Housework? Not So Much...

I'm good at making lists. I'm good at making plans. I'm good at setting things up. But the day-to-day doing of things? I suck at that now. Oh, I'm great in a crisis. If you have to go to court or show your house or need five thousand cupcakes in two hours, you want me on your side.

But the dog hair that needs to be swept up every single day? Nope, that's gonna pile up. I know what should be done. I can make you list upon list of what needs to be done and how to do it. I can give you diagrams and websites and references. But actually getting up and going and doing it when I know it's just going to need to be done again tomorrow? Not so much anymore. I hate doing things that have no visible and lasting results. So being a homemaker was really the last job I should have taken. The ultimate no-respect, no-visible-results job.

You can spend eight hours cleaning your house, polishing the  silver, picking flowers and creating a table arrangement, bathing the muddy dog and then mopping up his muddy pawprints, buying your husband new underwear, ironing the tablecloth, and cooking a balanced, nutritious, tasty meal for your family and what does your husband say when he comes home? "What did you do today?" And before you can answer he will say, "My day was horrible; you're so lucky you get to stay home and do nothing all day."

My husband once actually said to a group of people that women had it easier than men because they could "find someone to take care of them and do nothing for the rest of their lives". (He means well, but he's clueless.)

Wouldn't you know it, but that was the day I stopped doing everything without him. If I had to grocery shop, he had to go with me. I stopped cooking dinner and he had to learn how to cook. When errands needed to be done, I could suddenly only do it when he was home to go with me and see all the "nothing" I did.

That isn't to say I did nothing when he was at work. I homeschooled my three children and that can take up plenty of time. I would be up at six to get some time to myself and prepare for school and then I would teach my kids, do the laundry, pay the bills, answer calls for my husband's work, make his work appointments, answer questions about the company computer system because no one at my husband's work seemed to understand it (he works as an engineer for a big insurance company), and then the main housework and errands would be done by the whole family when my husband got home. My husband used to complain that I would be asleep by ten at night and there never seemed to be any time to be romantic. It was all that nothing I was doing that was wearing me out.

And yes, even then, he still wondered what it was I did all day. Look in your drawers, honey. If there are clothes there, then I've been busy.

Alas, the children have grown and gone and it's just he and I. No one to do for anymore. So when he comes home and asks what I've been doing all day, I can honestly - and happily - say, "Nothing."