What Stays Done?

We’re slightly 1950’s around here with Bill working all over the place and me staying at home and – it’s only fair – shouldering most of the housework. Bill will no doubt crease himself laughing at this last statement, perhaps I should modify it to ‘housework I deem most necessary on a daily basis.’

I never have given that much thought before to how cyclical, or should I say circular, housework is. You know, dishes go from cupboard to table to sink to cupboard; clothes go from closet to body to hamper to washer to dryer to ironing board to closet; bring stuff into the house, put stuff in the trash. In my I Love Lucy moments when trying to be ‘a better housekeeper’ I’ve felt more like a dog chasing its tail.

Never mind the circles, there are endless lists of things that have to be done over and over again, collect dust, weed & water gardens, put gas in car, cook food. I don’t actually mind the last as it does involve some creativity and I have a lot of choice about how easy or hard it is. I don’t bother much with the first, as it looks just as good after you dust regardless of the interval since the last dust removal. Bill generally gets around to the Hoovering before I do.

All this has made me look at my 20 pages of things to do and look at what will actually stay done when I've done it. There’s not much:

Setting up automatic bill paying / saving
Throwing things away or selling them
Scanning photos and putting keepers (family and friends, not scenery) in albums
Building my family tree on ancestry.com

So, now I have the moral high ground for not [insert housekeeping task] – I’m working on achieving the more lasting objectives - right?