We had an entertaining day at our local Arby's restaurant this afternoon. As a couple of young guys were leaving they each rang the "Ring if your service was satisfactory" bell but as the second guy went to ring the bell it came detached! The young man immediately started scrambling around to fix the bell, but the piece that needed to screw onto the top of the bell rolled away and fell into the trash! The guy began to blush and called his friend back into the store. They dug threw the garbage, found the piece and put the bell back together again! Beat red and laughing at himself the young man promptly left in a mix of shame and amusement.
It's good to be able to laugh at ourselves in our trivial humiliation. It's even better when we take responsibility for the things that just happen to fall apart the moment we touch them. It would not have been amusing if the boys had left the bell in pieces, it would have shown them to be selfish and inconsiderate.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
My plan to take over the mess!
Because my many hints... complaints... suggestions... please... and leading by example have left my house for the most part as dirty and cluttered as I found it. And because I estimate (and my friends all agree) that the house is likely to look worse when I get home from college I have devised a plan to have mother clean the house.
But how does this plan work?
Well. I hope!
I've been reading Peter Walsh's It's All Too Much, and much of what he says confirms my beliefs and suspicions and expectations for the house. And so I have written up a plan of action! I have put together a notebook for my mother with instruction and a plan to follow for cleaning the house. She is to complete one task every weekday and this way the house should be spic-and-span in just twelve weeks!
Ah... but how can we expect my mother to stick to a cleaning schedule for more then the fraction of a second it will take her to reject the whole idea all together?
well... I've written a litter. Oh it's a nice letter. Sort of a formal letter even. But if it doesn't do the trick then I can always expose her to my blog... Or invite Peter Walsh to dinner *snicker*
But I did explain to her in the letter what I would be to emotional to express properly in a verbal way. That I believe a clean house would be healthier and happier for the whole family... and it also leaves out any bitterness or anger issues I always seem to develop when I think about the house. So maybe she'll respond to it well. I suppose that I'll give it and the plan to her this week end, and offer to help her get started. But I prefer to clean alone, and I figure she works the same way. It's just easier to focus when you are the only one whose activities you have to monitor, and respond to, and communicate with etc.
But how does this plan work?
Well. I hope!
I've been reading Peter Walsh's It's All Too Much, and much of what he says confirms my beliefs and suspicions and expectations for the house. And so I have written up a plan of action! I have put together a notebook for my mother with instruction and a plan to follow for cleaning the house. She is to complete one task every weekday and this way the house should be spic-and-span in just twelve weeks!
Ah... but how can we expect my mother to stick to a cleaning schedule for more then the fraction of a second it will take her to reject the whole idea all together?
well... I've written a litter. Oh it's a nice letter. Sort of a formal letter even. But if it doesn't do the trick then I can always expose her to my blog... Or invite Peter Walsh to dinner *snicker*
But I did explain to her in the letter what I would be to emotional to express properly in a verbal way. That I believe a clean house would be healthier and happier for the whole family... and it also leaves out any bitterness or anger issues I always seem to develop when I think about the house. So maybe she'll respond to it well. I suppose that I'll give it and the plan to her this week end, and offer to help her get started. But I prefer to clean alone, and I figure she works the same way. It's just easier to focus when you are the only one whose activities you have to monitor, and respond to, and communicate with etc.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
It's All Too Much!!!
It's all too much. A book by Peter Walsh. By no means do I expect a perfect house. A perfect house could only be kept by perfect people and we are not perfect. But I do have standards and I want the home I live in to meet those standards. I deserve that right? I think we all do.
My sister came in the living room the other day to complain that she did not have room in the bedroom to play with her Barbies. I complain a lot about the house I live in. So I want to do something about it. I want to trade the stress and embarrassment for relaxation and pride. I am proud of the little that I've done. And for a while it felt a world better. But as I look around now and see the evidence to prove that I am not the only one living here... I want to yell and scream and express my anger. The anger that comes with feeling like my family (mother in particular) does not care. Does not care that the whole house is a mess. Does not care that the mess is stressful to me, and probably to everyone else in the house as well. Does not care that I am willing to put in some effort on cleaning. Does not care that as much effort as I may try to put into the house, I simply cannot clean up someone else's mess. I don't know what to keep, throw out, give away, or store. But I firmly believe that it has to be done. Something has to be done because no body can live in this house. If action isn't taken soon, living here will be no better then living in the streets. The house itself is falling down around all the clutter. Fat chance fixing the roof when you can't even clear off your kitchen table.
My sister came in the living room the other day to complain that she did not have room in the bedroom to play with her Barbies. I complain a lot about the house I live in. So I want to do something about it. I want to trade the stress and embarrassment for relaxation and pride. I am proud of the little that I've done. And for a while it felt a world better. But as I look around now and see the evidence to prove that I am not the only one living here... I want to yell and scream and express my anger. The anger that comes with feeling like my family (mother in particular) does not care. Does not care that the whole house is a mess. Does not care that the mess is stressful to me, and probably to everyone else in the house as well. Does not care that I am willing to put in some effort on cleaning. Does not care that as much effort as I may try to put into the house, I simply cannot clean up someone else's mess. I don't know what to keep, throw out, give away, or store. But I firmly believe that it has to be done. Something has to be done because no body can live in this house. If action isn't taken soon, living here will be no better then living in the streets. The house itself is falling down around all the clutter. Fat chance fixing the roof when you can't even clear off your kitchen table.
In the book Peter asks us to envision our ideal life. Our realistic ideal life. I picture a living room where there is seating for the whole family to sit down together for a family movie. I picture a wide clear space for the sake of cleanliness. I picture a dust-free shelf full of dust-free books and movies. I picture a dining room table, chairs, dishes, food. And I picture it as functional and eatable. I picture having a place to unpack when I get home from college for the summer/winter break. I picture a clear stove where I can scramble eggs. I picture the elimination of a lot of these storage devises we have that just add to the mass of things we don't need... I guess I can't say we don't use them, but if we didn't have all the stuff we don't need, then we wouldn't have a use for the carts and shelves and end tables, then we could get rid of those and suddenly we could have space!
But before any of that can happen I need the cooperation of my family. No one seems to want to help. Who would want to do extra work voluntarily? But who would want to live in this house voluntarily? I wouldn't live in this house if you paid me... except that I have no other place to go, and no money to go there. I'll settle for the dorm. But then I have to come home in the winter. I always dread coming home. And it's not that I don't love or miss my family. The idea of going home is appealing to me... that would be if I had a home to go to. Because I certainly do not consider this storage facility/dump to be a home. The idea of going home to this storage facility/dump every break is appalling to me.
According to Peter cluttered houses are not uncommon. People all over the nation have more then they can use. Have more then they can fit into their homes in a reasonable orderly fashion. But I wonder about the state of the actual house. Do all these other people live with this much dust and mold? what about the ceiling falling down in the porch which is our main entrance? What about the peeling paint? The ants? The rotting floorboards? The rocking toilet?
It's not the clutter alone that is upsetting to me. It's the whole house. I can't stand living in this house. This house upsets me every day. It's always a lingering problem in my life. It's always the unsettling factor when everything else seems to be looking up. Even when I'm away at college I think about how messy the house is, how much work I'm going to have to do when I get home. How disappointed I'll be when I don't get as much as I'd like done by the end of my summer.
I have rebuilt this house a hundred times on The Sims and imagined it to be clean, orderly, and most importantly stable. Stable as in not falling down around me. The first time I made this house in The Sims it really surprised me how... beautiful the house was. How attractive and cozy it seemed. I so I've made it over and over to recapture that feeling... rearranging the furniture, doing something slightly different each time. And every time I finish I think "If only."
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