So This is the New Year…
First of all, let’s just get this out of the way…
OH MY GOD HOLY SHIT YOU POSTED ON YOUR BLOG WE THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD AND WE WERE JUST WAITIN FER UR DOMAIN REGGY TO EXPIRE SO WE COULD ST33L UR AWSUM URL!!1One
Okay, with that done. Hello! I know. It’s been like a month or more. It’s been busy around here lately. But that’s a story for another post (or three.. since the Bloggening just started back up again and I’m already four posts behind. Damn you, Ian and Tom.)
Now for a word from your sponsors…
I am a slob. Actually, saying I’m a slob is like saying the second term of the Bush Administration was kind of a lame party. I cringe at the thought of pop-ins, I am comfortable with a level of “artistic disarray” that would make Martha Stewart loose her bowels into her neatly ironed chinos. I am… Godzillaslob. The best evidence of this came this Thanksgiving. We cleaned the house neat as a pin in anticipation of dinner at our house. The place was stunningly clean. Unaccustomed to such conditions, our two cats wandered the house crying mournfully and refusing to cuddle with us until the place regained its usual patina of hapless clutter.
To be fair, I’m a busy girl. Anyone who knows me personally will agree that I take on WAY too much. This year, in addition to work, I took three classes, wrote the first 50,000 words of a novel, and joined a Christmas choir group. Holy. Crap. How much laundry got done in this house? I bet you can guess.
At the beginning of this year, I made the New Year’s resolution to read/listen to a book a week for the entire year. It was more than I’d read in years, but I thought it was an attainable goal, so I blogged about it and started a Goodreads account to chart my progress. I’m happy to report that as of today, not only have I completed my fifty-two book spree, I’m actually working on books fifty-three and fifty-four at the moment.
With my first “NYR Challenge” out of the way, I thought perhaps my love of self-competition could cure my vile hatred of housework. Maybe, if I came up with a NEW New Year’s Resolution Challenge TM I would keep my house clean, my clothes laundered, and my sanity intact.
And here you have it: The “Enemy of the (Feminist) State” Homemaker New Year’s Challenge.
I hereby challenge myself in this public forum to commit to one hour of housework… every day…. FOR A YEAR.
Oh. Shit.
Here are the rules, both to keep me honest, and in case any of my six or seven dedicated readers would like to follow along at home:
1. The victim… um.. competitor… uhh… Sexy Domestic Goddess (YES! That works) will commit to one hour of housekeeping per day for the period January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2010.
2. The SDG will record said housework (basic description of housekeeping prowess and time) on a blog, Facebook, Twitter or other place fit for public scrutiny.
3. If an hour of housework is missed, it must be made up later within the same week. *Yes, this will occasionally mean seven miserable hours of solid housekeeping on a Sunday, as punishment for six previous days of doing f#%k all and stoning out on Warcraft.
4. Hours may be banked within the same week. If the SDG does two hours of work on Monday, she may sit on her ass without shame on Tuesday. Bon Bons optional.
5. Banked hours will disappear on the Monday after a given week. Put those Bon Bons to good use, girls.
Here is the part that will basically ensure that I keep my house as neat as a pin for the next 365 days.
6. If the SDG fails in this attempt to bring domestic order to her humble abode, the sting of failure will be felt in the form of $50 of her hard earned cash going to a cause she f#%king despises.
My anti-charity? As if it would be anything else…
The George W. Bush Presidential Center
As if that alone were not sufficient reason to keep to this resolution, here’s a little added incentive culled from the donation page of the site:
“With your tax-deductible contribution, you will take your place as one of the first to stand with President and Mrs. Bush as a Charter Member of the George W. Bush Presidential Center. When you contribute $50 or more, your name will also be included in the Freedom Registry on permanent display at the Center.”
Think of it: My name, forever scrawled in the pages of an unholy guestbook, alongside names of people who actually LIKE that guy.
I don’t think anyone reading this wants to see me fail this thing now.
5 Responses to “So This is the New Year…”
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How are you planning to account for any week-long vacations?
I applaud your goal and am considering joining you in it, though the week-long vacations would throw me off. When I’m at our timeshare, the place doesn’t have time to get messy.
Regardless, I’m proud of you. Sexy and Domestic … what an unholy yet winning combo.
My thought on that subject is this: I am going to try to do “trial run” of this little project up until the first. I’m going to bank whatever time before that as vacation time. If I do a few hours a night (tonight I ended up doing about 1 1/2 hours for instance) I’ll save that up for vacation time over the summer
I suppose I always do a lot of laundry/housecleaning/fridge emptying before a vacation. Maybe all the prepwork can make up for not being home?
Thanks baby!! I appreciate it. Nothing like NaNo to give one a taste for ridiculous goals, right?
Hmmmm….. how about bonus time rewards if you volunteer to help some other needy individual with their housework? Say you were to work for an hour with a lonely unemployed shut in, who is overweight, about 55, and chronically behind in the laundry for the 2 giants, and one husband she lives with? That might equal 2 hours of credit. Afterall…. you wouldn’t be contributing to the mess at home and as for ed…. hmmmm…. I’ll steal his keys and he’ll have to wait for you in the hall. What a PLAN!!!
Let me know when to pencil you in.
Love you,
e
Baby, I would come clean your castle ANY time
I’m around all the time until Jan 11th when school starts back up! We’ll have to set a housecleaning/gorging ourselves on talk and tea/play with beads and quilts day!! I’d LOVE to!!
It takes 2 weeks to break a bad habit- or form a new good one.
Take it from a former SLOBAHOLIC… and I was terrible.
Here’s some tips:
If you get out of your bed, and IMMEDIATELY pull the covers up and make it presentable… your bed is made… CK
If you pick up your clothes EVERYNIGHT before bed and either fold to wear again (there are levels of “dirty” when it comes to clothes”) or put them in the hamper… floor is clean… CK
If after every meal you take the 10-15 minutes to wash the pots and put the dishes in the dishwasher… kitchen is clean… CK
Remove all drinking glasses- food plates- newspapers- and other unnecessary items from the living room EVERY night before you retire- the living room is clean… CK
They say- coz I still have trouble in the bathroom… if you put all of your makeup and beauty items in bins for storage in the cabinets, then your counters are clean and the clothes are in the hamper, the bathroom appears clean…CK
The time you spend doing laundry, cleaning cat boxes and such will be easy and short chores.
Good luck to ya… It is possible to change… but my fabric still clutters my sewing room… in one corner- I folded and stacked all of mine- like with your sister!
Lori