Things They Don't Tell You About Being An Adult

Much has been written about how high school and university don't really prepare you for the Real World. Here are some of the things I've learned since stepping wide-eyed and innocent out into it...

- You have to clean the OUTSIDE of your house. Who knew?

- You have to clean the inside too.  Even the toilets. 

- If you have grass, you have to mow it. Regularly. 

- Everything costs money. Everything. 

- Fast food is both expensive and horrid, for the most part. 

- You will have to go to the dentist, eventually. 

- The best-paying jobs usually have some kind of catch. 

- There are nice people and evil people, but most folk are somewhere in between. 

- There won't always be a White Knight to rescue you. So you should learn how to change a tyre. 

There are numerous others, of course. Care to contribute? 

What have you learned about being an adult that nobody ever warned you about?

Lazy day

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I'm pretty sure we had hail this morning. I woke up to loud bangs, but it didn't compute at that hour of the morning so I rolled over and slept again. And slept. First time I've slept in that much in ages, and it was GLORIOUS.

I have a no-plan day today. Nothing pressing to do, nowhere to be. My fiancee is out playing paintball in the mud and the boarder is off at a course. I had formulated some vague plans of going to the shops to print out save-the-date cards but you know what? It's raining, and I don't want to get out of my pajamas.

Despite this, I've still been pottering about doing some housework. It's like some sick compulsion. In my mind, I rationalize: "If I put a load of washing on, and make sure the kitchen is clean, then I can relax for an hour or two. Then later I can make a start on the floors... ".

NO. I must resist! Plenty of time for housework tomorrow. Today, I'm going to enjoy my no-plan day.

Do you have planned lazy days? Do you still find yourself doing housework and errands anyawy?

Housework and Loathing in the burbs

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This morning I am in a frenzy of cleaning. Why? Because my future in-laws are coming to stay for a few days.

I know, I know. It's silly. Why should I care what they think of my housekeeping skills (or lack thereof)? But I just DO. C's mother keeps an immaculate house, and I just want the place to look presentable. Last time she cleaned the oven while I was at work, then showed me proudly when I got home, proclaiming it to have been "so filthy!". You can imagine how that made me feel. The funny thing is - I genuinely don't think she did/said that to make me feel bad. She is just happy to be helping!

At the moment, the house looks like a brothel. Without the whores, obviously. Probably fewer bedsheets to wash too. Why is it that I can have the place looking fairly decent on a Sunday night, but by Friday I'm staring at piles of socks on the lounge room floor, junk mail scattered everywhere and dirty dishes piled so high in the sink I can't even fill up the kettle?

I know why. It's because what little "maintenance" cleaning I do during the week can't keep up with our level of untidyness. Tell you what though, even though C is pretty good, it wouldn't kill him to put his clothes in the laundry basket every now and again, would it?

So this afternoon I'm going to reward myself for a hard morning of cleaning showers, vacuuming, dusting and mopping. Not sure how yet, but I'm sure I'll think of something involving either chocolate or alcohol! Possibly both.

(By the way, the makers of those Viva shower cleaning wipes will be pleased to know I bought some after seeing not one but TWO bloggers review them. Blog PR works, folks!)

Happy Moments

Image: mine

My happy moments for this week:

- Hearing about my mum's experience singing at the Sydney Opera House with Chorus Oz. Amazing that she gets to do that.

- Answering truthfully to several people who asked that yes, I am enjoying my new job. It's much better than my old one and I'm so much less stressed!

- Having a girl's night out to see Bridesmaids. I laughed, I hooted embarrassingly, I loved it. What a great movie - I loved the themes about female competitiveness and friendship.

- Catching up with our friends for pizza on Friday night. A simple thing but so much fun, and we never run out of things to talk about.

- Actually getting some housework done. Because I haven't been away the past two weekends I've been able to maintain a level of orderliness that fills me with satisfaction!

On housework

In my opinion, the division of labour in our household is in no way even. In my boyfriend's mind however, his ability to do the heavy lifting more than makes up for the mundane stuff he just doesn't do.

Sometimes we have a garbage standoff. I'm sure most of you are familiar with this little game - it's those times when you seem to be having a competition as to who can stuff the most rubbish into the kitchen bin. And when it's full, who can balance MORE crap on top. It's a game that requires nerves of steel and a deficient olfactory system - the bin becomes smellier and grosser each day as each person waits for the other to break and actually take it out.

A big embarrassed to report, that in our house, my boyfriend usually breaks first. But it takes at least 5 days. Now that's gross.

That said, he does do the things I hate: scrubbing the loo, getting the wheelie bins in. Occasionally he even vacuums and does washing!

And still our home remains a mess most of the time. I think this is the result of a number of factors - we're both low-level hoarders, and he has a tendency to just leave things where they fall eg. shoes, socks, magazines, clothes, books, junk mail... And then there's my tendency to just stop giving a shit about how the house looks during the week when I'm exhausted from work. So a little selective blindness goes on in our household for a large portion of the time.

I read an article somewhere that the key to domestic happiness and keeping your house clean is to do a little big each day, and not save it all up for the weekend. I'm still to master that skill!