Have you found that time is passing slowly and too fast at the same time? It does for me. Like many others staying home during this Covid-19 pandemic I had big plans for the time we would be stuck home and made a mental list of what needs to be to done in the house and also of what I wanted to get done in the house. Most of it involving either cleaning or organizing. I am still inching along.
I am not the best housekeeper in the world, but I used to be a lot better. When husband was working full time – and out of the house -- I had a set a housework schedule. I did housework on Wednesdays with the kitchen and the downstairs dusting and floors done on one week, then the upstairs bathroom, floors and dusting on the next, with the downstairs bathroom, dusting and floors on the next, the upstairs dusting and floors done again on the 4th week of the month. On months with a 5th Wednesday I would do tasks that did not need to be done as often.
Then my husband quit his job – it was not a spontaneous choice, we had discussed it, set up rules (me - “You cannot be with me every minuted of every day or I will kill you.” and “It is not vacation so we cannot eat out everyday.”) and so on. At first it all went as planned – we would eat lunch (at home) on Mondays and discuss the week ahead when I had things to do, he had things he wanted to do and when and what we do together or apart. Housework was still done on a regular basis. I still had several accounting clients so I was out of the house at least the equivalent once a week for work and he was working in his wood shop making items for us to sell at craft fairs. First mistake I made – I used to go out for lunch alone on Fridays. Mondays and Fridays I would run errands – and Fridays I would go out for lunch (inexpensively) by myself. I called it “going out for lunch with the office” as I was “the office”. First Friday he was home I offered for him to join me “this one time”. Guess what? Yes, Friday lunch out was added to our normal Saturday and Sunday lunches out and Friday dinner out followed along with our Saturday night dinner out and Sunday night take in Chinese food for dinner.
This was about a year before the economic problems of 2008. I lost clients as long time (and older) clients decided it was too hard to deal with their businesses, shut them down and retired. So I was home more (and getting less done). At the same time the price of gasoline jumped – high. Husband pointed out to me that it made no sense for me to spend money on the gas to drive to the supermarket and for him to spend money on the gas to drive to Home Depot – separately – when both were in the same shopping center.
Little by little this took over until we reached the point we were at before the pandemic – lunch out at Wendys 5 days a week, dinner out or Chinese food in – 3 day weekends, and spending almost all our time together. Somewhere along the way I stopped cleaning the house on Wednesdays – or for that matter – mostly stopped cleaning it altogether.
I have been trying to catch up on cleaning and putting stuff away since we have been stuck home. It is sort of working – not as regular as before, but getting done. Much time is still taken up not doing anything. We tend to stay at the table after lunch and watch TV a bit longer than we used to (or I would like). I am am trying to get back to how I used to get the work done.
Early in after Corona reared its head it dawned on me that if one of us became ill with it, we had no place for us to sleep separately. We have a spare bedroom – with a bed – which intended as a guest room and was used as same 3 times in the earlier years in the house – all 3 times by my niece and once also by her brother, my nephew (they were small children at the time and could share the bed). Since then my teddy bears have taken over the room – on shelves, pictures on the walls, sitting on the bed, and so on. There are also older video games and such stored in the room. Over the years our spare luggage and husband's out of season clothing moved into the closet in this room. My dollhouse that husband made for me when we were dating is in the room. Also in the room is spare things including a portable (analog) TV and a small wooden bench husband made (TV sits on the bench).
Back in March the small floor space in the room was covered in bears and their things and the TV/bench. In April when the thought of one of us needing to sleep in there came to mind, husband could not take any mention of either of us getting ill (not that he would be happy to hear about it now – but then it was no mention to be made. Instead I told him that I had space in the trunk under the teddy bear village in the upstairs hall that used to be used for Christmas storage and I wanted to store items floating around the spare bedroom in it. This process cleared out space to be able to get next to the bed and I also found stuff to use for the teddy village. I thought I did a great job of making the room usable.
Two things this past month made me realize that I did not do such a good job. When our bedroom air conditioner was not working I offered for husband to sleep in the (single) bed in the spare bedroom and I would make myself up something to sleep on the floor next to the bed. He walked into the room and glanced around. “Ummm, it will need a lot of work – it has not been dusted in years and if we slept in here we would get sick and be sneezing like crazy. Also there is not enough room on the floor for you to sleep and me go to get up and go to the bathroom without stepping on you. Not going to work.” Okay, I tried – now I know I have to go in there and give the room a good cleaning. Even worse for me, though, I had to move the teddy bear village to store in the trunk under it. I had stored away the bears in the Christmas set up in the village to do so. Well, now it was July and I went to set up an Independence Day village of bears and came up missing a bear that had been out for the Christmas village. (These bears are figurines and small plastic toys not stuffed toys.) As I looked for her, I realized that other bears were missing also. I have looked everywhere for them – I cleaned up all of the packing, bears, and stuff that are used for the village during the year. I went to the basement and unpacked and repacked all of the bears in the 3 medium sized boxes of bears from the Christmas setup. I even took the village apart again and emptied out the trunk under it – no missing bears found. My next step will involve clearing out and cleaning up the spare room some more. At this point the only 2 things I can think of is that I shoved a box of bears under the bed or (horrible to think) I threw the box out! So at time in the coming week we will see if the TV in the room still works and then – whether it does or not – we will move it and the bench out of the room so I have the room to lie down and look under the bed and hopefully find a box of missing bears with other items that I know are stored under there.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
I guess husband was right about not enough room for me to sleep and him walk in and out of bed if I cannot lie down and look under the bed. I hate it when he is right. Then again, if I had been more careful when I took the Christmas village down – I would know where the missing bears were.
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