Daisypath Anniversary tickers

April 21, 2010

Direct from the Farm...

My dear friend FarmWife posted this and asked for our responses. I invite you to share...either in the comments, or leave a post on your own blog and provide the link in the comments.

Please share with me!

A Housework Meme Just for You.

  1. Do you have a daily cleaning routine? Yes, I do. If I don't do it, it's ok, but I have a definite way of doing things each day so I know they've been done...even if it doesn't appear that way at the end of the day.
  2. Do you cook on a regular basis? Yes, I do. I choose to cook dinner each night for the family, and I love it. I don't love the cleaning up...but I do that too.
  3. Do you wear aprons? I echo Farmwife on this - I do. Not always, but fairly often. Especially when doing dishes or cooking & especially when I've dressed up. I adore aprons. I have a gorgeous one my mom made me that I wear all the time!
  4. Do you make beds on a regular basis? Yes. Every morning. Even the kids' beds, even though they'll have naps later that day. I think it is just a matter of discipline of doing it every day. Plus, it makes the room look tidier, even when it hasn't been vacuumed or dusted since last week.
  5. Not truly a house work question, but it will still fit: What do you call the three meals you eat a day? We are a household that eats Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner, with the occasional snack or Brunch thrown in there. My grandparents were of the Breakfast, Dinner and Supper with Lunch being the heavy snacks in between...but they were from the generation where most families still worked the family farm (not unlike FarmBoy), or were in hard labor jobs. I'm curious if anyone out there knows the real difference, and why meals were called different things by different folks - it is purely regional, or is it more of a "class" thing - you know, the blue collar workers versus the white collar banker type folk?
  6. How many loads of laundry do you wash in a week? FarmWife and I talked about this awhile back (has it really been years??? YIKES!) Currently, as I'm night-time training Captain Chaos, and we've a new baby in the house that has frequent diaper overflows, I'm up to doing a load of the kids' clothes every day to make 7, plus the 5 of BB's and my laundry, towels and sheets, that's about 12 a week. However, once the potty training is does for Captain (DG is already doing quite well with staying dry in her training pants overnight), I think we'll be back down to around 8. I hope. It is not an issue per se, as my washing machine has an 18-minute cycle, as does my dryer, so I can actually do a load from start to finish (folded and put away) in less than an hour. I also don't mind it since I can sort of forget it's in there and do other things during the washing and drying, not like back in the day when you had to stand over your laundry tub in the yard stirring and rinsing and wringing...ick! I think we'd have done a lot more "airing" of our clothing had I lived back then...
  7. What is your least favorite chore? The tidying up. You know - you pick up the toys for "Mom Clean", you pick up the dishes and detritus your husband leaves strewn through the house, magazines, books, napkins, newspapers, shoes, jackets...and when it is done, you sit down and then he walks in and leaves a new trail from the door to his favorite relaxing place...never-ending the tidying up...the picking up, whatever you want to call it.
  8. What's your favorite chore? Again, I'm with FarmWife on this one. I'm an obsessive bathroom cleaner...there is just something about seeing all that tile and flooring shining and those faucets sparkling at you, smelling nothing but clean...no damp towel smell, and certainly no stinky potty smell from my boys...but it's also right up there with having the laundry done. Knowing that the sheets and towels are clean, and the only dirty clothes will be what we put in the basket at the end of the day...maybe it's my fabulous El.ectrolux machines...
  9. Do you keep a company ready house (or attempt to) or go for that comfortably lived in look or could you be on your own Hoaring: Buried Alive episode on TLC? I attempt to keep a company ready house, but in reality, that means that there is always a pile of magazines near BB's chair, and toys strewn throughout the family room. However, I can be truly company ready in about 15 minutes - time enough to pick up the toys and books, tidy the stack of magazines, change the towels in the powder room, and rinse out my kitchen sink...I know, I'm sick and twisted...but that's just the way I do it. The kids aren't restricted from rooms in the house, but they are also being taught that if they aren't using/playing with something, it needs to be put away in its place, so we know where it is, and so no one gets hurt, nothing gets broken or lost, and so Momma doesn't lose her sanity.
  10. I once heard on the radio that 90% of women clean house like their mothers. Do you? Yes. My mother may not agree with this, but it's still the case. I use the same standard she does, and while I don't do the same things on the same days of the week that she does, I do indeed wash my floors the same way she does, I fold the clothes the same way in every possible case that will allow them to fit in drawers or on closet/cabinet shelves most efficiently. It may not appear that way to her, but I do indeed do it just like she does...
  11. (For the mothers out there) Do you expect your children to help out around the house? To what extent? Yes, I do. Captain and DG both have to pick up toys and books, they help set the table for meals, they take their dishes to the sink, they push in their chairs. They help sort laundry, and they love to help put it in the washer and dryer. They put away the clothes in the drawers that they can reach. They have to clean up their tub toys, they help put their toothbrushes away, and they put their dirty clothes in the basket. Captain helps me with my little D.irt Dev.il hand-vacuum and does the steps. DG helps put the trash in cans. They both love to help mix things, and are already clamoring to help in the cooking, which is tough, because they are only 2 and not quite 4. I have a neighbor with teenagers that only help during their summer breaks because their mom thinks they are too busy with homework during the school year to help out...I disagree with this philosophy, because when are you EVER going to have more free time than work/homework time as you get older? In college? When you're employed full-time? When you're a parent running your kids to and fro? See??? SO...teach them to balance their chores and their schoolwork now, and then, they'll know how to budget their time and multi-task as they get older. I used to mark my study breaks by laundry loads...when it was time to change the clothes from washer to dryer, it was time to take a quick break from schoolwork. I also grew up having chores from things as simple as setting the table to cleaning a bathroom once a week. The thing to keep in mind on this is that many hands do indeed make light work, and not every chore needs to be done every day...so adding bed-making to a morning routine is only a few more minutes of time. And asking them to help empty the dishwasher or take out trash is also just a few more minutes. Cleaning a bathroom or cleaning up the yard/litterbox after a pet is usually a more time-intensive chore that only needs doing once or twice a week. And, as they get older, there are more things they can do, which truly will help you as a parent out. Imagine being able to tell your kids it is their night to make the salad and set the table, or that they need to strip and remake their own beds, or clean a bathroom? How much time would you have to work on something else, like scrapbooking, or knitting, or canning, or just sitting on your rear end and enjoying a chapter of a book or an episode of NCIS?

So? How about you?

1 comment:

Inkling said...

When Farmie posted this meme, I knew if I played along that I was going to say something about wishing I had you as my neighbor so your routine could come to my house. Because that is the only way a routine is ever going to get there. ;) I guess I should confess now that there is dirt on my folks dining room carpet because my son thought it would be fun to dig with the wooden spoon my mom gave him. Oh yeah, and I should confess that it's been there for two days because I've been having too much fun sewing and decided to leave the vacuuming for another day. Actually, maybe I could justify that by saying that I only vacuum on Thursdays. And it happened on a Tuesday. =)