Chore-Challenge Check-In

This chore-challenge has proven to be rather interesting on several levels. I have one week of my self-imposed challenge under my belt and I wanted to check in to see how things are faring. For those of you just tuning in, and perhaps are scratching your heads as to this very silly sounding challenge to myself, I decided to give myself two weeks to follow the centuries-old housewife's code of housekeeping (with modifications due to modernization, of course). Here's my challenge, to which I have devoted my days for two weeks:

Monday: Wash Day
Tuesday: Dusting and Vacuuming Day
Wednesday: Market Day
Thursday: Clean the Kitchen Day
Friday: Clean the Bathroom Day
Saturday: Don's Home, so Milk-It-For-All-It's-Worth Day
Sunday: The Lord's Day - Day of Rest

So, here are my discoveries:
- I don't mind Mondays. I kind of like doing the wash, and doing it on Monday is great for me. I just hate folding it all. (Don, oh Don, where art thou?). In fact, last Monday's clean wash still isn't folded, the day before the next Wash Day. Uh, gotta get movin' on that ...

- Tuesdays are OK, dusting and vacuuming. I just found that even though the house might be cleaner, it still looks like a tornado went through it. "Clean dirt," my mom calls it. But cluttered nonetheless. Not a big fan of clutter but I'm at a loss how to defeat it.

- Going to the grocery store on Wednesday morning has been set in place ever since I moved here. It is actually a family affair, since we take my parents along for the ride and we do our shopping together. My Wednesday afternoon has turned into "Finish up what you didn't get to on Tuesday." Yeah, that's sad -- I gave myself an entire day to dust and vacuum a small apartment and I still didn't finish. But by Wed. afternoon it was looking rather sparkly.

- I hate Thursdays. I hate cleaning the kitchen. That is by far my most dreaded chore. Maybe it's because I don't like my kitchen so much -- it's very small with a lot in it. I guess I feel kind of claustrophobic and frustrated because I don't know where to put things. I found that when Thursday morning rolled around, I procrastinated, finding other things to do before I made my way into the kitchen. But hey -- at least I got there.

- I LOVE WEEKENDS.

- Discovery #1: I'm not sure I like following a schedule like this. Am I not an organized, schedule-type person? I was that, very much so, when I worked full-time ... but at home now it seems to be a very different story. I think what I am finding is that a schedule like this makes me feel even more "boxed in" -- sort of like cementing the fact that this is what I do ... and maybe some part of me is balking at that. If I was schedule-less, but cleaned as I went along, I didn't feel so tied to the fact that now I am a house cleaner, now my days are filled with chores. I used to feel very good about myself (in a good way) when I could introduce myself in a way such as, "Hi, I'm Sue. I'm a rare book librarian and I absolutely love what I do." Now I can say, "Hi, I'm Sue. I clean a mean toilet!" I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this -- not at all. My mom is/was a killer mother and housewife, as was my grandmother and so on. Maybe it's my own issue of identity. Who knows, but it's interesting how a little schedule has scuffled up some thought-provoking dirt.

- Discovery #2: I found that even though I gritted my teeth before diving into my kitchen, once I got there I went hog wild, as the saying goes. I guess what helped the most was the fact that my mom said I could send the kids upstairs to play with her for a while, so I took full advantage of that. Not only did I clean up the surfaces, vacuum and mop the floor with Pine Sol, but I also washed down all the woodwork (splattered junk, dust, etc.) and then moved out into the hallway. I used my trusty little hand vac/dust buster thing and sucked clean the stairs going up to my parents' house as well as down to the basement. I vacuumed and mopped the two landings heading down to the basement, as well as vacuumed up part of the basement floor itself (I know, it's nuts!). I'm not sure why I went so crazy. Maybe it's because I had freedom for that short while and knew those windows of opportunities don't come all that often. Maybe it's a form of nesting, which a friend wrote about in her own recent blog post entitled "Nesting" (Aug. 11). She's on the cusp of a big change in her life and has been "nesting" in her own way. I found that I, too, do this kind of thing, not only on the brink of a life-change, but also when I'm in the midst of chaos. I do feel more often than not that my life is some kind of Tilt-a-Whirl, spinning and spinning and all I can do is hold on: so many losses, my mom's cancer, vocation questions, identity questions. Maybe, for me, one small way to have a bit of "control" (I use that word loosely) is to attack something that won't fight back, that I can change for the better and see an end result. Thursday was my kitchen and it got a sound beating. Whatever the case, when I finally finished up cleaning out the bottom landing (it turns into a dumping ground for tools, outside toys, lawn chairs, etc.) and put my kitchen back to together, I was dripping with sweat and breathing somewhat heavily ... but it felt great. My athletic, toned body has disappeared since having kids, but Kitchen Day was a form of exercise for me. I'm not saying I will do this every Thursday, but it did feel awesome.

- I LOVE WEEKENDS. Oh, did I say that already? It's so very true. Yesterday Don attended the Willow Creek Leadership Summit at my brother's church (a satellite location) so he was gone until mid-afternoon. But the day was picture-perfect - cool, dry, glorious. Aidan voluntarily turned off the TV at 8:30 a.m. and it stayed off the entire morning. The kids played very nicely together with their toys, either together or side by side. We took the whole show outside where the kids played on a blanket in the yard and I did some gardening. Later that afternoon we trucked over to my youngest brother's house for an evening of swimming and pizza. Despite the fact that the water was fairly cold (82 degrees, but because of the outdoor temperature it felt pretty cold at first) and I made an idiot of myself with my decision to jump in cannonball-style (and whacked the bottom of the pool with my tailbone, causing quite a bit of pain), the day was absolutely perfect. Not a bad way to end Chore-Challenge Week One. Today is our day of rest, and then I'm back up and running tomorrow for Week Two. Bring it on ...