Priorities!

Guilty as I feel to admit it, sometimes dropping my older children off at school is a blessed exercise. After they have all trooped off to their respective classrooms and I have delivered Mr 5 (in Prep) to his teacher, I almost feel like skipping on the way back to the car.

Miss Terrific Two clambers into her seat, I fasten her intricate seat belt and away we go. Music turned up loud (this morning it was Stevie Nicks - an oldie but a goodie) we cruise home at a reasonably leisurely pace.

I couldn't give two hoots about everyone else around me racing from here to there like a bunch of headless chooks, I have no reason to rush...so therefore I don't.

At home I walk into a state of organised chaos. Everything, of course, has a place....I just don't really care where that place is. My typical laissez-faire attitude to housework is evident everywhere. Beds made, albeit messily. Dishes rinsed, stacked in the sink...but unwashed. Floor un-vacuumed although the vacuum cleaner is in it's customary place - smack in the middle of the floor...so it looks like I'm 'about' to start cleaning. Toys are littered hither-tither around the house.

But nowhere is my slap-dash personality more evident than in the laundry. The Never-Ending pile sits there...waiting...waiting. It's a continuous cycle of wash, hang out, bring in, fold up, put away. Although I admit I don't really get much further than the 'bring in' stage.....Hence Mt Kosciwashko, a permanent fixture in our household.

To be honest...this is about a quarter of it, the rest wouldn't fit in the photo.

But, as usual, the mountain can wait. There are far more important things to do. Spending my morning playing with my darling Miss Two is one of them....so, if you'll excuse me there are fairies to chase, pictures to draw and play dough to eat (!)

What is your least favourite household chore to partake in? Are you a clean freak or a laid-back housekeeper like myself? 

It's War!

The time has come....after four years of peaceful co-existence it is up to me to take control. I have interrupted and shattered my laisse-faire attitude to certain duties and reclaimed my inner housewife (I know she's lurking in there somewhere). The concordant days of mess making are over my friends......I have declared war on my house.

Up until now we've had an amicable agreement; you see I'm not all that fussed on house keeping and my house (dirty little trollop that she is) is happy to oblige. She's definitely been looking worse for wear but neither of us were particularly bothered about this. Until recently. My lovely husband came home and announced that we needed to move. To me that means one thing.....cleaning. Well, two things actually - cleaning & packing - both are as bad as each other.

So then I walked from ramshackle room to ramshackle room making mental notes of what needed to be done. From little hand prints on walls, (which I've never cleaned off because they're "cute") to mould on the ceiling, (I can't reach up there!) from dirty blinds, (if I close them you can't see the dust) to cupboards full of crap...Oops! I mean stuff.

Out came my seldom-used cleaning apparatus and the peace was broken, I attacked my filth-encrusted house. She was bewildered, distressed, mortified. What terrible atrocities was I subjecting her to? So, she put up a good fight. Everything was stuck-on, stubborn and elbow grease resistant. I was cleaning like a mad woman and making virtually no impact.

Of course it didn't help that as I cleaned the children messed (secretly I think they were on her side.) As Little Miss not-quite-two smushed an apple muffin into my freshly vacuumed carpet I could feel hysteria begin to rise;

"Can't you keep things clean for more than 5 minutes?!" I shrieked as the children watched me frantically vacuum up the mess. I bet they were wondering what had happened to their messy, muck-about Mother.

So, after a couple of days of relentless cleaning I haven't gone very far. But I will not give up - it may take weeks but I will have a pristine house. And then I'll have to move out.....

Why am I doing this again?