It is Tuesday. I am ashamed to say that I have fallen behind with the ironing and (yet again) forgotten to put the bins out. There is a vintage Fisher Price Playschool alongside a complicated arrangement of lego people on the living room floor, a smudge of goodness knows what on the kitchen counter that will not be budged by organic means alone, a trail of spidermen I am forbidden to move climbing up the stairs and two unmade beds flouting my blatant neglect all over the bedroom floors. (And let's not even discuss the bathroom unless you are made of industrial strength stuff...)
Somebody string me up and whip me. Or blame the curl dangling right down the middle of my forehead, compromising my chances of being a good housewife, because
when she was good, she was very very good and when she was bad, she was horrid
It's one of those days. I am officially horrid and obliged to confess my domestic misdemeanors to those of you I am certain, live in puttery pretty palaces and would never dream of standing at the bottom of the stairs and chucking stuff upwards to save your legs...
I blame the blogosphere. Is it just me or is the internet a dangerous place as far as housewifely guilt goes? One prowls around the blogs of many a vintage lovely and comes away wanting... chocolate and a hug from your Mum and life before kids, and a house in California and a dog called Pooch and that cherry red coffee table and her way with a glue gun and a pile of old postcards...
Life in your own little grey house seems dull and suburbanely and dare I say it, a little dusty in compaison. You project all manner of layers of perfection upon the shoulders of your fellow bloggers. You make excuses for yourself. You suffer from the kind of bloggery envy you would never dare confess in polite company. You feel, oh isn't it just downright awful, a little ashamed.
And though you know it is a nonsense, that even Martha Stewart must have her secret slovenly habits, you rather wish someone would declare a housekeeping amnesty for just one day and one by one stand up and be counted in the Horrid Housewife stakes.
I, Wilma of Wigan, only change my pillowcases every six weeks.
I, Cara of Cleethorpes, bake fairy cakes every Tuesday morning and eat them all before the kids get home from school.
I, Doris of Dagenham, take pretty pictures in the only tidy room in the house.
I, Alison of Aughton, am thoroughly ashamed of myself. But I will go and apologise to Bertha the Goddess of Baking Powder, attack that nasty stain with new found vigour and resolve to keep my envy in check when I wander round the lovely little village of Blogsville.
It is Tuesday. I am ashamed to say that I have fallen behind with the ironing and (yet again) forgotten to put the bins out. There is a vintage Fisher Price Playschool alongside a complicated arrangement of lego people on the living room floor, a smudge of goodness knows what on the kitchen counter that will not be budged by organic means alone, a trail of spidermen I am forbidden to move climbing up the stairs and two unmade beds flouting my blatant neglect all over the bedroom floors. (And let's not even discuss the bathroom unless you are made of industrial strength stuff...)
Somebody string me up and whip me. Or blame the curl dangling right down the middle of my forehead, compromising my chances of being a good housewife, because when she was good, she was very very good and when she was bad, she was horrid
It's one of those days. I am officially horrid and obliged to confess my domestic misdemeanors to those of you I am certain, live in puttery pretty palaces and would never dream of standing at the bottom of the stairs and chucking stuff upwards to save your legs...
I blame the blogosphere. Is it just me or is the internet a dangerous place as far as housewifely guilt goes? One prowls around the blogs of many a vintage lovely and comes away wanting... chocolate and a hug from your Mum and life before kids, and a house in California and a dog called Pooch and that cherry red coffee table and her way with a glue gun and a pile of old postcards...
Life in your own little grey house seems dull and suburbanely and dare I say it, a little dusty in compaison. You project all manner of layers of perfection upon the shoulders of your fellow bloggers. You make excuses for yourself. You suffer from the kind of bloggery envy you would never dare confess in polite company. You feel, oh isn't it just downright awful, a little ashamed.
And though you know it is a nonsense, that even Martha Stewart must have her secret slovenly habits, you rather wish someone would declare a housekeeping amnesty for just one day and one by one stand up and be counted in the Horrid Housewife stakes.
I, Wilma of Wigan, only change my pillowcases every six weeks.
I, Cara of Cleethorpes, bake fairy cakes every Tuesday morning and eat them all before the kids get home from school.
I, Doris of Dagenham, take pretty pictures in the only tidy room in the house.
I, Alison of Aughton, am thoroughly ashamed of myself. But I will go and apologise to Bertha the Goddess of Baking Powder, attack that nasty stain with new found vigour and resolve to keep my envy in check when I wander round the lovely little village of Blogsville.
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17 comments:
I love the new site Alison x
...and now I feel just a little less guilty about the fact I glossed over the mess yesterday by putting out a vase of pussy willow to draw the eye away!!
I am using Toby crawling (backwards) and work as an excuse but truth is I am not doing it all very well at the moment ;)
Yep,I hear you!this comes under the 'nobody told me there would be days like these' category,which includes lying on the sofa eating chocolate whilst watching a keep fit dvd,going through the ironing basket and only ironing things that are really badly creased,stuffing things in drawers,eating cooking chocolate whilst in the grip of relentless pmt,dont worry it will pass!
@ Gena... yey for someone willing to admit to snaffling the cooking chocolate when all other supplies are diminished!
and @ Ouissi... baby days (and the wonder that is the backwards crawl) are too short to waste on housekeeping aren't they?x
I will leave my pride at the door and confess as well. Stacks of papers "to be filed" or whatever in the study. Laundry still in the luggage from last week's trip which won't be done b/c I'm packing again for another business trip this week. Dishes here and there that will also be left while I'm away. Travel is a convenient excuse but really, I'd rather be curled up in a cozy, clean house on a puttery type of day.
Hooray that someone else chucks things up the stairs. I honestly thought it was just me! When my daughter was younger we had a constant trail of My Little Ponies in various stages of an eternal "race" on our stairs. Now, however, it is the eternal journey of shoes, toys and books making their way up the stairs! Re the stain on the worktop, if it is something crusty (most often in ours it is dried up porridge on the table), pour some boiling water on a cloth and sit it on the stain for a while. If it is anything more complicated than that, cover it with a plate of yummy biscuits and pretend it has vanished!
they are indeed Alison ;)
and i thought I was the only one who had eaten chocolate whilst watching keep fit, and telling myself I would start after the packet was gone and out of the house forever...
;D
I love the new site, too, Alison! It's just beautiful.
My friend gave me a great hint for next year, when I want to post Christmas pictures of my home--as she cleans each room and decorates, she takes a picture *right then*---for some of us, all of our rooms are never clean at the same time, so when it's time to post pics, she has a picture of each clean, decorated room (even if they are all trashed by then, LOL!)...
:)
Katherine
The new site is just as scrumptious as the old. Heavens I haven't used that word in ages - here in the US they look at me funny anyway so I may as well.
I must admit that while I don't chuck things up the stairs, I do put the upstairs items on the bottom stair, and only take them up when I can't hurdle the three full stairs without serious risk of a groin injury...
Yep, loving the new site! It loads much quicker too :)
Well, here I was feeling bad about myself because of the dirty dishes on the kitchen counter and the pile of laundry at the bottom of the stairs.
We all have those days where we get sucked into the interwebs and get nothing else done.
Lurve the new site!
I think I am also in love with the new site Alison!
Clean, Crisp and Uncluttered.
A lovely start to the new year.
Fleur
Hmmm.....and I have just eaten some of the gluten free xmas pudding (that didn't get eaten at xmas, in fact, never does - why do I buy xmas pudding?) with thick Guernsey cream for BREAKFAST - and I hadn't even got to this site yet!!! How apt for this post!!
I'm afraid to own up to not just having the ODD day where everything isn't quite the modicum of perfection. These days I never seem to get it all quite right! As I sit here, my beds are unmade (but airing, is my excuse!) The spare room is still the place where all homeless Xmas gifts, mags etc have gone to hang around like an airport waiting lounge, my daughters room is a TIP and I'm torn between convincing myself it's not my problem, she should learn responsibility and then feeling bad she has less free time to do it in than me....., my bathroom would be condemned by Kim and Aggy, I can't do any more washing until the mass of ironing that I've let accumulate since Xmas is out of the way (it's always the job that gives if there is something else to do - anything at all....alphabetising Cd's, fixing fairy lights up - anything!!), muddy cat foot prints need mopping off floors, and I can't just keep shutting the office door in the hope all the piles of papers and the dust around them will disappear.....
But I wonder who is pressurising us to feel bad about all these things? My friends and family still seem to see only immaculate perfection when they come round my house (ok, so I do blindfold them at the front door....ha ha) and it perplexes me. Or is it just how 'normal' people live??!!! The happiest most relaxed people I know don't sweat the small stuff like household perfection - and they have houses that are perfectly fine and where everyone is comfortable to hang out. I wish I could relinquish the guilt, then there wouldn't be a problem would there?!
I also throw things up the stairs - the most distressing ones (cruel?) being my daughters cuddly toys, with her waiting to catch at the top, which don't quite make it and bump and bounce all the way back down again...several times...!!
Oh, and my Xmas decs didn't come down until this Monday.....I'm a rebel me.....
Ooh, I'm ashamed to say I got so carried away with my post, I completely forgot to add my congratulations to you Alison for the new website - I LOVE the new design, and it is a bit French as someone elsewhere has said! I'm still at the investigating and familiarising myself stage!
And, trust me, one day soon you will really miss the toy scenarios staged around the house, even if you don't believe it now. It's a very sad day when you suddenly realise your child has grown up and you will no longer see Barbie and her ad-hoc haircut dangling from a cracker-gift parachute off the bannisters.... or get to quietly amuse yourself by making rude words out of the foam letters in the bath.... now, instead of having a sneaky play I have to do boring things like ironing....sometimes...
xx
Congratulations on the new site Alison! It's nice to sometimes start things anew as the calendar rolls around to a new year. I like your fresh design and look foward to my regular visits in the future.
I must admit, the new site colors are growing on my Miss Alison. Soothing and pretty.
Oh, sadly I must admit that for me the "odd" days are pretty normal and the days when domestic, vintagey bliss inhabits my abode are few and far between. But oh well, such is the way life is right now. It will all be here tomorrow, right?
My pitching arm isn't what it used to be. I tend to have to take the half-pitched item the rest of the way up! In any case, I think we're entitled to put on blinders and blithely dream a day away, at least once in a while!
Ali @ A Cosy Life
My husband and I agree with Sasha. By whose ruler are we measuring the standard of what our homes should look like? My home isn't a mueseum. I learned this lesson from a dear older friend who is my neighbor. My children and I visit her a lot (they call her Meemaw). For as long as we've known her never has she once said "Please excuse the mess..." when I've entered the front door. She never made excuses for her daily life because thats exactly what it was, HER life. Yours or mine might not resemble each others but seriously do we want to waist this blessing of being in a comfortable home on a daily basis (if your a SAHM or housewife) that is oozing with comfort,love,and coziness? I love the lived in feeling of my home and like Sasha said, so do my guest. People seem to be really comfortable when they come to hang out (sometimes over staying!!) I proudly throw things up my stairs not to save myself the trip but because I didn't bring it down so I won't cart it up but I have no problem throwing them back up. You should see me make the basket when I throw stray socks up to the dirty laundry bin! I leave up the homemade birthday decorations for husbands for-us-only family party. Why? because my children worked on those decorations with love for their daddy and I love them for it. Plus who doesn't like to hang and admire (show off!) their kids artwork/handiwork? Ladies, the beautiful pictures we see on the other blogs are great but in all honesty who actually lives like that all the time? Without hurting the people around you.(You would "kill" them if the smush the pillows on the sofa, leave toys out for "others" to see if "others" should show up unannounced. Heaven Forbid catch you off your guard!) Lets be real and truthful. My home is a reflection of our lives and it displays the stuff of our life in a way that is comfortable to us. With a hint of shabby-chic!! Lighten up, enjoy your home. Love your kids because they need it and adore your husbands because they like it and it fuels them and if you're single then be glad you only have to clean up after yourself!
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