Skip to main content

Thankless Tasks

Garden12 005
Is there a household task more thankless than washing old windows?

I can’t think of one off hand.  I mean other jobs are a pain—shampooing the carpets, cleaning the oven—but at least they give you a momentary feeling of accomplishment and a couple of days of feeling that the house is clean.  Windows, old windows, never look clean.  There are always streaks or smudges somewhere and then they get spattered with rain within a few hours—guaranteed.  And even though I don’t think the windows look sparkling clear, there is always, always a bird that thinks the glass has disappeared so – smack – bird sludge on the pane.

Here’s another thing that I resent having to spend time on every week—doing my nails.  All that fussing to shape and file and then they just keep on growing.   I personally do not view my nails as a fashion accessory and really don’t see the need to have them extend past the ends of my fingertips.  Twice a week I have to sit down and deal with nails that have gotten too long for my comfort.  It has to be a design flaw.

And think about weeding.  I do like to be outside and I don’t mind weeding so much actually.  But will someone tell me why grass can grow so quickly in a freshly weeded garden plot and languish, turning crispy brown out in the actual lawn.  Some people have wild flower gardens.  I could have one of those if I would just learn to appreciate the indigenous plants that I am choosing to call weeds instead.  And then some nursery purchase from long ago has become weed.  I swear our entire acre would turn to  a field of johnnie-jump-ups if left to its own devices.
What are the chores you can do without?

Comments

  1. I do 'do without' the nail thing. Because I throw pottery on the wheel (and also because I'm lazy), I keep my nails fairly short... clipping them most of the time, occasionally filing if I'm dressing up... so to speak.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I hate cleaning the bathroom. If I could hire someone to just do that once a week, I'd be a happy camper. And, maybe clean the kitchen, vacuum and dust. Every two weeks would be fine.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Bet you'd call me a liar if I said I love doing those menial chores. hehe, but I have one flaw, I can't stand dust, dirt or smears. So on and on it goes!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I hate doing the dishes. Just hate it -- except in the summer when the flowers are in bloom out the window and the cats and lizards are out there playing! Then I don't mind the dishes -- at least not as much!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Funny you should say that... I just finished doing the dishes and watching out the window at the mama raccoon and her 5 kits playing in the plastic swimming pool we put out there to help them survive this Texas heat.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I appreciate readers' comments so much. You don't even always have to agree with me.

Popular posts from this blog

It's TIme

 It's been a while since I have posted anything and even my reading your posts is falling by the wayside. I am in Florida now. I have a yard where little attention was spent on landscaping for the past years so I am slowly and (somewhat) methodically addressing that. I also volunteer to work at the pollinator garden and the edible garden I helped install at the UU grounds and I took over the volunteer job of cleaning out the overgrown community garden by my neighborhood mailboxes. The neighbor who was doing that got sick and could no longer attend to it. It's a bigger job than I'd thought at first -- not only overgrown with weeds, but the plants that are wanted there are in life and death competition for each others' spaces. And two walks a day, morning and evening, so Levi can keep up with addiction to canine social media and a daily rousing came of stick or ball midday take up another chunk of my time. I have a weekly meditation group that I co-facilitate, and my own ...

Walking

 I have always been a walker. Now that I have a high energy dog there is no excuse for not getting out there. And the weather is not an interfering factor here. Early morning and early evening are our preferred times so even when it gets hot we should be okay. We can get quite a long walk going around the neighborhood, greeting neighbors out working in their yards or walking their own dogs. But the landscape changes quickly just beyond the confines of the housing developments. It could be described as natural Florida or as sites of future housing developments. I do prefer the first option. And I really enjoy being out in natural areas so I often opt to head to a nature setting. I would have liked to put a picture here. Unfortunately my iPhone has made a unilateral decision. It will no longer be sending my photos to my computer. Why? I have no idea. However, we may be walking along happily enough -- me listening to the birds or trying to identify wildflowers and other plants while L...

New Furniture

 We went shopping for a new couch. I liked this one, the first store we went to. Of course it would be an impulse to buy the first one so we trekked around to other stores -- something we liked more, a better deal? No surprise that we ended up going back to that first store the next day and purchasing that couch for our living room. Also a matching love seat for the den where we watch TV. Because I had replaced my old love seat with two recliners. We couldn't keep three households worth of furniture after all. Well, my recliner was not big enough to accommodate both Levi and me. Poor boy had to watch TV from his bed on the floor. There! This is much better! Spoiled much? The little tail on the floor belongs to his toy squirrel, Buddy. It's like having a toddler with the need to be picking up toys or risk tripping over them. But his very favorite play thing is that bathmat that can be found anywhere but the bathroom floor.