I suppose I am a housewife for better lack of a descriptive word. I do have an online business that takes up quite a bit of my time making creating and talking aka typing about what I do. But that business just barely pulls in enough money for a part time job. My full-time job... housewife. Although sometimes that feels a bit lost on me. I am not the Keep Tidy type. I make piles, piles of papers, books, yarn, stencils, stone tiles, bills. And don't even look in my Studio when an idea hits. Granted they are clean piles but still not the Tidy Little Lady people picture a proper housewife to be. I do wear an apron when I cook, I dawn gardening gloves when digging in the dirt, but my house although clean, ignore the dishes in the sink for a moment, is not shipshape.
Let me explain these piles in more detail. I am Not a Hoarder. I have watched the show and I come nowhere close to them. These piles are small and somewhat orderly, as orderly as piles can be. They never consist of dirty things, again ignore the dishes, but they are there. My method for cleaning said piles... I move them to a different room and start a new pile there. Is this an issue? Not exactly but it does put the question in the air of what makes a tidy little lady a great housewife? Better yet what makes a tidy little lady pleasant to be around. Would it make me happy to forever be cleaning, shuffling, wiping down spaces, moving this paper and that notebook into a specific spot? Scooping up the random note before it hits the table to put it in is place. No it wouldn't. In fact I think I would become slightly crazy with the thought of my husband coming home to just mess it all up again. I would constantly be on his heels picking up after him as he moved from room to room. Did I mention The Soldier makes piles too? But then would it make him happy to have a Tidy Little Lady as a wife? I have asked this question and the answer, after some thought... No. He says it doesn't bother him and would hate to come home to constantly feel like he is doing everything wrong and putting everything down wrong and pissing me off. So Tidy Little Lady is a bit messy. But my meals are good and the house smells fresh, once we finally got rid of the cat smell, from the cat that didn't live here before us. Gotta love renting.
What's your definition of Tidy?
Do all things have a spot?
Can the house look lived in and still be Tidy?
"A clean house is a sign of a wasted life." - One of my many mottos ;)
ReplyDeleteClutter is the thing that kills me. We are pilers too, but every once in a while I freak out and have to organize my space or lose my mind.
My kids would fall more into the "heapers" category. Dirty things, clean things, expensive things and trash can all be found in their heaps. I don't want them to live a sterile life, but I do wish they gave just a *hint* of a crap about the ginormous mess in their room.