Tag / housekeeping

by clumpaday

Everyday Clumps

Clump #248: Clear out old laundry clump and mail pile; day six of National Blog Posting Month.

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An update to the soap-on-a-rope story from yesterday.  My husband discovered the silly soap this morning, put it over his head, tightly, where it wouldn’t budge any farther, the bar of soap resting on his forehead, and called out to me, “How’s this thing supposed to work?” (Cue the sitcom laugh track.)  Aren’t soap-on-ropes supposed to be worn around one’s neck?  Or maybe the short rope was the reason this one was 75 percent off?  My dear husband, a very patient man, is pictured on a walk above, with me catching up after having stopped for yet another photo.

Today’s clump might seem a bit wimpy.  Both just are everyday household chores that rose to the clump level.  First, a bunch of sheets washed, dried, but which just kept getting shoved aside for need-to-wear/use laundry.  When you (read I) avoid something for too long, roots start forming and avoidance sets in.  That and wrinkles.

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Below is the heap of mail — mostly catalogs — that were delivered to our house today.  After vanquishing the big, bad paper pile of last week, I’ve been like a pit bull attacking the daily inflow of mail.  Now that it’s high season for catalogs and solicitations for charities, the extra vigilance is even more important and more laborious.

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Here is what I kept: two catalogs I enjoy, and two bills to pay.

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I’ll close with another in what could be a series: me walking behind my husband, due to my photo-bugging,

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and an example from nature of the benefits of steady, consistent clean sweeps.

by clumpaday

More Irony

Clump #28:  Restart blog.

Time Flies (Sighted on the NJ Shore)

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The non-act of not writing about and posting my clumps has, itself, now become a clump.  When many days of not posting slip by and accumulate, the psychic build-up is akin to the massive ironing pile documented as clump #26.  Ironically, my ironing pile is under control, but ironing-related posting material coming into my consciousness is piling up.  I should be off the ironing subject but I can’t let it go … so I’m blocked, like steam trapped behind mineral deposit build-up on an iron (sorry).

You know the phenomenon of getting something in your mind and then seeing that thing over and over in the world?  Here’s a sampling.  Hasboro, the maker of the game Monopoly, recently ditched its iron-shaped game piece for a cat-shaped one.  More than 10 million Facebook fans from over 120 countries voted the “depression-era iron” off and the cute kitty on.  I feel this is an important cultural moment.

Apparently the niece of the game’s inventor suggested using the charms on her bracelet for the game pieces.  Would a girl today have an iron on her charm bracelet (do girls still wear charm bracelets?)?  Ironing is an endangered act, what with wrinkle-free fabrics proliferating in the marketplace.  Was it once part of of a woman’s domestic or female arsenal of charms?

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Stephan Pastis, creator of one of my favorite comic strips, Pearls Before Swine, http://www.stephanpastis.wordpress.com, had a good time with this in a series back in April.

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I guess what I’m struggling with is the fact that I’m a throwback to another time.  When I list my occupation on the various forms we’re all required to complete, I’m in the habit of writing Homemaker.  It’s a title that calls to mind Donna Reed or June Cleaver.  Now that my children have more or less grown up and away from home, the full-time mother part of the role is not as much the point of pride it used to be.

So maybe on some level I enjoy the drama of a monstrous ironing pile, since vanquishing it gives me a visible sense of accomplishment.  See what I did?!   Which brings to mind another comic strip, Mutts, by Patrick McDonnell, http://www.muttscomics.com.  I had taped this in my little book of random notes on 9/12/11.  On the facing page I had written, “The better a housekeeper you are, the more invisible your work becomes.”  Hmm.

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And … we’re back to a cat again, an animal Monopolizing the internet, but not necessarily know for its work ethic.