The majority of my days (and nights) are spent trying to stay caught up on the laundry and dishes. I wash and dry the laundry all week, but every Saturday I strip all six beds to end the weekend with clean sheets, blankets and clothes. If I don’t start Monday with fresh bedding, full dressers and mostly empty dirty laundry baskets, I feel like I am trying to run in a swimming pool all week.
The sink is filled with dirty dishes three (or more) times a day. I should wash them all day, but I usually just stand at the sink for an hour every morning and again every evening. If I miss a day of washing dishes, the counters fill with poorly stacked piles of drippy mess that threaten to fall every time a small child innocently tosses a spoon into the glass and ceramic tetris game.
The first problem was the holidays. Shopping, wrapping and travel made the laundry baskets multiply faster than Tribbles. The second problem was a mouse hiding in the kitchen who made his presence known in every drawer and cabinet. The normal dishes in our family are bad, but when I had to wash every single pot, pan, dish, glass and utensil as well as the drawers and cabinets that housed them, the mess was disaster movie quality.
The final straw was a week of freakishly cold weather, snow and ice. Every single blanket in the house was on someone’s bed. Atop the blankets were unzipped sleeping bags. While the adults waddled around the house wearing more layers than Randy, the children somehow managed to get their clothes soaking wet from snow and ice play, over and over again. Eventually, they had nothing left to wear except swimsuits.
Finally, I can see the bottoms of the dirty laundry baskets and the countertops have no piles of dirty dishes. I can sit down and write again OR I can hold my breath waiting for the major appliance break and stomach bug that are just around the corner.
I just can’t see how anyone can go through life like you. For years, I have read almost nothing from you that wasn’t complaining, whining, griping about your family. I certainly hope the reality is not what it seems, and that you do truly love your family, but one wouldn’t know it from reading your blog.
There is obviously something very big and very important missing from your life. I do hope that you have the wisdom to seek that out, embrace it and change your life, and find grace, peace and happiness.
Well if you blogged about how much you adored washing and doing laundry 5 kids every week and what a blessing from Jebus it was, well, I certainly wouldn’t be reading. You can absolutely adore your family and yet dislike doing chores. Who seriously loves housework? I just don’t know a human being that does, and if they do, I consider them mentally ill (I like having a clean house but I’m not Donna Reed..I think there is more to life than keeping a perfect house). And what kind of asshole doesn’t like a blog but reads it for years, only to comment hateful things like the above? I believe Sierra is the one who needs grace, peace and happiness because I don’t think someone consumed with those things would leave such a comment.
….
Anyways, I’ve caught/killed 3 mice in the past month and there is something scurring and scratching in the attic. I’ve found mouse turds in all sorts of fun places but thankfully, I don’t think they have gotten into any of the kitchen cabinets. My son gets $10 a week to keep the dishes washed (and other chores), even though he does a pretty lousy job half the time (no matter how many times I show him how to do a good job) and I have to put dishes back in the sink because they have bits of food on them. But it keeps me out from behind the sink. And since my boyfriend pays him the $10, it keeps me from bitching to him about needing more help around the house.
I had to pick up my son from school today because of a stomach bug and, what do ya know, my washer is doing some weird thing half the time where it doesn’t want to fill with water. I just wanted to say, I feel ya somewhat, though your situation is certainly more stressful.
Sierra, blogs are like diaries; lighten up.