How is it that life can go from relative efficiency and organisation (and the key word here is 'relative' as my life is never really efficient or organised, despite the collection of books on the subject weighing down my bookshelves) to a state of utter chaos, unhappiness and screaming children, in the space of a couple of days? That is the question pummelling it's way into my brain at the moment. Is it an astrological thing hovering over our household? What the heck is going on? In desperation I consulted 'Spirit Tokens of the Ling Qi Jing' by Ivan Kashiwa for guidance, asking it the question "How do I find my way out of this chaos and unhappiness?" This is the answer I got:
"The matter you ask about will become further complicated before you receive help. (Great!) If you share the problem with someone, it will be resolved satisfactorily. But if you isolate yourself, you will find you cannot do it alone. While you find yourself without help, you should delay things for a while."
I am not good at sharing problems or asking for help. I am excellent at isolating myself and trying to go it alone. Do you know the story of The Little Red Hen? Me. Me. Me. And probably millions of other women out there. And maybe some men too. Although actually, she did ask for help didn't she, but no-one wanted to help her. Not much incentive in that story to ask for help then. But I cannot leave this piece of advise unheeded so I am kind of cheating here. Or maybe not. Instead of asking just one person over the phone, which I absolutely could not do anyway, I am asking all of you, "How do you find your way out of chaos and unhappiness when or if it hits your household?" Please don't tell me I need to be more organised. I already know it and have failed so many times in my attempts to get there that I have all but given up.
Think that maybe until I find an answer, I'll make some lunch and put everyone to bed for a nice afternoon nap. Maybe things will be brighter afterwards. Not one of my better days.
Tea and seeds
Showing posts with label consequences of disorganisation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label consequences of disorganisation. Show all posts
Monday, 9 January 2012
Friday, 18 November 2011
Where did it all come from
I think I had what would be called a panic attack today. Shaking, wanting to throw up, wanting to scream and yell all the words that are saved for my darkest times, crying at the feeling of disgust I felt welling up in my stomach. The cause? Well, we have a room at the back of the house which is generally the children's toy room but also serves as a lovely warm sunroom in cooler weather. I have a beautiful old miners couch against one wall so I can sit with a cup of tea and some knitting and look out into the back garden. It's a quiet place to rest sometimes when the children are having an afternoon sleep. Being a toy room it also, as one would expect, has toys in it, along with a bookshelf and cupboards to store our home-ed materials - workbooks, drawing books, art supplies, all that sort of thing. It is a small room and tends to get messy quite often which is annoying (to put it mildly) but I usually manage to organise a team effort to tidy up, sometimes it seems easier to do it by myself or some days it seems to work best if I just close the door and walk away.
Today though, the three older children were having a sleep while the youngest one stayed up with me. I haven't put my head in the back room lately. Mainly because there is something behind the door that means I can't open it fully - a fair indicator that things are not going to be good if I do go inside. I've managed to avoid going in there or thinking too much about how bad it might be. Today though, it was really the only room Marta and I could be in since it was raining outside, the sewing room was not a room I wanted to be in with an inquisitive 13 month old at that particular time (read: when I didn't want to have to bother about what she was getting into and stopping her from ripping my beautiful and much treasured craft books) and David was asleep on the couch in the loungeroom. So off to the back room we went.
Well, I couldn't get to the miners couch, and even if I could have, there was no room on it to sit down. The floor was covered in cushions, more cushions, toys, toys, toys and an odd assortment of ....well......, rubbish. Plastic containers that the boys had purloined from the kitchen to hold collections of boy treasures were strewn about, most of them empty (the contents, it seemed, were mostly on the floor) along with papers, bits of Lego(even though the Lego has supposedly been packed away for four weeks because it was still not packed up after repeated (like, ten) requests last time it was out), wooden blocks, cast off clothes, a special handmade cloth doll I had bought Marta for her first birthday only a month ago..... Actually, that is when the panic attack started to kick in. Seeing Marta's beautiful doll that I had given her to be her 'particular' doll, left on the floor by her big sister who had been playing with it, under a pile of cushions was like a smack in the face. The whole scene just screamed at me that my children do not value what they have. And that was another smack in the face because it means that I have failed somewhere in teaching them this. I know that I am often saying to them that we must look after what we have but that message is very clearly not being taken in. I am obviously not modelling that behaviour well enough myself.
So I began to pick up more cushions to make a clear space on the floor so I could see the level of damage. And that is when the second wave of panic overtook me. Toys, bits of toys, things they had really, really wanted at one time or another, pencils, textas with lids off, a 300 piece jigsaw puzzle started but scattered across the floor after maybe 20 pieces were joined. All of it just left there, with absolutely no thought for looking after what they have, and indeed, all piled over with cushions. It was this obvious excess that filled me with disgust and literally had me wanting to throw up. When it is all packed away it doesn't seem like so much but having it spread all over the floor made it clear just how much stuff we have in that small room.
With assistance from Marta (she found all the lidless textas for me!) I started sorting through it all, throwing a lot of things I would normally have just put away, into rubbish bags. Every time I find myself on my knees tidying up this room I tell myself "I am not going to do this again". But of course I do. Today, when I said it, I meant it. This stuff was going. I ended up with four shopping bags that went straight into the bin before prying eyes could inspect them. A lot more things went into a big box destined for the op-shop. At some point I put Marta to bed, made myself a cup of tea and sat down to review the situation. There had been several waves of panic throughout the time it took to sort out everything into rubbish bags, op-shop boxes and a smaller pile of things that would be kept and put back in the shelves, or packed away for awhile. It was such an incredibly uncomfortable feeling, so much so that even now, some time later, when the panic has subsided, I still feel close to tears. Why do we have so much stuff? And they are constantly asking for the new this or that which, of course they seldom get, but still, we have SO MUCH!!!!
Then there is the nagging thought that Christmas is very near and well intentioned aunts and uncles will give the children more toys, more stuff that will end up in pieces on the toy room floor. I even started composing a letter to them all explaining that really, the children have enough toys and could they please not buy more this Christmas as it is quite overwhelming. I don't know how well that letter would be received. And in truth, I would have to send the letter to myself as well since I am just as guilty of buying Lego kits and similar sorts of things around this time of year and at birthdays.
So what is the answer? Allow the children fewer things? Impose stricter discipline about how much they may have out at any given time and watch them like a hawk to make sure they pack up each thing as they finish with it? Ugh, that second option just sounds miserable. I have read a few articles about a movement called "Simple Living". This is one I thought was particularly good, from a couple of years ago. It sounds funny to call it a movement but there you have it. These are the times we live in. Perhaps I need to read about some more experiences of it - about people just living with a whole lot less stuff. The stories I have read have mainly been about people without children. How do we raise children in this age of consumerism, in a way that teaches them to honour what they have and to actually want less stuff? It's one thing to impose that kind of rule on them but to teach them to want less is another thing altogether. Maybe it comes back to modelling the behaviour, which is where I seem to have gone wrong. Agggghhhhh, it all seems like there is so much thinking to be done about how I want us to live, what values I want the children to grow up with and model all of that more consciously. Otherwise I'm just adding to the problems of overconsumption that we, in the Western world are so guilty of. I'll let you know how we get on.
Today though, the three older children were having a sleep while the youngest one stayed up with me. I haven't put my head in the back room lately. Mainly because there is something behind the door that means I can't open it fully - a fair indicator that things are not going to be good if I do go inside. I've managed to avoid going in there or thinking too much about how bad it might be. Today though, it was really the only room Marta and I could be in since it was raining outside, the sewing room was not a room I wanted to be in with an inquisitive 13 month old at that particular time (read: when I didn't want to have to bother about what she was getting into and stopping her from ripping my beautiful and much treasured craft books) and David was asleep on the couch in the loungeroom. So off to the back room we went.
Well, I couldn't get to the miners couch, and even if I could have, there was no room on it to sit down. The floor was covered in cushions, more cushions, toys, toys, toys and an odd assortment of ....well......, rubbish. Plastic containers that the boys had purloined from the kitchen to hold collections of boy treasures were strewn about, most of them empty (the contents, it seemed, were mostly on the floor) along with papers, bits of Lego(even though the Lego has supposedly been packed away for four weeks because it was still not packed up after repeated (like, ten) requests last time it was out), wooden blocks, cast off clothes, a special handmade cloth doll I had bought Marta for her first birthday only a month ago..... Actually, that is when the panic attack started to kick in. Seeing Marta's beautiful doll that I had given her to be her 'particular' doll, left on the floor by her big sister who had been playing with it, under a pile of cushions was like a smack in the face. The whole scene just screamed at me that my children do not value what they have. And that was another smack in the face because it means that I have failed somewhere in teaching them this. I know that I am often saying to them that we must look after what we have but that message is very clearly not being taken in. I am obviously not modelling that behaviour well enough myself.
So I began to pick up more cushions to make a clear space on the floor so I could see the level of damage. And that is when the second wave of panic overtook me. Toys, bits of toys, things they had really, really wanted at one time or another, pencils, textas with lids off, a 300 piece jigsaw puzzle started but scattered across the floor after maybe 20 pieces were joined. All of it just left there, with absolutely no thought for looking after what they have, and indeed, all piled over with cushions. It was this obvious excess that filled me with disgust and literally had me wanting to throw up. When it is all packed away it doesn't seem like so much but having it spread all over the floor made it clear just how much stuff we have in that small room.
With assistance from Marta (she found all the lidless textas for me!) I started sorting through it all, throwing a lot of things I would normally have just put away, into rubbish bags. Every time I find myself on my knees tidying up this room I tell myself "I am not going to do this again". But of course I do. Today, when I said it, I meant it. This stuff was going. I ended up with four shopping bags that went straight into the bin before prying eyes could inspect them. A lot more things went into a big box destined for the op-shop. At some point I put Marta to bed, made myself a cup of tea and sat down to review the situation. There had been several waves of panic throughout the time it took to sort out everything into rubbish bags, op-shop boxes and a smaller pile of things that would be kept and put back in the shelves, or packed away for awhile. It was such an incredibly uncomfortable feeling, so much so that even now, some time later, when the panic has subsided, I still feel close to tears. Why do we have so much stuff? And they are constantly asking for the new this or that which, of course they seldom get, but still, we have SO MUCH!!!!
Then there is the nagging thought that Christmas is very near and well intentioned aunts and uncles will give the children more toys, more stuff that will end up in pieces on the toy room floor. I even started composing a letter to them all explaining that really, the children have enough toys and could they please not buy more this Christmas as it is quite overwhelming. I don't know how well that letter would be received. And in truth, I would have to send the letter to myself as well since I am just as guilty of buying Lego kits and similar sorts of things around this time of year and at birthdays.
So what is the answer? Allow the children fewer things? Impose stricter discipline about how much they may have out at any given time and watch them like a hawk to make sure they pack up each thing as they finish with it? Ugh, that second option just sounds miserable. I have read a few articles about a movement called "Simple Living". This is one I thought was particularly good, from a couple of years ago. It sounds funny to call it a movement but there you have it. These are the times we live in. Perhaps I need to read about some more experiences of it - about people just living with a whole lot less stuff. The stories I have read have mainly been about people without children. How do we raise children in this age of consumerism, in a way that teaches them to honour what they have and to actually want less stuff? It's one thing to impose that kind of rule on them but to teach them to want less is another thing altogether. Maybe it comes back to modelling the behaviour, which is where I seem to have gone wrong. Agggghhhhh, it all seems like there is so much thinking to be done about how I want us to live, what values I want the children to grow up with and model all of that more consciously. Otherwise I'm just adding to the problems of overconsumption that we, in the Western world are so guilty of. I'll let you know how we get on.
Tuesday, 8 November 2011
A call to craft from Amber.
Today had just been one of those really crappy days when things go wrong. I had not slept well last night, laying awake trying to work out why a singing project I had been trying to get going for the local home-schooling community wasn't working out so was already tired and irritable. We had a paediatric appointment for Marta which we were running a little late for but could still just have snuck in on time if the car hadn't broken down on the way. So I decided we could walk the rest of the way. I had the four children with me but I figured that it wasn't that far, I had the pram in the boot for Marta and yes, we really would be late but we might still be able to get in. But the children had been picking up on my mood of irritation and distraction all morning and were in no mood for this. Plus Jovanka had worn a pair of shoes which are fine to play in but not good for walking, especially when that walking has to be done quickly. So her shoes kept slipping off which was making her really cross and she ended up standing in the street crying because it was all just too much. At that point it all just got too much for me as well. I turned the pram around announcing that we would be going home. I am sure that the man walking past with his dog saw the dark storm cloud hanging directly over my head. We marched back to the car, I was able to at least start it and we crawled home at 10km/h with the children under strict orders to say nothing. Not my finest hour.
A little later that day I had to tip out a full 2 litre carton of milk because it was off although it was still well within it's use by date, so we had no milk. That's a big deal at our house because no milk means no cups of tea and that is not good. The gnocchi I made for dinner disintegrated into mush when I cooked it, for the third time in a row. I am no gnocchi novice. I have cooked dozens of batches successfully but for the last few months it has been touch and go. I don't know if I've lost the touch or if potatoes are just not what they used to be. Okay, so it's probably me. Anyway, that left us without dinner so quickly cooked up some pasta to go with the napoli sauce that was supposed to go with the gnocchi. To add to this, I found that I was noticing every bit of mess as I walked through the house, and there is a considerable amount and I can turn a blind eye to most of it pretty well most days but today was not going to be one of those days. A book arrived in the mail - a lovely book about organising oneself so that one can be a better and happier parent. Do you think I could organise any time to sit and read it? Short answer, No. Long answer, Nooooooooo. How can I get organised if I can't even organise some time to sit and read the book that will give me the magic answer? Okay, I know there will not be a magic answer in this book but I like to pretend that there will be. It gives me hope for a short time at least. In the background of this day, imagine a soundtrack of two constantly squabbling boys who could not seem to get along but could not go their own ways, although the suggestion was made to them several times. Yep. Crappy day. And it all came down to my mood which I just did not have the energy to try and turn around into a positive one.
And then (thankfully there was an "and then" otherwise who knows where the day might have ended up) I read this post by Amber at Mama Moontime and quite suddenly my outlook changed. Amber is calling for contributions of small hand-crafted gifts to make up an advent calender for her 3 year old niece who was recently diagnosed with leukemia, and for her brother and sister. Any gifts received in excess of what is required for the advent calender will go to children at the Sydney Children's Hospital. There is more to it than this. Amber has put a great deal of thought and imagination into the organising of it all so please, if you are interested, have a look at her blog for more details. I have put my name down and hope that you might also be inspired to do so. I hope she receives thousands of pledges of little gifts. She has already given me a great gift today and that is one of perspective.
Yes, lots of things went wrong in my day and yes, we were all in a pretty lousy mood for a lot of the time but do you know what? My little girl Marta, who has just turned one is starting to walk and today, she took 10 unsteady little steps that got her about a metre across the floor. That's not much for us but for her it was one metre closer to her Mama which is where she wanted to be. I had not been paying attention to how big a step that is for her because I had been so caught up in my own head. Then this afternoon we all went for a walk along the street to a neighbours house where there is an amazing mulberry tree overhanging the front gate, inviting passers-by to feast, and feast we did. While we were there, another family who live nearby were just pulling into their driveway and wandered down for a chat. We hadn't seen them for ages. In fact, they'd not even met Marta and we had not met their 18 month old son (yes it had been too long) so it was a real treat to stop for a while and catch up on news while my children ran around on the nature strip with her children and we make plans to get together again soon. It had been such a pleasant few moments but I later put the memory of that pleasure to one side so I could continue to dwell on the negative thoughts in my head.
Reading Amber's post just put my day into perspective.
So thanks Amber for a kick in the pants reminder to think of others and be thankful for what we have. May your days be blessed.
A little later that day I had to tip out a full 2 litre carton of milk because it was off although it was still well within it's use by date, so we had no milk. That's a big deal at our house because no milk means no cups of tea and that is not good. The gnocchi I made for dinner disintegrated into mush when I cooked it, for the third time in a row. I am no gnocchi novice. I have cooked dozens of batches successfully but for the last few months it has been touch and go. I don't know if I've lost the touch or if potatoes are just not what they used to be. Okay, so it's probably me. Anyway, that left us without dinner so quickly cooked up some pasta to go with the napoli sauce that was supposed to go with the gnocchi. To add to this, I found that I was noticing every bit of mess as I walked through the house, and there is a considerable amount and I can turn a blind eye to most of it pretty well most days but today was not going to be one of those days. A book arrived in the mail - a lovely book about organising oneself so that one can be a better and happier parent. Do you think I could organise any time to sit and read it? Short answer, No. Long answer, Nooooooooo. How can I get organised if I can't even organise some time to sit and read the book that will give me the magic answer? Okay, I know there will not be a magic answer in this book but I like to pretend that there will be. It gives me hope for a short time at least. In the background of this day, imagine a soundtrack of two constantly squabbling boys who could not seem to get along but could not go their own ways, although the suggestion was made to them several times. Yep. Crappy day. And it all came down to my mood which I just did not have the energy to try and turn around into a positive one.
And then (thankfully there was an "and then" otherwise who knows where the day might have ended up) I read this post by Amber at Mama Moontime and quite suddenly my outlook changed. Amber is calling for contributions of small hand-crafted gifts to make up an advent calender for her 3 year old niece who was recently diagnosed with leukemia, and for her brother and sister. Any gifts received in excess of what is required for the advent calender will go to children at the Sydney Children's Hospital. There is more to it than this. Amber has put a great deal of thought and imagination into the organising of it all so please, if you are interested, have a look at her blog for more details. I have put my name down and hope that you might also be inspired to do so. I hope she receives thousands of pledges of little gifts. She has already given me a great gift today and that is one of perspective.
Yes, lots of things went wrong in my day and yes, we were all in a pretty lousy mood for a lot of the time but do you know what? My little girl Marta, who has just turned one is starting to walk and today, she took 10 unsteady little steps that got her about a metre across the floor. That's not much for us but for her it was one metre closer to her Mama which is where she wanted to be. I had not been paying attention to how big a step that is for her because I had been so caught up in my own head. Then this afternoon we all went for a walk along the street to a neighbours house where there is an amazing mulberry tree overhanging the front gate, inviting passers-by to feast, and feast we did. While we were there, another family who live nearby were just pulling into their driveway and wandered down for a chat. We hadn't seen them for ages. In fact, they'd not even met Marta and we had not met their 18 month old son (yes it had been too long) so it was a real treat to stop for a while and catch up on news while my children ran around on the nature strip with her children and we make plans to get together again soon. It had been such a pleasant few moments but I later put the memory of that pleasure to one side so I could continue to dwell on the negative thoughts in my head.
Reading Amber's post just put my day into perspective.
So thanks Amber for a kick in the pants reminder to think of others and be thankful for what we have. May your days be blessed.
Monday, 31 October 2011
What's in your work basket?
I love those 'What's in your work basket' posts I've seen on other blogs, such as this one at Soulemama. So I'm going to share the contents of mine with you. Let me say first, that the inventories I've seen on other blogs have been full of works in progress and this is all terribly impressive but I don't think they reflect the full reality of a busy life with children as mine does. So this is what I found this afternoon as I was cleaning out my basket in desperation because I couldn't find anything I needed:
- Cotton yarn and pattern for my current work in progress, along with said WIP,
- Orange wool left over from this cardigan finished last week,
- A tangled ball of sock yarn left from these socks finished in August,
- A little purse to hold knitting tools - scissors, stitch holders, stitch markers, tape measure, etc although these things were to be found scattered about in the basket this afternoon,
- One polar bear who found his way into the basket when we went for a picnic last week,
- One pair of pink tights, size 1, discarded due to warm weather at the home-ed sports day last week,
- One long-sleeved top, size 3, discarded as above,
- One small spotty sock - I would like to know where the other one is please.
- One red duplo block,
- One small wooden fish,
- One little felt chicken,
- 2 blue pens,
- A copy of Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting Workshop (one of the most useful knitting books I've ever picked up so it travels everywhere with my knitting),
- An assortment of needles left in there from projects past,
- A handful of store loyalty cards which Marta emptied out of my purse at last week's sports day,
- A bundle of receipts (also from my purse and emptied out by Marta),
- One dessertspoon (?????????)
- One needle holder,
- One pair of hand-knit socks waiting to be mended
- Tag from a blackberry vine we planted in the garden last Winter (2010) that fell out of my gardening notebook and somehow found it's way into the knitting basket.
- One face-cloth, not pictured, as it needed to be put in the wash immediately!
That's it!! I now have the task of putting all of these things away where they belong so I can reclaim my basket for it's intended purpose.
So........what's in your work basket?
Tuesday, 25 October 2011
Another laundry lesson learnt.
If you've read any of my posts before, you might recall a small incident involving my washing machine, a load of washed sheets and a washing machine door that refused to open. In case you haven't read it, or would like to refresh your memory, or maybe you're just one of those people who finds that reading about the misfortunes of others makes you feel better about your own sorry lot, then you can find that post right here.
In my defence I will say of today's incident, that for the last couple of years I have been recycling the water from my washing machine, via a greywater hose connected to the outlet pipe. So for a couple of years, I have not had to consider the possibility of an overflowing laundry sink or a flooded laundry floor. Until today. This is what I get for cleaning out the fernery.
You see, the greywater hose connects to the washing machine's outlet pipe, passes through the window above the washing machine, travels across the fernery floor and makes its' way out to the garden where it keeps my lawns lush. Well, that's what usually happens. Until today.
The fernery, well it used to be a fernery until it got piled up with a whole load of other un-fernery related stuff, had been getting a bit messy. Well, to be honest, 'a bit messy' is kind of an understatement. It had gotten so bad that I couldn't walk right through it without having to take very big steps to avoid stepping on something and even then it was chancey. It had gotten so bad that I was embarrassed to invite people over because they would not be able to avoid seeing my poor, sad fernery that used to be quite lovely, as they came in the back door.
Over time, this un-fernery related stuff that had been stored there by a friend for a few weeks which turned into, oh, about 13 months not that I'm counting, had spread out as boxes were opened in a search for one thing or another and had been added to with more boxes and bags of stuff. Boxes had split and contents had tumbled out across the concrete floor. Thinking that surely this friend would soon be taking this stuff away, as it was very clearly becoming a nuisance and really, it had been way more than just a few weeks, and thinking also that this friend should take care of their own stuff and not rely on me to clean up the mess their stuff had created, I left it there in it's state of messy mess-ness. Time passed. More time passed. Yet more time passed. Hints were given. Suggestions were openly made. Begging is not my style. The mess remained.
About a week ago, it became apparent that work needed to be done along the outside west wall of the house. Stay with me. This is relevant because, to get to the aforementioned outside west wall of the house, one must pass through the fernery. Yup. Visions of tradesmen stumbling over these piles, muttering to themselves that they couldn't believe anyone could live like this troubled me terribly. (If you ever hear me say that I don't care about any one's opinion of me, please know that I am lying). It was also a fairly real possibility that no self-respecting tradesman would bother stepping through all of that and would instead turn on their tradie booted heels, get back into their tradie ute and be on their tradie way. If the work was to be done, as it must be, the mess had to be dealt with.
So I spent one of my precious afternoons re-packing and re-stacking boxes and bags, sorting out rubbish that had accumulated throughout all of it and sweeping up piles of accumulated dried leaves that had dropped from the passionfruit vine growing over the fernery. There was now a clear pathway for the tradesmen, room to park the pram and space for the children to store their bikes out of the rain. And the piles of un-fernery related stuff looked even tidier than when it had all been dumped there in the first place. What joy there is in a relatively tidy room / fernery.
This is where we get back to the laundry debacle of the morning. If you are still there. Underneath the piles and piles of stuff, the greywater hose had been lying all that time, quietly and conscientiously carrying the washing machine water out to the lawn, never asking for attention, never complaining, even though it now had a split and was leaking water onto the floor. Being a small split and not a great big flooding split, it had managed to go unnoticed underneath everything. Now that it was uncovered and found to be leaving a watermark on the concrete floor it seemed wise to disconnect it from the washing machine outlet, leaving the greywater to go into the sink and straight down the pipe. As I said earlier, "until today".
What happened today? Today I decided to hand wash some woollen jumpers. Normally I do this in a big plastic tub that is perfect for just this very job. But the plastic tub is currently otherwise employed, holding all the paraphernalia that one picks up from the floor of an eight year old boy's bedroom floor. That is a whole other story which I will not go into now because probably you've got other things to do than just sit here reading my tale of woe. Suffice it to say that the plastic tub I would normally use was not available for service at that particular point in time. So I put the plug in the laundry sink, half filled it with water and a dash of wool wash, put the woolly jumpers in, swished them about a bit and left them to soak while I made breakfast for the troops. If I had thought about it for even half a moment, I would have realised that the water from the load of washing I had put on five minutes earlier would also soon be making it's merry way into the laundry sink and there might be a problem with that. But no. I went off to the kitchen, feeling good about having a load of washing in the machine and a tub of soaking woolly jumpers, all done before breakfast.
There are days when I hear the voice of Forrest Gump's mother in my head saying "Stupid is as stupid does". Unfortunately the voice does not come into my head until after I've done something stupid! Otherwise things might go quite differently for me and I might not find a laundry sink that just can't take any more and a laundry floor covered in water. Worst of all was the fact that my lovingly hand knitted, hand washed woollies were now sitting in an overflowing sink of water that had been through the washing machine and a load of dirty clothes and did not look like the kind of water I wanted to be washing my woollies in. Pull the plug out frantically, spilling more water onto the floor in the process, not that it matters because a bit more is not going to make much difference at this point. Retrieve my precious woollies, wash them out in a bucket that is not quite so perfect for this very job, hang them out, hang the rest of the washing out, make myself a stiff cup of tea and spend the rest of the day chiding myself for not having the backbone to tell my friend plain and clear that the stuff in the fernery needs to be gone; for being so completely disorganised that I don't have the right tub for the job even though said tub has been in my son's room keeping heaven knows what off the floor for two weeks and should, by rights, have been where I needed it by this morning and finally, for being too hard on myself and for chiding myself for something that could, kind of, happen to anyone. Except to those who have a backbone and a plastic tub that is perfect for the job and available at the time of need. Oh to be one of those people.
In my defence I will say of today's incident, that for the last couple of years I have been recycling the water from my washing machine, via a greywater hose connected to the outlet pipe. So for a couple of years, I have not had to consider the possibility of an overflowing laundry sink or a flooded laundry floor. Until today. This is what I get for cleaning out the fernery.
You see, the greywater hose connects to the washing machine's outlet pipe, passes through the window above the washing machine, travels across the fernery floor and makes its' way out to the garden where it keeps my lawns lush. Well, that's what usually happens. Until today.
The fernery, well it used to be a fernery until it got piled up with a whole load of other un-fernery related stuff, had been getting a bit messy. Well, to be honest, 'a bit messy' is kind of an understatement. It had gotten so bad that I couldn't walk right through it without having to take very big steps to avoid stepping on something and even then it was chancey. It had gotten so bad that I was embarrassed to invite people over because they would not be able to avoid seeing my poor, sad fernery that used to be quite lovely, as they came in the back door.
Over time, this un-fernery related stuff that had been stored there by a friend for a few weeks which turned into, oh, about 13 months not that I'm counting, had spread out as boxes were opened in a search for one thing or another and had been added to with more boxes and bags of stuff. Boxes had split and contents had tumbled out across the concrete floor. Thinking that surely this friend would soon be taking this stuff away, as it was very clearly becoming a nuisance and really, it had been way more than just a few weeks, and thinking also that this friend should take care of their own stuff and not rely on me to clean up the mess their stuff had created, I left it there in it's state of messy mess-ness. Time passed. More time passed. Yet more time passed. Hints were given. Suggestions were openly made. Begging is not my style. The mess remained.
About a week ago, it became apparent that work needed to be done along the outside west wall of the house. Stay with me. This is relevant because, to get to the aforementioned outside west wall of the house, one must pass through the fernery. Yup. Visions of tradesmen stumbling over these piles, muttering to themselves that they couldn't believe anyone could live like this troubled me terribly. (If you ever hear me say that I don't care about any one's opinion of me, please know that I am lying). It was also a fairly real possibility that no self-respecting tradesman would bother stepping through all of that and would instead turn on their tradie booted heels, get back into their tradie ute and be on their tradie way. If the work was to be done, as it must be, the mess had to be dealt with.
So I spent one of my precious afternoons re-packing and re-stacking boxes and bags, sorting out rubbish that had accumulated throughout all of it and sweeping up piles of accumulated dried leaves that had dropped from the passionfruit vine growing over the fernery. There was now a clear pathway for the tradesmen, room to park the pram and space for the children to store their bikes out of the rain. And the piles of un-fernery related stuff looked even tidier than when it had all been dumped there in the first place. What joy there is in a relatively tidy room / fernery.
This is where we get back to the laundry debacle of the morning. If you are still there. Underneath the piles and piles of stuff, the greywater hose had been lying all that time, quietly and conscientiously carrying the washing machine water out to the lawn, never asking for attention, never complaining, even though it now had a split and was leaking water onto the floor. Being a small split and not a great big flooding split, it had managed to go unnoticed underneath everything. Now that it was uncovered and found to be leaving a watermark on the concrete floor it seemed wise to disconnect it from the washing machine outlet, leaving the greywater to go into the sink and straight down the pipe. As I said earlier, "until today".
What happened today? Today I decided to hand wash some woollen jumpers. Normally I do this in a big plastic tub that is perfect for just this very job. But the plastic tub is currently otherwise employed, holding all the paraphernalia that one picks up from the floor of an eight year old boy's bedroom floor. That is a whole other story which I will not go into now because probably you've got other things to do than just sit here reading my tale of woe. Suffice it to say that the plastic tub I would normally use was not available for service at that particular point in time. So I put the plug in the laundry sink, half filled it with water and a dash of wool wash, put the woolly jumpers in, swished them about a bit and left them to soak while I made breakfast for the troops. If I had thought about it for even half a moment, I would have realised that the water from the load of washing I had put on five minutes earlier would also soon be making it's merry way into the laundry sink and there might be a problem with that. But no. I went off to the kitchen, feeling good about having a load of washing in the machine and a tub of soaking woolly jumpers, all done before breakfast.
There are days when I hear the voice of Forrest Gump's mother in my head saying "Stupid is as stupid does". Unfortunately the voice does not come into my head until after I've done something stupid! Otherwise things might go quite differently for me and I might not find a laundry sink that just can't take any more and a laundry floor covered in water. Worst of all was the fact that my lovingly hand knitted, hand washed woollies were now sitting in an overflowing sink of water that had been through the washing machine and a load of dirty clothes and did not look like the kind of water I wanted to be washing my woollies in. Pull the plug out frantically, spilling more water onto the floor in the process, not that it matters because a bit more is not going to make much difference at this point. Retrieve my precious woollies, wash them out in a bucket that is not quite so perfect for this very job, hang them out, hang the rest of the washing out, make myself a stiff cup of tea and spend the rest of the day chiding myself for not having the backbone to tell my friend plain and clear that the stuff in the fernery needs to be gone; for being so completely disorganised that I don't have the right tub for the job even though said tub has been in my son's room keeping heaven knows what off the floor for two weeks and should, by rights, have been where I needed it by this morning and finally, for being too hard on myself and for chiding myself for something that could, kind of, happen to anyone. Except to those who have a backbone and a plastic tub that is perfect for the job and available at the time of need. Oh to be one of those people.
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