Whenever I have a task to do that I don’t enjoy, I find myself wanting to make excuses to postpone it. I am not a procrastinator, but some tasks make me wonder if I have tendencies in that direction. This morning, on cleaning day, I thought of ten reasons why we should change it to another day, mainly the reality that I didn’t feel like doing it.
In my old life, I had the lovely Teresa, who cleaned our entire house every Wednesday. During the in-between times, I cleaned as necessary but only washed floors after we’d had company for dinner on the weekend. I cleaned the kitchen and bathrooms daily, and laundry was tackled every three days.
With Tom working 12-hour days, I didn’t expect him to clean the house, although he took care of everything outdoors on his days off. When he was home for dinner or when we entertained, he did a huge portion of the cleanup and always did the dishes, a huge help, even now.
With him retired, he’s very helpful in keeping things tidy and still doing all the dishes. I clean the counters, stovetop, and refrigerator’s front and handles. I thought by now, with modern technology, there would be fingerprint-free refrigerator doors, but I’ve yet to experience such a “luxury” in any holiday home.
Ten days from now, while in Apache Junction, we’ll do our own cleaning. The park model is small with one bedroom and bath, and once a week, we’ll clean everything, getting it done in about 40 minutes. We’re not willing to pay $200 or more for a weekly cleaning. That will be another six weeks of cleaning; we’re free from there! We’ll have at least four months when we won’t be doing the cleaning.
Overall, I’d say cleaning is my least favorite task. I’d better get used to it since we won’t have a cleaner until we get to the hotel in Minnesota around May 23. From there, we’ll stay in hotels, and then, pure bliss, we’ll be in Marloth Park until the latter part of September.
In Marloth Park, we have Zef and Vusi five days a week. On the weekends, when they are off, all we do is make the bed and clean up after cooking and doing dishes. I can’t recall a day when we didn’t make the bed or had someone to do so. That’s no big deal.
The next thing I procrastinate over is getting the worksheet done for our accountant to do our taxes. I did this earlier this year, and at the moment, our accountant in Nevada has everything he needs from us. Tom gets worried about this, and although he never nags me about it, I can tell he’s concerned. It’s a job I’ve assigned to be my responsibility since I handle the money, but I tend to procrastinate about getting this task done.
Regarding procrastination, these are the only two tasks that I fall short of my usual “get it done” mentality. Everything else, I do when it comes up or on a regular schedule without giving it another thought. Even getting the daily walking and exercises done doesn’t find me looking for excuses to avoid the daily responsibility. I just do it without giving it much thought.
Every one of us has tasks we dread. If you’d like to share some tasks you dread, please comment at the end of today’s post. I’m curious to see what nags at you.
Be well.
Photo from ten years ago today, March 22, 2014:
