They have some really little shredders these days, if you just need them for light duty like that. Some of them are actually kinda cute. I’d like to get a better one than I have, mine chokes on credit card offers.
Which I hardly even care about, I just feel obligated to shred. I mean, why? There’s hardly any information in those things anymore, I get my free annual credit report, etc. Why do I shred them?
(Psst - what I really mean is “why do I put them in the “to be shred” pile?” Because you know I don’t keep up with the shredding. Duh.)
Surely gerbils would take up more space and require more maintenance than a shredder? Although, they would be cuter…
If it’s any help at all, I’m doing very badly here too, which is why I’ve joined this thread. Not too badly on the hygiene front - the kitchen just needs a half-hour general cleanup - but awfully on paperwork. It just depresses me too much, and there’s stuff I need to deal with, but it’s mixed up with stuff that needs filing. It’s a paper mountain. I can’t deal with finances very well, and in general am extremely disorganised.
Boxes? I’ve got boxes too. Dozens of 'em, from stuff I’ve bought setting up this flat. Luckily, there’s a room specially for them. One of these days I’ll put the good ones on Freecycle and try to dispose of all the crud.
Oh, I could go on, but you’ve got the right word there - “discouraging”.
It’s discouraging only if you look at the totality. If you just look at each thing as you do it, it looks a lot better.
My apartment seems messier than when I started. But I know that’s because I’ve been pulling things out of the corners, and I look at the decreasing pile of boxes in the mifddle of the floor, and feel better. (One thing I’ve been doing is breaking up and recycling the boxes as I enpty them, so that I can’t refill them. 
)
I fell sometime last month, and haven’t picked back up. The buffet was clear, now it’s not. The table was clear, now it’s not.
Not only is the house discouraging, it’s overwhelming. I have a lot going on outside of cleaning in my life, and I can’t seem to get a handle on any of it. I hate it so much.
But I am still trying. Right now my goal is, I think, to learn time management. I think if I can squeeze two 15 minute cleaning sessions in a day, I’ll get it. But first I have to figure out how to effectively manage the rest of my time. My thesis has got to come before all else. Unfortunately, it’s very hard to write or focus in a house where there’s no space to work. It’s like a massive feedback loop, and I can’t get off the wheel.
Tomorrow I go into school. I recently learned that the library has a study room reserved for grad students. After I get my work done at school, I’m going to scope that room out for writing. Maybe if I can gain some success in my thesis, I’ll be feeling good enough to get some crap done at home.
Oh, it is hard, I agree. It’s so dang easy to fall off the wagon and get overwhelmed, again.
Today is my chance to catch up a bit, as my book club is meeting here tonight. I’m good on laundry, but the kitchen and living room have gotten all cluttered up again–it takes about 10 minutes for that to happen. My 6-yo especially likes to strew books over every available surface (and who did she learn that from, hm?), and she is fast.
I’ve been skirting on the edge of this thread for a couple months. I was really close to joining last month and chickened out. But today, I decided to take the plunge. My house is a mess, and others writing about their discouragement finally gave me the courage to join today. So count me in. I’m hoping I have the motivation to keep going here. Hi all.
Oh, and btw, I’m a confirmed packrat, so that gives me some extra challenges there also. I always have the thought, “but what if I need that later?”
Bringing this back up to point to an article I was just directed to: The job without benefits (note it’s 6 pages long and wants registration for the last 3, grrr). It focuses on women who not only work full-time, but earn the majority of the income, work longer hours than their husbands–but still do most or even all of the housework. Interesting ideas in there.
I do not personally face this, since I’m a SAHM, and though I do have something sort of equivalent to a part-time job, I also do most of the housework. And I am pretty happy with what my husband does; he works very hard and is starting a new side project, but he also helps out and does what I consider to be a reasonable part of the housework. I have relatively few complaints. I don’t know how that would change if I started working full-time; I know I would say that I needed more help, and probably we would have to look into hiring help (though I have moral hang-ups about that) no matter how much more he took on. I know he would theoretically want to do more, but he does have a much higher mess threshold than I do and I don’t know how it work out in real life.
But anyway. I certainly do not think that a woman who works full-time ought to be doing all the housework as well, but the fact is (and we keep hearing this) that women still do most of it. And a lot of the time, it is because we hang on to it. And it’s not like we enjoy it, (advocate though I am for getting down and doing it) either. It’s weird.
Thoughts?
I got a wild hair last night and cleaned 90% of the house. There was a LOT of dog fur everywhere–I sneezed for about two hours after I was done. Today’s goal: clean the dog!
dangermom, I see it as a territorial issue. It’s OUR house. A man’s house may be his castle… but the kitchen is hers.
Some examples:
Many, many years ago, there was a girl, let’s call her Judy, who’d recently started dating a boy from another town. Her parents went to the village where her Dad had been born every weekend. On the first weekend after Judy’s announcement, her parents returned many hours sooner than usual. So soon, in fact, that they caught the merry couple red handed!
In the kitchen. Where she was setting the table while he fried a potato omelette.
So, the mother took her daughter aside and said “but Judy! How can you do this! How can you let him cook!”
“Well, Mom, he can cook and I can’t, you never let anybody get inside your kitchen. So what was I supposed to do, learn by telepathy? Or were we supposed to eat potato chips dipped in mayo?” (no, we don’t really eat such things, that’s why she picked it as an example)
They got married seven years later and Judy still didn’t know how to prepare even a lettuce salad, because her mother was and still is unable to let anybody inside HER kitchen. Judy’s parents are now living with them and the first time that Judymom was cooking and tried to shoo her daughter out of the kitchen, Judy put her foot down and said “you are NOT kicking me out of MY kitchen! It happens to be MINE!” Judymom has even had to get used to the notion of letting her son-in-law use HIS kitchen
It’s great when I’ve vacuumed the carpets and mopped the tiled floors, cleaned the kitchen thoroughly and done the bathroom…then 'im indoors comes back and messes it all up again. Plus I can’t even begin to describe the clutter that he’s accumulated and never bothers to tidy. Oh hang on, I’ve been through that before!
Nava, I can certainly see that it can be a territorial issue. It just interests me that it has held on so long; many women have no particular interest in the kitchen/household, they complain about their unhelpful husbands, they have their own sphere outside the home as well–and yet they won’t let go and allow (or ask) anyone else to help out. I wonder if another generation will do it, or if it will stick around longer.
Meanwhile, I have plenty to do today, since I did nothing yesterday and the place looks awful. I have lots of laundry, because (oh joy!) the husband and I went shopping at Kohl’s Saturday night, and they actually have clothes that I can wear. I got two pairs of jeans, two pairs of other pants, a shirt and a top/skirt combo that I look great in. Amazing! Usually I go shopping and wind up frustrated and disgusted. So I only go shopping about twice a year, and get almost nothing.
I have to say, mostly I don’t ask “him” for more help (either one - son or husband) because they suck at it. Then I have to do it over again, anyway, and they feel bad because I’m “so critical and controlling,” and I feel resentful because they couldn’t just do a simple job correctly.
I am teaching my son how to do it right (read: my way), but yes, I admit I should have done that all along. And, to make things worse, my second chance child is a girl, so we’re once again going to, totally coincidentally, have another generation of women who are taught how to keep house from early childhood and men who aren’t.
And I’m not sure I buy that women’t aren’t, to make a broad generalization about broads, more interested in keeping house. Even before January and my reforming ways, my daughter was much more interested in watching and copying me at household tasks than my son used to be. She loves to use her wipes to clean up her own messes, to scrub the toilet with the toilet brush and to sing, “Clean up! Clean up!” while throwing things in boxes. Coincidence? Perhaps. But there’s that whole nesting thing women do around the 14th month of pregnancy (at least, that’s what it feels like) and the overwhelmingly cross-cultural phenomenon of female housekeepers and cleaners that seems to speak to some deeper biological urge.
It doesn’t hit all of us, as we women in the SDMB Slob Reform Club can testify, but I do know more male slobs than female ones, and very few pairs where the equally employed male cleans more than the female.
On a personal note, my Mount Laundry is somehow back. :smack: Oy.
I noticed something incredible this weekend.
We hadn’t really gotten a damn thing done all weekend (well, I leveled my WOW character - and we did spend Saturday at my parents with my sister and her family - important as my sister is supposed to have a mascetomy tomorrow)and I said to the kids - “we need to clean the house - I’ll sweep up the kitchen floor while your Dad does the dishes, you guys clean up all the toys downstairs. Then I’m coming through with the garbage bag to toss anything still on the floor”
Ten minutes later, the floor was swept, the dishes done, my husband left for grocery shopping and nearly anything left on the floor in the family room was garbage (there were a few things I saved). I handed the seven year old the kitchen mop and the eight year old the vaccuum and I grabbed the bathroom cleaner. Ten minutes after than I touched up the vaccuuming (not too much) and the kitchen floor (even less, she did a really good job for seven), started vaccuuming the stairs - my seven year old thought that looked like fun, so she did that and I took the duster around the house. Maybe half an hour total.
Not CLEAN, but acceptable.
Oh, and there was nary a whine or a negotiation. No “I want to mop” or “I didn’t make that mess.” They just pitched in. Like “who are these kids, and can I keep them?”
I should add to the parenting thread - suddenly when its your toys that are getting thrown out, the fact that YOU didn’t take them out becomes far less important.
Better hope your daughter doesn’t wise up and suck at it too so she won’t have to do it either.
My mother used to say this about my father and it used to infuriate me. He was a college educated man that had people working for him and he was incapable of cleaning up to her satisfaction? When we were young she used to hire young girls that were slow to slightly retarded from a school program that helped her with cleaning and they were pretty capable.
I’d say lower your standards and get them to help. I didn’t want my son to grow up to be one of ‘those men’ so he learned to wash clothes, iron and clean.
I hope you don’t think I’m picking on you because I pretty much always agree with you but damn! Get them to help you! You deserve some help.
Hee hee! You are so right!
Oh, absolutely men CAN do it. Look at guys in the military! They can make beds tighter than I can and iron and keep things cleaner than I do. Then suddenly they get out and mom’s doing the laundry again? :dubious: Absolutely, we’re enabling them in this behavior.
Yep, that’s what I’m doing. NOW. Not lowering my standards, but getting them to help anyway, and when there are still tumblefurs rolling around after he’s mopped, pointing them out instead of doing it myself.
No, I don’t think you’re picking on me. I think I have agreed to do most of the housework, since I’m a SAHM, and it’s my job. But that doesn’t mean 100% of the work is mine - they still need to contribute, too. Especially that free-loading 14 year old! 
Believe me, I know it’s easier sometimes to just do it yourself. You don’t have to do a song and dance to get it done, and it’s done right. But anyone that thinks it’s easy to do housework when you have toddlers has never done it.
Taken out of context, this pairing of sentences is rather disturbing.
As for me, I’m a hopeless packrat. Even when I do get a rare burst of motivation and decide to tackle the clutter, I can guarantee in three months I’ll be right back to where I started.