Undomestic Godess (ness)

For some people it is spiders, others heights.

For me the simple vision of a messy fridge needing tidying or unmade beds needing to be made for guests is outright terrifying. I dread domestic duties.

And it is not that I am so bad at them either-actually I am pretty good. I can cook some pretty mean meals, efficiently and swiftly too. I can organize well and decorate extremely well. Under my leadership, our house sparkles and delights.

I like the smell of clean laundry and get a certain satisfaction from accomplishing certain specific domestic tasks. But overall:

I hate domesticity. Plain and simple. I am just not wired for housekeeping. I try to change it but I can’t. I do it all anyways but that makes for a lot of resentful moments throughout a day, a week and a year especially when you own a second country home.

Mondays nearly kill me. It is the day that I work from home and so I am surrounded all day by dishes, tidying, unmade beds and meals that are supposed to be made: by me. I put it off as long as possible; I would rather do anything than those tasks. They always end up as last priority on me to do list or delegated.

They still get done in one way or another, because I am too smart to live in a pigstie. Most people would rate my house more organized and well kept than most. I still have standards, but it does not mean it is a pretty process. 

There is only so much delegating you can do when it comes to housework, if I could though I would have someone follow me throughout life and just lift things, and pick up things and pack things an unpack things. I know it sounds awful but it is the truth and so I tell it like it is. Thanks goodness my husband is the opposite of this he could cook and clean all day long and LIKE it. As I write this I wonder how he has put up with me for so long.

(I have a feeling I have many other coveted talents…and get your minds out of the gutter..stuff like organizing, planning, loving, making our home beautiful in my own way, and planning lots of fun stuff).

The only domestic thing I seem to tolerate really well is decorating. I love that part. I spend endless hours choosing the perfect vases for my home, the comfy throw covers, the most subtle turquoise for the walls, and the highest thread count sheets.

And then I seem not to care less if the blankets are on the floor, I keep the sheets for a dozen years and sleep with them with holes in them, and never put fresh flowers into the vases. What is wrong with me? Same with clothes. Spend small fortunes on them and then throw them on the floor. Do I think this funny?No!

Once in a rare while I start actually enjoying a little some domestic tasks. Like today at Trent I was making all the beds with lemon laundered sheets and I kind of liked it. I brought a new pinstripped blue comforter we for Chase’s bed that I knew would look so cottagey and cozy in his room. So there in my inner domestic goddess craziness, Chase comes down and rips it off the bed and insists on putting on the one that was sold to us with the house. White, dirty, ratty old an ugly! Yucky! And he says he can only sleep if the duvet part is all at one end of it leaving it looking dull, flat and plain old weird. Oh my……see why I hate domesticity? What’s the point anyway?

So all that to say that daily life can be challenging when you cringe at the thought of things domestic.
Especially when you are a girl that does the right thing and those things include feeding your family, choosing the right meals, making sure your home is welcoming and having fairly high hygienic standards. You take you role as wife and Mom seriously…and you refuse to eat at MacDonald’s more than twice a month. Add in entertaining massive crowds almost every weekend and you have a big, big problem.

So you do it often and delegate often too. You give your kids a lot of chores to lessen the load and you try to impress in other areas unrelated to the home to try and fend off abandonment from your husband. You choose the lesser of two evils and chose dinner dirty dishes over cooking and packing lists over packing the car. You bitch and complain a lot, but it all seems to get done somehow and you are still alive (and married).

Your hope remains that still one day you will write a Bestselling book that will make you rich enough to to find a way never to do anything domestic you don’t want to do but until then you will just suck it up and remain irritated at various parts of the day. You will try not to pass on this concerning attitude to your cheerful children.

So for now you will feel major panic attacks and headaches come on as you tackle pile of dishes, and still have no idea where your iron is kept, but will happily give presentations in front of crowds, manage large budgets, and mediate nasty corporate interactions. You will fear making a pie, but effectively contribute and manage key elements of major corporate restructurations. You will nearly cry when salad dressing spills all over your cooler and need to wash out the lining, but laugh and take lightly major deadlines at work that would put some people over the cliff with stress and worry. Making breakfast will always be more of a struggle than attending important breakfast meetings. And that is just how it is..and who you are. Diversity at it’s finest.

 Maybe I am really a man??

The fact remains however that although you can appreciate the smell of clean laundry or make a mean summer pasta if forced too and decorate as some have said with some of the talent of Martha Stewart..if a birthday gift is to be hid somewhere the best place is still in the laundry machine as it is guaranteed that I will NEVER go there.

So maybe one day I will change my ways, I surely hope so. Maybe one day I will wake up and want to bake cupcakes and ice them lovingly. But for now, I choose to surround myself with others who do enjoy these tasks, and I try to make myself as sweet as possible and appreciate all the sweets they provide me.
And I contribute in the ways I can, and in return, boss them around, plan out their lives and tell them what is good for them.and they all sem to welcome that and love it and come back fro more often!!! It all seems to even out somehow and for the most part….we all seem to be pretty content in these unusual and unique roles.I aim for Win-Win in life.

If you really hate me-ask me to bake a loaf of bread from scratch. That is just way to much to handle ok? Please try and refrain.I beg you.