As some of you may recall, I started reading a lot of fundamentalist Christian blogs last year and here's the thing - I AM STILL READING THEM.
I've definitely cut down a little on my fundie reading and now only REALLY enjoy the ones that are basically about:
- Farming for Jesus
- Homeschooling their one million tiny children
- Pretending to be Laura Ingalls Wilder (i.e. romanticizing homesteading, wearing period costume and waiting for a husband).
While I still read these blogs with fascination and horror, I did notice that the sheer industry of these bloggers was starting to rub off on me.
Sure, I wholeheartedly disagree with their politics and lifestyle choices but they also made me want to bake more and maybe do some canning. Maybe it's the survivalist edge to a lot of these blogs that's really attractive - I am a sucker for WTSHTF (When The Shit Hits The Fan) planning.
With my diligent stay-at-home-daughter fundie bloggers in mind, I decided that this year, I too would be a little more diligent with my around the house duties. So as one of my unwritten New Year's Resolutions, I decided that I would step it up a little on my own homestead. Just a little - I still needed lots of time to watch Dexter (just started Season 5!), knit, play Kingdom Rush on my iPad and take my dog on meandering walks.
I decided that:
- I would never go to bed without cleaning the kitchen
- I would do the laundry once a week and fold it the SAME DAY instead of willy nilly doing laundry and then having the unfolded clean laundry pile higher and higher to the point where it toppled over whenever Katr went in there to find socks
- I would empty the dishwasher promptly in the morning (preferably while Katr's coffee was percolating, so that I could feel the thrill of "multi-tasking")
- I would make sure to always add Emmy Lou's "Healthy Mouth" liquid whenever I filled up her water, even though it is kind of a hassle. I reminded myself that adding Healthy Mouth was less of a hassle than paying $2000 for dental surgery, which we did a year and a half ago.
- I would finish any chores (tidying, meal prep, folding etc.) before I got to do any fun things
None of these are in any way earth-shattering, but for a procrastinator like me, "getting things done" instead of "waiting until I was annoyed by things" was a total delight and after nearly three months of this behaviour, I was quite proud of myself and also, if I'm honest, was feeling a little smug about my housekeeping abilities. Until this morning, when I lost a pair of Katr's pants.
I went do a load of jeans this morning (Friday is "Extra Jeans Washing" day, where every two weeks I WASH THE JEANS - I hope you're writing this down) and I couldn't find one pair of Katr's jeans. A statewide FBI manhunt ensued, where I tore the bedroom, laundry area, occasional laundry-drying area and my own brain apart trying to figure out how I'd misplaced a pair of pants in our (in my mind) perfectly kept home.
Clearly, despite all of my extremely superior housekeeping skills, I had FAILED. I was crushed. How did this happen?? Where could they BE?? And why was this happened when I was BEING SO DILIGENT??
I gave up the search because I had to get to work. And so the location of the pants remains a mystery. And guys - I'm trying to just let go and let God on this one. Because I know that's what my fundies would do. Because that's all they ever fucking talk about.
