Resolutions -- and a death in our appliance family

Resolutions... I should resolve to continue doing what works for me. That would be pinot grigio. No, seriously!

I think I need to become more compulsive-obsessive. See, there's The Husband and The Girl -- they're two peas in a pod. The Husband is self-disciplined to the point of being compulsive. That man has a written record of every sit-up and every weight lifted for the past 30 years. He gets up at 5:30 every morning, puts in his contact lenses, makes coffee, eats breakfast, packs his lunch, shaves, showers, gets dressed, and goes to work -- the same way, the same time every morning. It's like religion. And it's deadly effective. Me? Not so much. I drag out of bed at the last possible moment, getting as much shower as I have time left. The Girl takes after him. The Boy? Yup, a night owl without a compulsive or self-disciplined bone in his body. *sigh* It's my fault. Sorry, Boy.

So, I've been reading the FlyLady. I'm just not sure I can commit to a 27-fling-boogie or whatever it's called. I would rather re-grout the shower walls once a year than squeegee them every day after my shower. It's the difference between mowing the lawn and vacuuming. You can tell when the lawn has been mowed. Not so much with the vacuuming.

See, I was raised by a career gal with a housekeeper. We lost the housekeeper when I was 11, and then my sister and I learned our formative ideas about housekeeping. First, it's not important enough to do ourselves unless we simply can't avoid it. Second, we clean house for guests, not for ourselves. After all, we don't care what it looks like, do we? No. Third, if you can get away without doing it, by all means, don't do it. Betty Homemaker my mother was not. She fought her way up though a man's world, held her own as a single mom in 1970, and was pulling down $45k a year in 1980. So, that was something there.

Meet my mother-in-law: full-time homemaker, mother of six (the youngest four, boys), and house proud. This woman was a professional cleaner, and her status in the world was dependent on how well she did her job. "We may be poor, but my house is never dirty." She was a domestic goddess. And boy, could she make mashed potatoes...

Mars, meet Venus.

So, now that I'm a professional homemaker, I have to get more serious about the house being clean all the time, rather than just when I can't stand it anymore. (Ankle-deep in carpet crumbs, anyone?) The only problem? I have a full-time job homeschooling! Oh the irony...

And? Tonight the dishwasher died. The memorial service will be tomorrow evening...