Sunday, November 6, 2011

Small Jobs Add Up (Laziness)

I've been lazy lately. That's not unusual - actually I am congenitally lazy. I come from a long line of lazy people (not every last one, of course! Relax, industrious relatives. I didn't mean you.). When given the choice between, say, cleaning out the rabbit hutch and watching the newest episode of Breaking Bad, well - let's just say that's not a tough choice for me.

I am so lazy, I have even figured out many ways to work and be lazy at the same time. Most of us, I am sure, have a hierarchy of hatred when it comes to housework. You might not mind laundry so much, but flinch at the thought of cleaning the bathroom. Or maybe dishes are your bugaboo, but you kind of like yardwork. Perhaps you enjoy the satisfaction of really clean windows, but just can't stand vacuuming day after ever-loving day.

I hate almost all of it. God I hate housework. Here is a comprehensive list of the jobs I don't mind doing so much:

Grocery shopping
Cooking (including Preserving)
Goatherding and Milking
Gardening
My "wifely duty" (yes that counts)

That leaves this much larger list of things I loathe:

Dishes
sweeping and vacuuming
scrubbing of any kind
Laundry
balancing the checkbook
paying bills
recycling
mending clothes
PTA meetings
mowing the lawn
All yardwork really
digging
yelling at the kids (yes that counts)

So here's the (transparent) strategy I've worked out... I've elaborated those tasks I actually enjoy into complex undertakings and creative expressions that take utter precedence over everything else. I like to cook: I've become a gourmet home-chef who bakes our own bread (never will storebought bread pass my children's lips), makes our own cheese (don't call it a hobby), and grows many of our own vegetables.

Under the guise of providing for our food security and reducing our carbon footprint, I spend hours in the garden and at local farmer's markets, procuring enough vegetable bounty to spend many more hours preserving food for the winter, like some kind of hyperactive squirrel. Oh yeah, forgot to mention, I am also saving us boatloads of cash, because we will be giving our friends and relatives pickled asparagus for christmas. Or maybe beets, if we don't like you much.

As you can imagine, all this industriousness on my part leaves me little time for - say - trimming the goat's hooves, or going to the dump. Cleaning out the refrigerator. Pulling weeds. Setting mousetraps (yes, we have a problem). Sorting through the kid's clothes to make sure they don't go to school looking like extras from the set of Little Orphan Annie.

This strategy works surprisingly well, most of the time. It is only about twice a year that the backup of work that legitimately belongs to me gets so large that I can no longer ignore it. Oh, I try to fight it. Before I will recognize that I need to spend a couple of days catching up, I will try mightily to convince my husband that HE needs to go to the dump... rake the leaves.... turn the compost pile... take the kids to the dentist....

But eventually, I have to give in and recognize that my husband is too busy fixing cars to make us money so I can go to the farmer's market to do all the mundane daily tasks that I am supposed to be doing. Then I have to have a day like today.

Things I did today:

-Sorted a pile of laundry the size of Mt. Kulshan. Threw out a pile the size of Mt. Shuksan.
-Trimmed four goat hooves - long overdue and totally disgusting. Did it without, however, cutting myself, so that's a plus.
- cleaned out the rabbit hutch. LONG overdue and totally disgusting. I had to use the hoe. 'Nough said. Will make nice compost, however.

Doesn't sound like much, maybe, but for a lady as lazy as I am, it's a lot.




10 comments:

  1. Just stumbled upon your Blog. What a delight! And I must say, you are industrious compared to me! :~)

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  2. P.S. I plunked this post on my Facebook page too. Hope you don't mind. I know a lot of gals would love seeing it!

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  3. Thanks to Sherry (above) I came to your blog and am really enjoying it. We're currently living in Africa and toying around with the idea of getting milk goats, but I can't even find any rennet yet so one step at a time.

    I can't figure out where you live? I've tried going back to the beginning and saw a reference to Seattle? Thanks.

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  4. Hi, welcome! K, you can order rennet and everything else you need to make cheese off the Internet... I'm sure Steve the cheesemaking guy. Com will ship to S.A.! Thank you both for visiting! I live a few miles from the Canadian border, north of Bellingham, Washington. Come back soon!

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  5. Thanks - We live in Zambia! If it's a small flat package the university we work for would forward it, otherwise it's unlikely it would get here. Sorry to keep asking questions but my husband was born in Seattle, parents were from Spokane, and he longs to move back someday -- honestly, how rainy/cloudy is it and what gardening zone are you in? Thanks!

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  6. I love your blog! Keep up the good work! Rebekah

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  7. K- we are in gardening zone 8b. Last frost date I think is in mid April, first frost mid October ( although this year nit until November 2). It's grey and rainy for some five months if the year, though of course not every day. I think
    Our average rainfall around here us in the mid thirties. Summers are beautiful, though, warm and sunny but seldom too hot.

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  8. I just tackled a huge pile of laundry this weekend (for only two people, my fiance and I make a huge pile of clothes). So I feel your pain and offer congrats on doing it!

    Trimming hooves sounds horrific, so I'm impressed that it ever gets done. And at least SOME house chores you can pawn off to your slaves, er, children. My mother always said that's why she had children: slave labor.

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  9. MOM. Can I trade the recycling for jobs I really enjoy, which you said you hate, like:

    scrubbing of any kind
    laundry
    mending clothes
    mowing the lawn

    ?

    Please!

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  10. Just randomly stumbled upon your blog and love it! The line about pickled beets for Christmas totally cracked me up!

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Due to huge amounts of spam which accrued over the year we were gone, I've decided to turn on comment moderation. Sorry for the bother!