On Mother’s Day we told the kids stories from our first year of marriage. We lived in a self-contained apartment on the bottom floor of a brand new house in the country. Our landlord (the guy upstairs) Doug was a jovial, gregarious, nice guy who loved to talk. My husband Curt is genial, but he’s a man who puts his head down and works with a will. Thus, while Doug was drinking coffee and talking about his plans for the day, Curt got the grass mowed. Doug loved to analyze the differences between himself and Curt:
“In this world there are thinkers and there are workers. I’m a thinker and Curt is a worker.”
Ya gotta love the guy. As easy as it is for me to laugh at Doug, I do the exact same thing myself. For years I’ve held a dichotomy between readers and cleaners. I noticed that my girlfriends who loved to read and swapped books were (like me) on the slobbish side. And the women I admired who cleaned the lintels on a weekly basis, women who wouldn’t dream of leaving the house with a dirty spoon in the sink, didn’t tend to gush over the latest book they’ve read because Good Housekeeping was the extent of their reading repertoire.
The person who sports bona fide credentials in both camps neatly exposes this false dichotomy. My dear friend Lisa’s middle name is organization and she has more bookshelves and books than some public libraries. Lerrina is organized, energetic, and cleans like a whirlwind so she could sit down and read for two hours. Elisabeth Elliot writes of order, cleanliness and discipline in the home, but her quotes and literary references are evidence of an active reading life. Even Laura Bush loves to Clorox shelves in her free time and yet she is a librarian who cannot not read.
Reading that paragraph made me think: well, the key must be to have an L in your name. Yeah right, CaroL!
As always, my husband is my saving grace. He loves order and he lives order. There’s no sense gnashing my teeth that I don’t have a native love of dust-mopping, doing crunches and drinking nonfat milk. I wish I did. How many days have I been lost in a
book, hear my husband’s footsteps on the threshold, look up and see the
house with his eyes? My young son saw me scrubbing some porcelain one day and he innocently asked, “Who’s coming over?” I have oodles of books on this subject and have tried various methods. All have been successful to some extent; the question is always how permanent is that success?
So we’re back to the prayer that keeps getting prayed: Change my heart, O God.
Last night Collin was out collecting for the paper route, Curt was vacuuming the garage and otherwise taking dominion over his space, and I started (again) a project I conceived in August 2004. It occurred to me in August 2004 that if I just pretended that I was moving and took everything out of my kitchen and cleaned, organized and put it back together in perfect harmony it would be a happy thing. I know better than to take everything out in one day. Over the years I’ve completed sections but never all of them at one time. The kitchen is the command center of our home. It is the room where I chop onions, crunch my Kashi Go Lean, blog and read blogs, teach my son, and talk on the phone. As self-indulgent as it may be, I’m blogging about it to make sure it gets done. Maybe I’ll even post pictures. After, not before. There.
A Living Pencil 
Carol – I can relate! Of ourse, I have an excuse – I don’t have an L in my name. 🙂
oh, Carol, thanks for the laugh this morning!! Should I let you see my house next time you venture into town? yikes!
No *L* in my name, either. Oh well.
I’m some sort of mixture, because I start a lot of books which I dont finish; and I start a lot of housekeeping/organizational projects which arent complete.
Carol, however, makes the topic interesting.
Blessings fm GA,Dana
LOL! I’m eating my salad and blog reading during my lunch break from cleaning! And I’ve thought numerous times during the dusting, vacuuming, mopping, and dishes how I love a clean house–I just don’t like to houseclean. Your Curt sounds like my dh as a doer/worker. My dh is light on conversation if there is a task to be done. But, unfortunately, he lacks the orderliness that I think might motivate me if he had it!(Yes, m’am, you plan you trip and let me know!)Janie
Yippee skippee — no L in my name, either. In the reader or cleaner category, I think I am just extreme. I read piles of books, and the house is a M-E-S-S, or I spend a week just cleaning and reorganizing. It’s the daily, keep it clean thing that I struggle with. I’d much rather read a home organization book…heh heh heh.The paradox is that dirt and clutter depress me, so I have to do something about my lack of discipline. My favorite quote regarding this is, “If you want to see me, drop on by. If you want to see my house, please make an appointment.” Amen, and amen.Happy Tuesday,Diane
I think you need to revise your “L” hypothesis to say, “the name has to START with an L to be a neatnik,” don’t you??? I made a cross stitch sampler near the beginning of my marriage that said, “A clean house is a sign of a misspent life,” which my husband relegated to the kitchen (“my” room) because it really irritated him. It made perfect sense to me!!! I think it’s all a matter of values. The people in my life who matter accept my home the way it is, and love me (not in spite of it, as you might think) because it’s part of me. Having said that, my daughter who lives with me cleaned both the living room and the bathroom as a Mother’s Day gift for me!
Gee, do I need to change my blog name to Imbo Ady or what???
What if you made cleaning into a homeschool subject, or a game to accomplish some subject your kids needed to learn? Would that make it easier or more consistent? We eventually schedules science and bathrooms on Monday, history and vacuuming on Tuesday, etc., but as you might guess, it wasn’t “permanent success”.
Your comment about love hit the head on the nail- I’ve discovered if I don’t love my husband’s goals, they are just “so much work” to me. Sigh.
Looking forward to the After pictures- I have confidence that you will do GREAT!!
Carol,
To sorted shelves and Cloroxed corners and dust-free dishes. I love your commitment to GOOD THINGS (cleaning is one of those, even though it is often relegated to one of the “lessors”:).
I’ll come inspect. 🙂
KGB
Oh Carol, do I ever relate! This is a constant struggle in my life, one I consistently lose. Self-discipline is the answer and I seem to lack enough of that quality. Well, I just have to keep trying!
A friend of mine called me the other day. In asking about my day and what I was doing the next, she artfully found out that I was trying to get some rest, as the baby had been up most of the night and I didn’t anticipate that changing for awhile. The next day, she dutifully came over (with dutiful son in tow) and while he mowed the lawn she weeded then proceeded to come in and whirlwind straighten up my house! My floors were vaccumed, my playroom was picked up my kitchen was swept, and my stove was wiped off. Now, when I clean I like to take my time and put everything away. A room may take an entire day but when it’s done, it’s a thing of beauty.
There is a place for whirlwind cleaning and a place for masterpieces. I just have to figure out how to place them in my house so they work together.
(oh yeah, and I’d rather be reading, on the computer, knitting and listening to a sermon than cleaning but I do feel so good when my house is clean)
oh, yes, I’ve heard that line too many times…”who is coming?” which can be translated…why are you acting so unusual and madly cleaning the house? Sad interpretation at best. My mother is an excellent housekeeper and her name is Alda (notice the “l”). No “l” in my name.
I would be happy if I could find a system and the stick-to-it-ness to maintain the system.
I, too, can relate to that tension between the contemplative life that calls to me and the mundane tasks that beg to be done. Again. And again.
So often, I have viewed the housekeeping tasks as something to get out of the way so that I can get on with true living.
Am trying to train myself to think of these jobs as an integral part of living, just as important as anything else I do.
And I am noticing that my own attitude toward cooking and cleaning is a barometer of my spiritual health.
Ouch! Sometimes it hurts to see how far I still need to mature.