Maxabellaland: a further reality check

Magdalena over at The Craft Revival has revived my love of letting it all hang out on my blog. She's put the word out that today is the day to take a snap of our 'unworthy-of-a-magazine-shoot life' and show the world that the over-styled life is just an impossible dream / nightmare (depending on your fancy).

Last time I showed up that Cappers and her propensity to paint the carpet. This time Maxi-Taxi is exposed in all his boy-mess glory. Oh, okay, he's seven, she's five. It's really me that's getting exposed...

Exhibit A is above.

This is as made as the bed ever gets. I even have a tendency to pull back the covers after putting on fresh sheets so it's 'ready'.

Exhibit B

'The, um, bookshelf' 

Exhibit C

 This mess of awful looking brand merchandising is in fact Maxi's 'crash mat' area for his OT and it hangs around on the floor permanently like an extra unmade bed.  I would just like to point out that I have never in my life purchased an item of branded merchandise... so why do we have so much of it lurking distastefully around?

Exhibit C

 'Random paperwork (such that you have when you are seven).'

Exhibit D

 Cushion A: 'Hey Cushion B and C, I'll get back into position if you will' Cushion B: 'Nah, I can't even remember where I go.' Cushion C: 'Are you crazy, where's the fun in that?'

Ah, housework. I love you so.

What's your place looking like right now? Do you want to join in?

Pop over the Magdalena's. You just have to write a post or paste up some pickies. Be brave.

PS - This is my first time using Instagram and I kinda like it but I think I should have kept the images a bit smaller... can you even see them? If you can't, that's good news for me!

PPS - I will be adding some less obscure posts about my truckin' adventure after my Grateful moment this weekend. Missed you all very much (seriously, how wrong is that!?) x

The messy charade

I’m tired of the charade and want it to stop.


You know the one I’m talking about.

You’re invited to a friend’s place for morning tea. You are greeted merrily at the door and ushered inside a home so pristinethat a white glove would be instantly rendered unemployable; unless it was willing to take on a shift as a duster. This house sparkles, it shines, it gleams. In fact it’s so darn clean looking you don’t even need the three second rule when you accidentally drop your just-baked bickie on the white shag carpeting.

And then it begins.

“Sorry about the mess,” your friend says distractedly.

“Mess?” You yelp, worried that your surreptiously reclaimed bickie has left offensive crumbs.

“I haven’t had a chance to clean all week,” she continues, looking disgustedly around the slovenly lab she calls home.

Ah yes, that’s the charade I’m talking about. The one where we have to pretend that (a) we haven’t cleaned up for our guests or (b) we haven’t actually stopped cleaning since we first met a mop in 1982. Either way, the house is perfectly neat, we can both see that it’s perfectly neat so why do we have to have the fake “sorry my house is such a mess” conversation every. single. time I come to visit?

Are you fishing for compliments – because I know the standard answer I’m meant to give is “Oh, no, hon. Your house looks perfect. I can’t believe how tidy you are, you should see my place”?

Or are you actually trying to distract me from noticing your anal neatness lest I judge you on having nothing better to do than clean?

Or, heaven forbid, do you genuinely think your super-neat house is messy, in which case your issues are probably even more ingrained than pasta sauce on microwaved Tupperware – an image I just know is making you hyperventilate a little bit right now*?

Any way you look at it, the pointless “sorry my house is such a mess” conversation is just not going to make you a winner.

I don’t do it. Any of it. I don’t clean up for people butand I don't make them talk about it when they come over either. On any given day my house could be messy when you visit, it could be tidy, it could be a total brothel complete with random half-clad girls wandering in and out (well, it could). But we don’t have to talk about it. You can just sit down and we’ll have a chat about far more interesting stuff than housework and you can happily drink your cup of tea (although I would definitenly advise employing the 3 second rule should you drop your bickie on my floor... actually, my advice is that even within the 3 second parametre you should probably just leave the bickie where it dropped – one of my half-clad girls can pick it up).

If I tallied up all the useless “sorry my house is messy” conversations I’ve had over the years, I reckon I’ve wasted weeks of my life. Weeks. And that’s not even including the fake “My daughter dresses herself” conversations or the fake “Look how creased my shirt got on the train” conversations or even the fake “I must have dropped that Indian curry on my sleeve at breakfast this morning” conversations. Maybe I’ve even wasted years.

Yes, I'm tired of the charade and want it to stop

Why do we pretend we’re effortlessly perfect? And why can’t we just own up to how hard we work at being perfect? And seriously, are we really worried that people are going to judge us on how well we keep house? 


* I’m not cruel.

[Image by Isabel Pereira]

The third drawer down is on the up

Remember when I shamelessly revealed my crazy third drawer down? Well... look at it now. Yes, that's it in the pic above. Can you believe it? I am officially crowning myself (as one does) the Queen of Clutterbusting. I'm very sorry reigning Queen of Clutterbusting, wherever you are (probably working for the actual Queen or something), but I'm taking over the coveted title.

See those little cuppy things and the bigger tray things? They all snap together and you can make any combo that fits. I bought the lot for less than $20 at Howards Storage World.

Embarrassingly, the whole job took me under an hour.

I'm freeeeeeeeeeeeee!!

Of course, I am not blind to the fact that there is a lot of room on top of all those marvellous cuppy and tray thingies so PLENTY of space for throwing things in with a nonchalance that would immediately strip me of my Queen of Clutterbusting title. So, don't worry, that third drawer down will be back to utter chaos in no time. I'll give it... oh, a week.

But let me gloat for that week, okay? I'm freeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeee!!

How do you go with the clutter busting? Can you live in chaos or does it send you bonkers?

Easy money

Like the cobbler's wife that has no shoes, I have no budget. My hub is a banker and a qualified financial planner, but no, we have no budget.

I've realised that aside from occasionally going a bit mad buying stuff for the house that we probably don't need, we are fairly careful with our money. I know that we buy whatever we want at the grocery store and that as a family we have never gone without (see point 'My husband is a banker' above), but still I think we are careful. We don't carry any debt (except our Obligatory Overwhelming Aussie Mortgage (OOAM)).

There are lots of little things we do without thinking that probably make the difference.

We don't drink a lot. Our 'alcohol' budget is generally minimal to non-existent during an average week.

We buy fruit and vegetables and meat fresh every other day. I know this flies in the face of the 'buy in bulk' mentality, but little and often means we always use what we purchase.

I have a bad back, but I still get my massages at the Nature Care Clinic which I discovered twenty years ago when I was a penniless student with a bad back. $38 for an hour long remedial massage. Happy with that.

In the same way, I wait for a Jump On It hair special to come up before getting my hair done. I haven't paid full price for a cut since I was ripped off by a salon who tried to charge me $200 for a haircut because it by a 'Senior Stylist' when I didn't even realise I was getting the infamous 'Senior Stylist' (and nor, it would seem, did my hair).

With the Tsunamis we have 'buying days' and 'no-buying days'. This renders pester-power a non-entity at our place. I tell them before we go that it's a no-buying day' and while there used to be whiny 'oh Mums', these days they just accept that a no-buying day is exactly that.

I've found myself having my own 'no-buying days' and try from time to time to not buy anything that's not food-related for a month or so. I generally do this if we need to get back on track and save a bit extra.

We religiously save money into a completely separate account (it's even with a separate bank). The money goes out when our pay comes in and we don't even look at it.

Yeah, well, I know these tips are pretty pathetic compared to people who are actually thrifty.  Those amazing meal-planning, hole-mending, co-opting, re-purposing geniuses. That's why I wrote this post... can you tell me what tips you have to help us all stay on track?

[Image by Elvira'sDADA]

What lurks beneath

Today Life in a Pink Fibro asks us whether we are an ironing-basket disciple. I am, but it’s not what you think. I am more Judas than Peter.

If I need a sherpa to get over the washing basket, then I need to be helicoptered in to deal with the ironing. It sits in a corner of my dining room, growing ever more mountainous as yet another crumpled garmet is precariously loaded on top. I shudder when I remember the day we almost lost The Badoo in a landslide.

You might visit my home and feel that it is loved and cared for. Everything seems reasonably clean and fresh and organised. You might settle in and contentedly think, “Ah, nice people live here.”

But you would be wrong. Lurking beneath the scrubbed-face home, things rank and gross in nature possess it merely. And not just bad Shakespeare references. Short-cuts, blind-eyes, lazybones – they are all here.

So, no I don’t iron. LOML does his work stuff and the Tsunami’s school uniforms. The rest is ironed by body heat.

Except for an ocassional spritz with a bit of vinegar and a half-hearted swipe with the steel-wool, I haven’t cleaned the oven since we bought it 3 years ago.

The crumbs on the floor of my car would feed the entire San Marco pigeon population for a year with leftovers. Oh, I’ve heard about that technique where you imagine that the car is just another room in the home to vacuum regularly. Yeah, I heard about that.

We have three third-drawers down.

The side of our backyard deck is our Secret Garden. It is overgrown with hydrangeas that shade a multitude of thrown toys, the old dryer lint filter which blew over the side a year ago, a dropped can of Mortein and at least 27 discarded seedling pots. I clear it out each Winter when the hydrangeas lose their leaves and guests start enquiring what our tip fees are. Then the whole cycle starts again.

That’s me. That’s us. That’s my home, my sanctuary.

Are you the same?

(Oh, tell me you’re the same, even if you’re not!)

[Image by squeakypeach4]

The cleaning fairy: part 2

So, I'm the fairy.

I realised this because LOML has been making our dinner every night for the past four weeks. He cooks lavish low-fat meals that are special every single night. He plans the meals, buys the groceries and puts the whole thing together without fanfare or complaint.

Now, prior to this he had cooked me dinner approximately two times* and both times the meal featured prawns. Prawns are pretty much the one thing I won't eat (yick) so the fact that he produced a prawn dish two times reveals just how long it was between meals. Long enough to forget, that's how long.

I tell you this because it has recently occurred to me that prior to the big diet change, his hidden culinary talents (and it turns out there is lots of talent there) were never called upon. He didn't cook simply because I always did.

In the same way, he knows how to clean, but doesn't do it because I always do it. He does do the dishes, the laundry and the ironing (oh yes!), but the rest is left for the cleaning fairy. It's a truth universally acknowledged that a woman will always clean first and clean well. After that, there's nothing to clean.

He is probably more than capable of organising the kids' parties, buying the presents, arranging the playdates and packing the school bags as well. But I wouldn't really know because I've never asked him to step in and do those things. It seems I'd rather just whinge occasionally about the burden of domestic thought and get on with it myself.

Whether we acknowledge it or not, we always make our choices.

Every Thursday we go to my parents-in-law for dinner. They make us a beautiful Italian meal and we chat and laugh about the kids and have a lovely time. Then we leave.

Back in the day I used to make an attempt to clear the table and do the dishes, but my MIL always brushed me away: "I'll do that". I remember feeling terribly guilty when she first did this years ago, I was happy to help and confused as to why she didn't want me. Time passed and my offers of help became more and more half-hearted. These days I don't even bother to get out of my chair.

She'll do that.

You see?

* Note that the 'Meals LOML Has Cooked' tally does not include bacon and eggs, omelettes or baked beans on toast.

[Image by Vivienne Love]

The cleaning fairy: part 1

Like all women, I often go to bed at night and dream that a fairy will come into my home and clean. The washing folded, the showers scrubbed, the biohazard in the oven magically poofed away. The 1031 crumbs all swept away and the 1032 bits and pieces of paper, gone, all gone. She loves it, she lives to clean, she can't do enough for me.

But all this time, I've been waiting in vain. She's not coming and do you know why?


She knows she's not needed. 

Because while I was busy dreaming her up and wishing she would come, I actually turned into her.

That's right, I am the cleaning fairy.

My kids mess up their room, walk away and poof, it's gone.

My husband leaves muesli crumbs all over the kitchen counter every morning but he probably doesn't even realise it because, poof, they're gone.

The showers clean themselves. So do the toilets, floors, linen, counter-tops, skirting boards and the entire house while it's at it. Dust magically wipes itself away. Towels change themselves. Washing self-folds. The vacuum self-sucks.

And speaking of self sucking...

We did this to ourselves. We run around like little fairies catching the drips, wiping the smears and sweeping up the gritted teeth that goes with the lot of it. We bitch occasionally, throw our hands up in despair and screech "Do you think a fairy does all the cleaning around here?"

Why, yes dear woman, yes she does.

Are you a fairy? Do you just get in there and do it all? 

Do you do it because otherwise it 'wouldn't get done'?

Happy International Women's Day!

[Image by Simple is Special]

Ms Nosybella: I really must do something about that...

Hello Bellas

My sister Al from the Pink Fibro and I were having a laugh the other day about all the little (and not so little) things around the house that need fixing. All the things that have probably needed fixing since we moved into our respective homes but time has passed and these days we just put up with the constant irritation. Women are good like that.

On this occasion, rather than wondering about our own homes, we were commenting on each others'. You see, we'd swapped houses between Chrissy and New Year and because we are no-holds-barred sisters, the conversation was full of things like:

"OMG, what's going on with your kitchen tap?!"

and

"Are pool pumps supposed to be that loud?"

and

"Aside from nearly killing myself on your front steps..."

and

"We couldn't lock the doors upstairs... um, do you ever actually lock the doors upstairs?"

So, here is an abridged list of things that desperately need attention in Maxabellaland:

• The front steps are crumbling sandstone. Nice if you live in a castle.

• Yes, it's true, the upstairs doors don't lock. Hello Hamburglar.

• There are no working door handles. Hello shut out of my own house on more than one occasion yet still we have not fixed the door handles.

• The seat on the second toilet is loose. Slip sliding awaaaaay.

• The stove does not work. The oven works well. This is why I'm a baker, not a fighter.

I could go on...

Alongside your 'To Do' list, do you have this kind of 'Things that never get done' list? 

If so, my question today is: 

What are your top three 'Never get done' items?

'Til next time

[Image by Michael Wildsmith/Getty via The Guardian]

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The auction for Lori starts at 9am on Australia Day (26/1). Click here to be a part of it.

The day I hired a hubby

Fondly reminiscing about my encounter with Dave the Vaccum last week has reminded me about the time I hired a hubby.

In Sydney there is a company called, you guessed it, Hire a Hubby. The premise it that while your own hubby is abundantly skilled and highly motivated to do all of the maintenance and reno work about the house, he is simply too busy. If he wasn't so darn busy, that new roof would be up, the bathroom tiled and the chicken coop built quick smart. But while he's cursing his busyness, this business is here to help. They have experienced, skilled, qualified 'hubbys' on their books ready and willing to come over and do the work for money. It's like the housewife's equivalent of a prostitute, really.

Anyway, I'm sure Hire a Hubby is a very good, reliable company but I cannot vouch for that. When I 'hired a hubby' I really got one.

I was nine-months pregnant with number two and in crisis reno mode. The Nest needed an updated kitchen quick-smart because no fresh baby of mine was going to grow up thinking that an acceptable kitchen included exposed brick walls, brown tiles and cupboards, green formica benchtops and green plastic flooring. It was enough that Maxi-Taxi had already been exposed to this style desert.

The floor man handled the floors, the renderer man handled the walls, my real and gorgeous hubby LOML and his mate Ric painted every brown cabinet white and Hire a Hubby sent Michael-Call-Me-Mike to get the benchtops and tiling done.

Michael was as big as my own hubby (which is to say, very, very big). He looked very professional with his toolbelt and his measuring tape. He had pencils tucked above both ears. Things were looking good.

He ripped out the old benchtops and tore down the brown tiles as if he found them as offensive as I did. He looked so engrossed that I popped out with Maxi-Taxi for a the rest of the day to get some last minute baby wrap shopping done (you can never have enough wraps).

I excitedly arrived home to view the completed benchtop and tiles and stood aghast in the kitchen doorway, one hand clasped protectively over my belly, the other shielding Maxi's vulnerable toddler eyes.

It was a MESS. The benchtops were fitted, but a large corner section of one bench had obviously been broken off and glued hurriedly back on. The tiling job was the worst tiling job in the history of tilers (and that is a very, very long history indeed). The grouting was smeared like toothpaste and dripped out between the tiles as if they were oozing pus. They were nicely almost dry.

I was speechless. I was massively pregnant. I could have done a better job myself. Maxi could have done a better job himself. But I said nothing.

I paid Michael's bill when it arrived a week later. I said nothing. I went in and gave birth and dear LOML and my sisters fixed what they could and made it all look presentable. Bless that hubby that I didn't even have to hire.

Years and years and years later I am still livid. I have actually moved house and I am still livid. It is embarrassing how livid I still am but for some reason it is like an unscratched itc... gaping wound.

The question is. Am I furious at Michael for passing himself off as a qualified Hubby when clearly he was just a regular hubby? Am I angry at Hire a Hubby for sending me Michael in the first place? Or am I livid at myself because I said nothing?

Yes, you're right. But I will say nothing more.

[Image from here]

Ms Nosybella: Help me out a little...?

Dear knowledgeable ones

I have questions. There are all these niggling little questions at the back of my mind and I feel my new-year life might be easier if I could find the answer to them. I figure that the readers of Maxabella loves... are a diverse and interesting bunch, so why not put my questions out there and see what comes back! So, if you know, please, you know, let me know...

How can I fix a sewing machine that sews a normal stitch on the 'right' side, but a jangly, jumbled mess on the 'other' side? It started happening when I mucked around with tension and some other stuff and I freaked out and left it and it's been about five months now. That's how freaked out I was.

Is there any way I can deter the cockatoos that roost in the gumtrees out the front of our house? The noise is a given but they also poo all over my front path - WELCOME to our home.

Why are our strawberries rotting on the branch before they ripen? I was so proud that we grew an actual strawberry and now... not so much.

How can I prevent outdoor cushions / soft furnishings from going mouldy? They are under cover, but I guess they get wet sometimes. I am too lazy to bring them in every day (there are just so many) and even if I wasn't I would have nowhere to put them.

How can I clean the outside of my windows that are reeeeeally high up, double-hung sash with panels and have fly screens on them? It's been three years now and I think it's time...

Is there any way to reinforce the toes on boy's shoes? It's amazing how quickly they scrape through them!

So, if you could help me out with any answers to the above questions, I would be... amazed!

'Til next time

[Image by Florencia Delboy]

Maxabellaland: A reality check

This one's for Nicole over at Bubby Makes Three who has come up with the brilliant idea of exposing those house porn mags for pitching an impossible dream. People don't / can't live like that in real life. To prove it, we are revealing our real-life homes in all their messy, cluttered, what-the-hell-is-this-thing-and-where-can-I-stash-it glory.

Here's my kitchen which has a permanent morning-after-the-night-before feel to it. Note the carefully prepared 'old beige towel' back drop through the 'picture' window...

Note the absence of freshly baked goods in the cake stand (which is permanently out as it has no home to speak of). The rotting bananas, long past 'fresh banana bread' stage. The three pack of dummies to feed the two year old's unbreakable pack-a-day habit. The broken-down, rusty old dishwasher and resulting piles of dishes in the dish rack (miraculously washed).  The bottles of plonk resting enticingly on the ancient stove top. Numerous containers permanently housed on the dividing-half-wall that screens persnickety dinner guests from the nastiness of preparing said dinner, but still allows the host to join in the chit chat. Oh yes, the kitchen.

Now, meet my Third Drawer Down, where the real me lurks like a festering wound.  Hold your breath, we're diving in...

You will not be surprised to learn that it doesn't actually close properly.

Moving on from the hungover kitchen, down the hall is Capper's bedroom, an oasis for the creative spirit.

Capper's bedroom previously featured in a Maxabella post, but it was the other end of the room that was cunningly displayed. Editing is a beautiful thing, isn't it Home Beautiful?

Here's a close-up of that sweet, little girl desk...

And one of the 'why did I think free-access to art in the bedroom was a great idea' carpet...

... and her sagging art string which was also a great idea at the time but, unlike in the magazines, she refuses to hang just 5 themed pictures tidily in a row.

See the Doll's House and Princess Palace there? They're not faring much better...

Police are investigating the possibility of a homicidal maniac on the loose in Maxabellaland. He's already claimed two victims in the Princess Palace and it is feared that next door he has brutally stabbed Doll's House Mum to death...

... no wait, scrap that. This is a clear case of Death By Ironing After Drinking Large Pot of Tea.

Oh boy did I enjoy that anti-over-styled life moment... So, ah, what's it like at your place?

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I rewound this post at the Fibro on 1.4.2011

Clearly I can't get enough humiliation.

Things I learned this week including that cupcakes can bake themselves

Happy Friyay! Another week, another... week. I overnighted in Adelaide on Sunday night for a shoot on Monday, collapsed exhausted on Tuesday following major work announcements, spent Wednesday night laughing at a home BBQ with my soon-to-be-ex colleagues and spent Thursday night baking into the wee small hours. Hello working Mum. Here's what I learned along the way...

1. When asked to bake something for a school event, you will be up until waaaaaay past your bedtime (8pm) (not really) (8.30pm) putting  together a sweet batch of 24 cupcakes with smiley faces only to find that most people just bring in store-bought stuff on a paper plate. Sigh.

2. People harshly judge mothers who travel for business.

3. There is this really fantastic site called Creative Muslims that brings together Muslim artists, graphic designers, photographers, etc. What I love about it is that it's been a great way for me to get to know a completely different (and, for whatever reason, controversial) culture and religion and appreciate the way that religion works in a lifestyle quite similar to my own. Finding a common platform to start is a great way to appreciate another culture.

4.  Blog Years: For every minute you spend in the Blogosphere, 25 minutes will have elapsed back on Planet Earth.

5. Drugwars is still around and is just as addictive as ever. Have you ever played it? I spent hours at work in the UK with my trade finance colleagues* lost in drug running. Play if you dare - you might not come back out again for many, many months.

Did you learn anything new to share this week? What do you think of store-bought cupcakes, mums who desert their young families to go away on business, Muslims, Blog Years or drug running...?

* Do remind me to tell you about the time I landed a job in international trade finance while temping as a secretary in London.

PS - Head to Lori's for showcase your amazing blog on Flog Yo Blog Friday...

[Image (and cupcakes - mine looked nothing like this good!) by hello naomi]

This Saturday I'm grateful for... toothbrushes

Here in Maxabellaland, Saturday is traditionally a sport, shop, sort the clothes, sweep the floors, strangle the Tsunamis (insert other 's' words here - no pun intended) kinda day. But it's nice to pause to appreciate the things in your life that are positive and affirming, whatever they may be. I thought it might be nice for us all to do a Saturday Grateful post and link up for lovely bloggy visits.


This Saturday I'm grateful for...


1. My toothbrush. I left it at home when I went to Melbourne. I will never take it for granted again. The path to instant freshness.*

2. My brother in law. You ferry the tsunamis from here to there, you fill the car with petrol, you loan me your camera when mine goes belly up, you look after our house while we're away, you fill our children's worlds with motorbikes and fast cars and girls, girls, girls. We love you, Guis.

3. Murchinson-Hume "Boys Bathroom" Cleaner. Tackles the job with heavy gusto, smells lightly of sweet grapefruit. Almost makes me want to clean!

What's making you smile today? Sign up to the linky and enjoy visiting other grateful bloggers today.

* Of course I bought one in Melbourne... my goodness, the things you think of me!

[Image]

Ms Nosybella: what's your best...?

Dear Earthlings

Lovely to be back...s t r e t c h. I've been inspired by Pink Patent Mary Janes (easy to be) and I'm asking for handy household hints today. I gave her my best laundry tip yesterday (fill up the fabric softener with half vinegar and half water and add 8 drops of lavender essential oil... soft, fluffy, clothes and beautifully fragrant!).

Do you do things a bit different to the 'norm'... a couple of short cuts or earth-friendly cleaning solutions that smell nice? I get the bicarb and vinegar one-stop solution for all cleaning needs. I do. But it just doesn't smell good and I've had no joy tackling a mouldy bathroom with this solution...

So, tell me, what are your top tips for keeping things fresh around the home?

'Til next time.

[Image]

Should more women be working full-time?

I've gotta stop reading the Sydney Morning Herald... or at, the very least, LOML has to stop sending me such thought-provoking articles. Monday it was the redhead thing, yesterday it was the women working part-time thing. Goodbye 'light hearted, easy on the eye' post, heeeeellllo 'WTF?' post.

The article proposes that because more Australian women work part-time, we lag behind the rest of the world in terms of equality on the domestic front. In Denmark (darn those pesky Scandanavian cousins that seem to get everything right!) the women mainly work full-time and both partners share the bulk of domestic responsibility. Here in Australia, with many of us working part-time, we're left picking up the domestic slack as well as beavering away at our working responsibilities. So, they conclude that the less a woman is at work in her job, the more likely she is to be scrubbing the floors or looking after children at home.

Cough. I'm just not sure how working full-time is going to help mothers improve this work-life balance. What did I miss?  I work part-time (4 days per week, Wednesdays at home) so I can spend more time with my children. So, if working part-time means I'm 'working harder' at that, then I'm very happy indeed. And hats off to mothers who take the 'no-time' approach and focus on their home and raising their children. I think the researchers who made some of these conclusions seem to have forgotten that 'childcare' is actually what's involved when you have children. Caring for children is kinda why we had them!! How can going out to work full-time possibly give you more of that sort of quality of life?

Contrary to popular opinion, the self-cleaning house is still a few years away. So doing the chores is part of the 'life' in work / life  balance whether we like it or not. It's the same amount of work involved whether we work full, part or no-time.  And (just quietly as I may get shot for saying this) at my place the reason the woman does the bulk of the housework is because the woman demands the bulk of the standards.

So, how can women working full-time give us more time to spend with our children and enhance our lives exactly? Comparing Australia with other countries and then assuming that work sits outside of cultural differences doesn't help anyone. Why not suggest that everyone starts working part-time instead? Because it there's one thing I agree with the research findings about, it's that both the men and women of Australia could do with a bit of a re-think on the hours they devote to their bosses!

What are your thoughts about all of this? How do you manage work and home - part-time or full-time? Or have you chosen to stop working to focus on home? Did your partner ever consider doing the same? Are you happy with your work /life balance? Will I ever stop asking questions?

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Mixing mamahood and work: a reply

Yesterday Kahli from little. lovely guest posted her 'Top 5 tips for working mums" over at Fat Mum Slim's. I started to write a comment in reply and then realised that my comment was growing and growing and, really, I should just write my own post and link on back.

So, what made my comment grow and grow?

Well, I had issues. As much as I appreciated where Kahli was coming from (and indeed, on investigation of her site, she seems more than a little lovely herself), I felt that many of her "top five tips" missed the mark for over-stretched, over-committed, over-it mummas. Here are Kahli's tips and my thoughts in reply:


1. Get organised. I’ve found the most important key to success has been organisation. The more organised I am, the less stressed I feel. Plan your weekly meals in advance, order groceries online and always organise as much as you can the night before to avoid a mad rush out the door.

100% agree with you, Kahli so, ah... moving right along.


2. Leave guilt behind. Guilt is often a working mother’s nosy neighbour, popping in when you’re busy, tired or simply feeling low. Try to leave guilt at the door. More often than not, it’s a sign you’re trying to be the best mother you can be and that’s all you – or anyone else – can ask for.

Seriously? A neighbour? Guilt is more like my permanent lodger, popping in all day, every day. I can't leave it at the door because it lives inside me. If I'm going to be a happy mumma and worker, I need to embrace the guilt and make it work hard for its keep. So if I'm feeling guilty about a particular thing, I don't ignore it, I investigate it and try to find ways to change things enough to keep guilt a happy camper.



3. Define work and play. If you’ve found yourself rocking a baby with one arm and responding to emails with another, try separating the two. When you’re working, work and when you’re mothering, mother. Otherwise you may feel you don’t either well. This might mean getting up early or working after your babies are in bed, but you’ll probably find you’re far more productive (and happier) when you do.

This one doesn't come up much for me as I mainly work away from home and when I do work from home my children are in their regular daytime places (school, preschool, with grandparents, daycare). BUT... in general I think the boundaries of 'work time is work time' and 'home time is home time' end up creating more stress than they hope to prevent. Of course they are going to blur - it's not work/life balance, it's just life. Mine changed for the better when I got a BlackBerry that meant that I can do after hours work where ever I am, if that's what I choose to do.

My advice to mums who do work from home and are stressed to the max is to question whether you really can be committed to two full-time jobs that require your attention at the same time. Look for loving childcare alternatives to help you make it work. Or ensure your work knows that you will be working from the hours of 7pm until 1am or whatever works for you. Otherwise, you're really not doing either your babies or your work a favour and it's not fair on anyone. Especially your little ones because if you're anything like me you really like the work you do and can get totally absorbed in it such that a little voice saying "Mummy can I" becomes like nails down a blackboard and it takes everything you've got not to snap bile at your little needy dearheart for interrupting your fun... Yes, I believe in the maxim "you can have it all, just not all at the same time."

As for getting up early to fit yet more stuff into your already over-burdened day, you must be joking, right?



4. Cherish your time off. We all know quality isn’t married to quantity so make your evenings and weekends sacred. Happy memories aren’t based on a catalogue of hours spent together, but rather what you did in the hours you had. The emails, washing and housework can wait.

Unfortunately, the emails, washing and housework really can't wait. If they wait they have a tendency to interbreed and create a giant overflowing inboxing, clothes wrecking, filthy mess loving beast who sucks the very life out of every household it encounters.

I don't know about Kahli, but there is no way I can just down tools and have a sacred evening or weekend as a family knowing that the beast is hungrily eating my house. So my advice here is to get the lot done as quickly as possible (cut any reasonable corner and speed a little - there are no traffic cops here) and then get out of the house for family time so that those little urchins of ours don't start feeding the monster again the second you've finished.


5. Be kind to yourself. Juggling work and the responsibilities of a family can be tough, so be kind to yourself. Take an extra long bath or buy a new magazine. And remember, it really doesn’t matter if your floors aren’t clean enough to serve dinner off. That’s what tables are for.

Be kind to yourself. Let the kids skip a bath or buy a new babysitter. And always remember that this is your actual life, not some weird dream you've found yourself in. So have a laugh whenever you can (laughing at the people with young children who are still trying to keep their floors clean would be a good place to start). That's what life is for.

Did you find Kahli's tips useful? Do you have other tips that might be helpful for over-burdened mothers?
 
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It begins with a single incident

It begins with a single incident. We're out of rice. I forgot to buy rice. Why do I always have to remember to buy the rice?

Or the bread, or the milk, or the toilet paper, or the holidays, or the shoes, childcare, school fees, clothes, electricity bills, birthday presents, swimming lessons, LIFE.

Why do I always have to remember to buy the life?

[Image via weheartit]

The Friday Rant: Domestic Thought

I've long given up on equality in the housework stakes. There were a few things working against me:

1. It appears LOML is 10 times more helpful with tsunami-minding than most husbands. So even though I used to go beserk because he was suspiciously absent during housework moments, he would be praised endlessly by women at BBQs. "You do so much to help with the children," they would croon as LOML bounced 25 children on the family trampoline. "I wish my husband did a tenth of what you do," they would beam. So, of course, fearful that LOML would ditch me for a more grateful, more croony woman, I stopped nagging about the housework. Just joking. What really happened was that he decided the most helpful thing to do would be to take the kids to the park and let me slave on with the housework in peace. Which is lovely... but, you know, still slavey.

2. About 12 years ago, I fell for the classic male trick of 'under-cleaning'. As soon as you find yourself frantically cleaning up two minutes after the male cleaner has done his thing, stop immediately. They are doing it on purpose. See, eventually you'll crack and scream "for the love of god, how hard is it to wipe your own feet before you mop the kitchen floor?!" Bang, they've got you. You only need to do this once and you can never, ever take it back. Years and years later they will say "You know I'd love to help you with the cleaning, but you know how you get. Remember that time in 1998? Remember?"

3. My favourite: you're manically flicking about with your dust cloth between folding 10 baskets of clothes (I know, only 10 - it was the 5th wash this week), replacing the 27th texta lid on the 27th naked texta and signing your 8th Family Assistance Office Childcare Tax Benefit form and they swan in and say "oh honey, just leave it". Just leave it? Just. leave. it? For whom, exactly?

Anyway, this rant isn't actually supposed to be about the inequality of housework. It's acutally about a far more insidious domestic imbalance.

Domestic Thought.

The holder of Domestic Thought is almost invariably a woman. And it's killing us slowly.

Tomorrow's yellow t-shirt safety day at school for Maxi-Taxi - note to self: yellow t-shirt. Tomorrow. Child A. Must take $2 fine for imposed mufti. Iron jeans to wear with yellow t-shirt. Ask about safety when child returns from school. Prepare for lecture on how to cross the road safely.

Saturday is X's birthday party - note to self: get present. Not too cheap. Maybe something expensive looking, but on sale. Kid likes Hannah Montana. Don't buy Hannah Montana. Get something educational. Must wrap present. Find card. Get address. Do the RSVP. Check directory to find out where house is. Take Child B to party at 2, picking up X and Y on the way from Z, M's mother will bring Child B home after she drops off R at P and Q at R.

Aunt's birthday coming up. Soccer fundraiser. Need toilet paper. When do classes start? P&C meeting on Tuesday. Take cupcakes to childcare on Monday. Fertilise plants. Check that parenting class for anxious types. Get some string to tie up the orange tree. Picnic for Sunday. RSVP yes to D for BBQ on the 22nd. When should we start toilet training The Badoo? Buy groceries. Get the BrollySheets back to arm ourselves against Maxi-Taxi. Childcare arrangements for term 2 holidays. What's for dinner? Tonight? Tomorrow night? For the next 1,026 nights? Lunch? Breakfast? Snacks?

Think about all the things you think about.

Now think about all the things your man thinks about.

Forget the housework. Domestic Thought is the real inequality!

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I rewound this post on 27.11.10