I hate housework! You make the beds, you do the dishes and six months later you have to start all over again. (Joan Rivers)
I've never been one for enjoying the housework. Unfortunately I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to cleaning so I tend to obsess about getting things spotless, all the while resenting the fact that I'm actually cleaning! I think it's for that reason that my house is never clean enough and there always seems to be something unclean to clean. It's overwhelming sometimes.
Here in our Montreal home, it seems different. Maybe because we're renting a place that's fully, and I mean fully, furnished, complete with our landlords' photos stuck on the walls everywhere. Basically, they left everything here except really personal stuff. It almost feels like we're house sitting but without the benefit of doing it for free!
When it comes to cleaning though, I've reached a peaceful time here. I don't obsess about what needs cleaning every day. I do the minimum possible to keep the place tidy and relatively clean. I've come up with two reasons why this might be. 1. It's an old building so the wooden floors are well-worn and camouflage the dust and dirt; 2. I resent having to dust and clean in all the nooks and crannies in a house we're renting but haven't furnished ourselves. Possibly a mix of the two.
When I saw that the laundry was in the basement, down 3 flights of hairy (as in scary) winding stairs, I decided to make Mondays and Thursdays washing days. I was always a once a week washer in Sydney, hanging everything on clothes horses until they were dry. Here, there's no clothesline or clothes horse, so it's a 3-trip ordeal to do one load of washing. One to take the things down, two to change them over to the dryer and three to bring them back up again. I'm not complaining about doing the washing, only that the stairs are dangerous and I hate them! But it's the only exercise I get these days and it's kind of nice having a basement, just like in the movies!
What I will complain about is the fact that I promised our landlords that I'd water their plants every week, not knowing that there were so many and that they all drink different amounts of water at different rates. I'm not a good indoor plant grower. I tend to either forget to water them until I see them dying, or I water them every day and see them dying anyway.
The landlord said I only have to water them about once a week and I started off doing it on Thursdays so I would remember. I did, only I also noticed that some plants' leaves were going brown. I thought they were thirsty so I fed them more water. Then I noticed that a lot of the plants weren't dried out but soaking wet! I've since worked out how to stick my finger in to check the wetness of the dirt and to decide to hold off on watering if it's wet. This is also how I worked out that there were a few fake plants that I'd been watering...
Maybe I shouldn't be complaining about having to clean the clutter and water the plants because I might have actually learnt something and become a better indoor gardener!
Here in our Montreal home, it seems different. Maybe because we're renting a place that's fully, and I mean fully, furnished, complete with our landlords' photos stuck on the walls everywhere. Basically, they left everything here except really personal stuff. It almost feels like we're house sitting but without the benefit of doing it for free!
When it comes to cleaning though, I've reached a peaceful time here. I don't obsess about what needs cleaning every day. I do the minimum possible to keep the place tidy and relatively clean. I've come up with two reasons why this might be. 1. It's an old building so the wooden floors are well-worn and camouflage the dust and dirt; 2. I resent having to dust and clean in all the nooks and crannies in a house we're renting but haven't furnished ourselves. Possibly a mix of the two.
When I saw that the laundry was in the basement, down 3 flights of hairy (as in scary) winding stairs, I decided to make Mondays and Thursdays washing days. I was always a once a week washer in Sydney, hanging everything on clothes horses until they were dry. Here, there's no clothesline or clothes horse, so it's a 3-trip ordeal to do one load of washing. One to take the things down, two to change them over to the dryer and three to bring them back up again. I'm not complaining about doing the washing, only that the stairs are dangerous and I hate them! But it's the only exercise I get these days and it's kind of nice having a basement, just like in the movies!
What I will complain about is the fact that I promised our landlords that I'd water their plants every week, not knowing that there were so many and that they all drink different amounts of water at different rates. I'm not a good indoor plant grower. I tend to either forget to water them until I see them dying, or I water them every day and see them dying anyway.
The landlord said I only have to water them about once a week and I started off doing it on Thursdays so I would remember. I did, only I also noticed that some plants' leaves were going brown. I thought they were thirsty so I fed them more water. Then I noticed that a lot of the plants weren't dried out but soaking wet! I've since worked out how to stick my finger in to check the wetness of the dirt and to decide to hold off on watering if it's wet. This is also how I worked out that there were a few fake plants that I'd been watering...
Maybe I shouldn't be complaining about having to clean the clutter and water the plants because I might have actually learnt something and become a better indoor gardener!