Saturday, November 12, 2022

The Thing About Housework

 I retired at the end of January, so it's been about 10 months now. 

Let's knock off about 2 months while I was getting ready to head off to visit with my daughter and son-in-law for a month, but when I got back and got recovered from jet lag, I began taking a look around me. 


When I was working full time, I will admit that housework was rather slapdash. Just keeping up with the laundry and the cooking and keeping the kitchen cleaned up was about all I could hope for. It was complicated by the fact that we do have a much larger house than we actually need. If your house is huge, eventually you accumulate enough stuff to fill it. (Unlike, say, bras)

For the last 8 months, I've been focusing on putting my house in order. I keep a laundry basket in the front hall and every week as I clean, I come across stuff and wonder what the heck I'm holding on to it for. I drop it in the laundry basket and every week, like magic, I haul a couple bags of stuff to the thrift store, or drop some books off at one of the free libraries. 

I also get things done like cleaning out cupboards, or cleaning under, behind, or on top of things. Window sills cleaned, glass wiped (a lot of french doors in this house), Woodwork cleaned and polished (a lot of woodwork in this house too), The mud room got sorted. Rugs get shampooed. Little stuff that I just never quite got to on a regular basis before started getting done. 

It's a good feeling. Saying this out loud makes me feel like some throw back to the 1950s housewife 



After 8 months of all of this, last week....

....Tim noticed. 

35 comments:

  1. You are better than I am at deep cleaning the house. I just don't care enough to bother with it and I think the house is "presentable enough" so it is easy to talk myself out of doing it. I can read, play on the computer, take walks, watch TV or waste time looking at videos on my phone of people I do not know! Your first pic would definitely describe me! :)

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    1. I am not great at it. I just have more time. I keep puttering and puttering and it seems to be getting done.

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  2. Tim is a man. He’s actually doing well. But I am confused about you not filling your bras. 😀 (feeble attempt, I know)

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    1. It just made me laugh...he looked around like it was the first time he saw the house. "You did a lot today." Except he had just noticed 8 months of slow and steady progress.

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  3. I laughed out loud at the unexpected bra joke. This is a fun retirement post. Nice one.

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    1. I am enjoying retirement. It involves more cleaning than I expected, but I imagine I will catch up at some point.

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  4. He noticed after only eight months? I think that is commendable!

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    1. He also noticed we had bedroom curtains last night. We have had those curtains for 10 years. I had just raised the blinds.

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  5. Haha! What is it with men! Well Debby at least he noticed, finally!

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    1. He can spot a scratch on a vehicle instantly...

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  6. That is a very worthwhile and productive way to house clean. I am not surprised that it took Tim a while to notice! My late husband was the same--he had a much more global outlook and wasn't detail oriented.

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    1. I am not sure that is it. He is very detail oriented...my details are not his details.

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  7. I have been retired for six years now and haven't made that much progress!

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    1. I expect when I am retired 6 years, I will be caught up too!

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  8. I wish that I could get this place in order... but doing that takes time from Doing Interesting Stuff!!

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    1. And there is my problem...nothing more interesting!

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  9. I've been starting to get my modest but very full home in order recently. Whether I succeed or not depends mainly on my life-span.My willpower for the task is unlikely to improve.

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    1. I am bound to run out of initiative at some point.

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  10. I like that bra joke. My house is clean enough and tidy enough. I don't like clutter, so I don't have it. Once in awhile I get inspired to deep clean. When I was a kid there was always spring cleaning. I only figured out this year that spring cleaning was needed in the old days with wood fires because soot built up in the house. Duh.

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    1. Well we had fall and spring cleaning when I was a kid. My mom went the opposite way when she retired. She gave up housework pretty much altogether.

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    2. In the spring and fall, for a month or so, the angle of light changes so you can see all the dust and cobwebs that have accumulated in corners and under furniture that you can't see in mid summer and mid winter when the sunlight is more directly overhead.

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    3. WHAT???? Mother Nature is in on this craziness too????

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  11. The approval for your efforts was made. Funny bra joke. Like you, much got done when I retired but three years later, not much is getting done now.

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    1. I expect after 3 years, I will be caught up too.

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  12. What did Tim notice? The ongoing cleanliness of the house or the gradual reduction in clutter? I am curious as I doubt mine would notice either - until he needed something that had been decluttered.

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    1. Just came in one night and marvelled at how much cleaning I had gotten done that day. What he noticed was a culmination of 8 months of work.

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  13. I emptied the house one laundry basket at a time, back when I was putting it up for sale.

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  14. I have a friend who is getting rid of stuff left and right. She generally does it on the sly without telling her husband. I tried but I live with a pack rat who just can't let go and he would KNOW what I'm up to.

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    1. I don't get rid of Tim's stuff. He would notice THAT...

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  15. I wish a similar routine like yours could be started here. Keep at it. we need very little of the stuff we have.

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    1. Start the ball rolling. Set out that laundry basket and start putting your stuff in it.

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  16. Doing some deep cleaning this winter while the kids are in school and wife at work is in order. I like to just chose a small goal per day, like clean the refrigerator inside and out, so it doesn't become to overwhelming.

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