As I've mentioned, I like to stay busy. I keep my house pretty clean and neat....aside from the zillions of toys covering my family room floor.....but I refuse to clean "clean."
Some people set aside certain days for cleaning certain rooms----Monday is bedroom day, for example. But over the course of a week, our bedrooms don't get that dirty. I kinda like to wait until a room really needs it to clean...so that I can truly see the efforts of my work. In my book, this means bathrooms get a good cleaning at best every 3-4 weeks. Sometimes they go 5-6 depending on what I have going on. Irma Bombeck was dead on when she said, "Cleaning the house while the kids are still growing is like shoveling snow when it's still snowing."
Since I'm not a slave to housework, I do volunteer stuff to keep myself busy and my brain occupied when the kids are napping or in bed for the night. I am glad to be a stay-at-home mom for now, but some of the reason I stay active volunteering is so that when I go back to work down the road I will be able to say I did something other than keep my kids from killing each other and cooking middling dinners for my picky-ass-bunch. I will have a host of people to call on for references.
Since 2005, I have been president or co-president 3 times of my MOMS Club. I was VP-Service once. I was Activities Coordinator once. I was MOMS Nite Out coordinator once. I was playgroup coordinator more years than I can recall. And now I am tired of it. It is time for others to step up, get involved. G will start preschool next year; M will start 2 years after that. I have, at most, 3 more years of MOMS Club in me.
The other night I got a call from our homeowners' association (HOA) president about running for the homeowners' board. I had sworn NEVER, EVER, EVER to get involved with a homeowners' board again. In our previous neighborhood, I worked with 2 other people to try to get the dang thing off the ground, and it was a pain in the arse. It made me hate our neighborhood and want to leave. Hence the reason we live where we do now.
I really like our neighborhood, and I want to stay here indefinitely. Pay off the mortgage, get the kids through the local elementary school. We are halfway between D's mom and my parents. Perfect situation.
And I don't want to screw with that.
But I do like getting involved. And I am so over MOMS Club volunteering. And for the next few years, until M starts preschool, it is just not feasible for me to volunteer as much at N's school as I would like. So it seemed like maybe being involved with the HOA is a good idea.
I think maybe I was flattered into agreeing....I am highly susceptible to flattery. Seems I was on at least current board members' shortlists of people to contact about becoming involved.
Maybe they just know a sucka when they see one.
Tune in next time for Volume 2: How the Eff Did I Get Roped Into Planning My 20th High School Reunion?
2 comments:
Oh Carrie - I was so pleased to find that we have similar attitudes about cleaning! :-) I definitely have lots of other things that keep me busy. My mom drove herself (and often us) cah-razy trying to keep the house spotless while we were growing up. Between the two kids and the dog, constant cleaning is just an exercise in frustration.
We don't have a HOA, so I'm in the clear there, but the PTO already has my number!
I'm amazed that you have put in that much time with your MOMS group - kudos to you for that! I think you should skip the HOA and put your feet up for a year or two.
BTW, either your kids are more sanitary in the bathroom than mine are, or else your OCD/germ issues are better controlled than mine are. Even if I've just cleaned my bathrooms, they get gross quickly because of the way the kids treat them. If I don't clean them every week (which I often don't), I experience anxiety when I'm in them. I'm glad you're able to be more relaxed than I am in that area.
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