Take a look if you’re inclined. Or if you’re just blowing off steam, carry on with that, too. 
Everyone claims a deep-seated enmity against the domestic Sisyphean labors. But I know of only one who confessed to an unblemished record of thirty-eight years’ residence in a one-room apartment without ever having done any housecleaning. [It’s in the last paragraph].
IIRC, his famous quote goes something like this: “I know it’s hard, but you must find the strength to resist the urge to clean the house. You’ll find that after four years, things just don’t get any dirtier.”
I think that an abbreviated version would make a most excellent needlepoint sampler for a slobby friend… Unfortunately, I don’t do needlepoint.
Seconding Podkayne’s offering. We’ve been doing it around our house for over two years, not always faithfully, but it does work.
Before: dishes got washed when and only when we ran out of clean dishes that we needed on a regular basis (cups, plates, utensils, etc.). There were dirty dishes covering most of the kitchen counterspace, and piled up on the kitchen floor, covering most of it.
After: only very rarely are the dishes not washed every night and then put away first thing the next morning. It’s become a habit now that’s no trouble.
But enough with the testimonial. I understand completely where the OP is coming from. Hell, it’s the 21st century! Where’s my fully-automated house, complete with robot maid and flying car in the garage?
Dragongirl
I once had the same sense of futility concerning housework. Why make a bed when you’re just going to sleep in it again? Why wash dishes unless you want to eat off of them? etc, etc, etc. But then I gained a profound insight, an epiphany even. The purpose of beds and dishes has nothing to do with sleeping or eating. The true purpose of beds is to be made. We only sleep in them so that their purpose can be fulfilled. Dishes are not for dining. Dishes exist only that we may wash them and bask in the glory of their washed-ness.
Truthfully, thinking of housework this way helped me quite a bit. I was the only straight bachelor I knew at the time with a clean apartment.*
BTW, those aren’t “dust bunnies” under the couch. They’re “ghost turds” .
*Yeah, I smoked a lot of dape in those days.
Man I hate saying this but cleaning my house has always given me more tranquility than any job ever could.
If I could afford a maid I wouldn’t hire one, or a landscaper. I worked (and am still) working so hard for this house that I want to know every inch of it better than anyone else. Taking care of something helps to build a relationship with it, which breeds appreciation for it.
Ok, I have a dishwasher. 
…and a riding mower. But still! :eek:
<sigh, grr> Thanks to you I’ve spent this evening typing up a list of my dance CDs. This is not the adulthood I signed up for.
Just to chime in with my all time favorite Erma Bombeck quote…
My theory on housework is, if the item doesn’t multiply, smell, catch on fire or block the refrigerator door, let it be. No one cares. Why should you? – Erma Bombeck
Boy I miss Erma. 
I like housework. There’s only two of us, so it’s a fairly light load, which probably has something to do with it, but I really do enjoy it.
My MIL has been giving me lessons in how to be a proper traditional wife, and I’m having a blast. It doesn’t seem to bother her that it’s kinda difficult to be a traditional wife with no husband involved.
I have dinner waiting on the table when Mrs. Six gets home on days she’s working the day shift, or breakfast when she’s working the night shift.
I would have made a perfect 50’s housewife, if it weren’t for the whole not being into guys thing.
I feel your pain, honey. It’s just so frustrating to spend an hour cleaning and then someone walks in the door and in five minutes it looks like you never did anything. That first summer after I finally found a job down here, I honestly thought I was going to kill Dr.J, or myself, or somebody, I didn’t much give a shit who. I got up and cleaned up the mess from his breakfast, ate, and cleaned on the house, and then I went to work and put in an eleven or twelve hour shift from hell. Then I staggered home and cleaned up the mess for his dinner, shoved something into my own mouth, and collapsed into bed so I could do the whole thing again. It seemed like I was cleaning all the freakin’ time, and yet I never got to walk into a clean room. I got up to a messy house, and I came home to a messy house, no matter what I did, and it seemed like the harder I worked the slobbier he got, because the house never looked any better. He could destroy the whole kitchen making a peanut butter sandwich. It was like living in hell.
Flylady…eh, don’t get me started. The system is a good way of doing things. The woman herself is a smarmy, self-aggrandizing, condescending twat who tells people who are depressed or overwhelmed by having to do everything themselves all the time to stop whining. Her sermons on how perfect everything will be if you just embrace the joy of being the family scullery maid make me want to puke.
My boyfriend is a better housekeeper than I am, though not spectacular. And we just moved in together. Since we had to pack up and move 300 miles (he got the perfect job here) last week, we’re still settling in here, so I’m rather enjoying getting things straightened out.
I expect in a few months I’ll hate it, but he’s neater than I am, so I’ll just have to pitch in.
Love can do the strangest things to people, I swear.
I finally realized that what I hate most about housecleaning in the simple repetitiousness. It’s never fucking done! You can spend your entire life at it and never come out ahead.
So I told the boys that I could work at the house or I could work at a job making money but both was not gonna happen. Everyone voted for the money.
Now Mr. Cotta is the house spouse and I just turn my head and look away when I see dirty dishes or socks hanging from light fixtures. We are all happier that way.