hairyshoefairy

Here’s my Journal Jar question for this week:

What are your household chores? What do you enjoy the most? The least?

What are my household chores?  Umm.  Everything!  I’m the mom.  Well, I don’t have to mow the lawn or snake the clogged drains or anything like that cuz NYDD does it, but I do pretty much everything else.  I take out the garbage, scrub the tub, wash the dishes, vacuum, etc.

Most household chores I actually don’t mind too much.  I like folding laundry because it’s all warm and soft and it smells good (I have washer/dryer hookups in my new apartment, btw, and I am soooo excited to not share coin-operated laundry anymore).  I like cleaning the bathroom because I actually like the smell of bleach, I enjoy scrubbing the tub, and I like having a shiny faucet.  I’ve recently started enjoying cooking more.  I still prefer to watch The Food Network to get motivated to do it, but I actually enjoy it more now than I did even a year ago.  I like chopping things and am amazed when things work out so well.  I also enjoy making my bed, but I’ve written about that before.

Note:  Just because I don’t mind doing these things doesn’t mean I do them frequently.  Laundry is really the only one I do with consistency only because it’s illegal to go out in public naked, therefore we need clean clothes.  I do enjoy living in a clean-ish house though and try to take care of our home with some regularity.

I’m not such a fan of doing the dishes, but since I have a dishwasher I’m much more willing to do them now than without.  It’s still not my favorite chore, though.  I also don’t care much for dusting.  It used to be my job when I was little to dust the living room.  That included the piano, the granny rocker, the coffee table, and some interesting table thing by the front door.  It isn’t really something I think about doing now and most surfaces in my house have a film of dust.  I don’t really care, though.

I think the household chore I really hate isn’t really a household chore.  It’s getting the car fixed/maintained.  I hate being the one to do that.  I consider it a “man job.”  A little sexist, I know, but it is the way I see it.  I know zero about the inside of a car and when the auto-repair people ask me questions about it beyond what kind of car it is all I can do is stand there with a glazed look in my eyes.  I’ve probably put up a mental block, but I don’t know anything about cars and feel really stupid when I talk to people who do.  I’m usually the one to take the car in since NYDD usually has class/clinic/or studying.  He doesn’t know much about cars either so he doesn’t like doing it either, but I get annoyed with him when I have other things to do and all he has to do is study and he has me go sit there for hours on end (cuz we don’t have another car here to drop off and pick up again), picking my nose, and trying to wrangle a toddler, while he could take a few of his books there and get just as much done as he would at home.  He disagrees.  It’s something we argue about every time it’s time to get the oil changed.  Another thing I hate about getting the car taken care of is that when I go in for a simple oil change or whatever the car people - no matter where I go - always manage to find something else wrong that I should take care of.  As I know nothing about cars I have to call NYDD and see what he thinks and wish, once again, he was just there to decide for himself.  Since it’s obvious I know nothing about cars I could very easily be getting scammed.  Basically the whole experience is a big ball of something I really hate.  Thankfully it doesn’t have to be done every week.

Over all I don’t mind most chores and there are even a few I rather enjoy, but if someone offered me a cleaning service I’d totally take it.