Hoarding...not just on TV

lostinrates

valk_scot wrote: »

I know someone like this, she asks you round then shows you her cupboards and new kitchen gadgets and talks about cleaning products. And yes she is fascinating, but not in a good way iykwim? She wore white jeans all the time when her babies were small, dressed the kids in white too and changed everyone's clothes whenever either she or the kids got so much as a speck of dirt on any of them. The kids grew up terrified of being dirty, it was so clearly a Bad Thing. The son (he's 18) now has some very serious OCD traits that require therapy, the daughter (16) seems to have some sort of eating disorder. I'm glad my kids grew up thinking mud was a Good Thing, put it that way.

Can't even the ' mud is a good thing' mentality be part of perfectionism though?

We get muddy, if I had a child he would be muddy, but it's because I think 'mud is a good thing' not because I think it doesn't matter either way iyswim.

I wanted a child so badly, but often think any kid I might have had had a lucky escape...I would certainly have played music to it in the womb and been into baby sign language and when we were more hopeful dh and I had agreed the child would be brought up trilingual, which when you think about it is somewhat silly as we live now in uk, work is mainly in English and we tend to speak English together (my Italian is not good enough to enjoy talking in it as the primary language at home, though when we are in Italy we speak in Italian (and pigeon).

whitewing

I definitely have aspirationally muddy, ruddy-cheeked children.

LIR, what you think you will do when you have children always changes. As a single parent, I dreamt of having weekend lie ins with a husband and children in between. In fact my DD wakes up, sits bolt upright and then refuses to play in the living room unless one of us is with her.

Oh yum, lunch has arrived.

I am trying to organise DH today and he is resisting. He has just said sorry unprompted for the first time in living memory. We're sorting okay but he thinks I am nagging because I keep reminding him about stuff that hasn't left the house yet. I pointed out that we wouldn't keep having the conversation if he dealt with it. (Not stuff I can).

Found a home for one of our electrical items. That will go tomorrow.

SpikyHedgehog

idristhedragon wrote: »

Aye yay ay!! I am such a food hoarder. I currently have about 12 things of fairy liquid (I have a dishwasher) the aforementioned 25 tins of mackeral, and fabric conditioner- oh my days I hoard fabric conditioner like my life depends on it. I went to the shop at 8am this morning and found myself mooning about the washing aisle wondering if I could justify a new one.
WHY? I can only guess it was from my years of squatting/dodgy shard houses with no washing machine? My mums frugality when we were growing up to the extent of using cheapo washing powder and washing never smelling nice? My mum and my sister also stockpile food. I could probably live for well over a month in the contents of my fridge freezerS (x2) and larder,and cupboard and upstairs stash of cereal and coffee and crisps and need I go on?
Clothes and food are my big hoards. I really wonder why?
I think it may be related to when Big DD was little I was a young single mum in a council flat with literally £80 a week for everything (it was a big ole flat too so expensive to heat etc) food, everything. My shopping budget used to be £15 a week and was mostly blue and white striped.I really enjoy the luxury of being able to afford as musch food as we want now (married, 3 more kids, big house, 2 incomes) so why do I still hoard food? Probably the same way Im still convinced the house isnt "mine" as The Prof pays the mortgage despite having been together 12 years and married for 9 and all the babies in between. Maybe thats why its a tip? cos Im convinvced he will throw me out of "his" house at any minute and Im not worthy?
Gosh that was a stream of conciousness wasnt it!! anyway Im off to put some money in the PO and put an outstanding bill for £335 on my credit card *BOO* but at least its interest free for 3 months and wont be hanging over my head any more.................

I know my hoarding is to do with being with TheExBoyfriend, struggling to wash up with a highly diluted bottle of MrS's False Economy washing up liquid, feeding babyDS1 potatoes from a huge sack, but not much else because there wasn't much else... But it is also to do with being my parents' eldest child, the one who's stuff was donated to jumble sales to raise money for something they were interested in, only having hand me down clothes as the money was prioritised to other stuff, having to be the one buying my sisters's school shoes as again the money had been prioritised to other stuff...

I also struggle with housework, because mum had no routine and wouldn't show us how to do stuff. To my mind, large appliances in the kitchen are cleaned under when they've broken and waiting for the repair man, not as a routine thing. Clothes are sorted through if they've got to be moved from a damp wardrobe. :o:o

I do make my own routines for things and try to make sure the boys learn them. But it's something I have to work at consciously, not automatic. So then I have to try to deal with the mental stress that causes...

VJsmum

SpikyHedgehog wrote: »

I also struggle with housework, because mum had no routine and wouldn't show us how to do stuff. To my mind, large appliances in the kitchen are cleaned under when they've broken and waiting for the repair man, not as a routine thing.

Mine too! DO people clean under them routinely? Why? I might vaguely poke under them with a mop now and then - otherwise, who cares? I struggle with housework because it is BORING! Sooooo boring - boring boring boring. Did I tell you I find it boring! I have learned that having an audio book or something from Radio 4 or radio 4 extra (either live or on Iplayer on the lappy) does help. The first 4 Harry Potter books have sorted many a room - regrettably the library hasn't had the others in lately. Later I am going to do the kitchen and the bedroom with a PD james from radio 4 extra on iplayer. I love radio cos you don't have to watch it (clearly! ) so can get on while you listen.

Also, I don't htink it hurts to do things consciously rather than routinely. Often it means they are done better. I am not an organised tidy person by nature - just don't have that gene. Therefore I have to consciously be organised or tidier which makes me better at it IYKWIM

lostinrates

Fwiw I do not clean under large appliances unless we have to move them for some reason.

This always means some embarrassement if something breaks down or needs to be moved for another reason.


This year my big freezer will have been moved twice, (for the builders) and hopefully that will be it for a very long time.

SpikyHedgehog

Oh, I feel better! Errant Husband always said 'They should be done routinely, my mother always did them...' and I have his voice in my head telling me I don't do things like his mother did

It's only when I stop and think and share things that I can see 'Hey, I'm me! Not my mum, not my mother-in-law, not my sisters or sister in law, and I can choose how I do things!'

alec_eiffel

I've never known anyone pull out an appliance to clean it, other than when I worked at a hotel and cleaners would come in to deep clean. Admittedly I have built in things so it's a job that doesn't exist thank goodness. I don't find housework boring, it's just a thing that happens but now I have a house that's not full of stuff it's not hard to do so that's probably why, it takes not much time and even less effort these days, rather than being the impossible task that used to reduce me to tears and days in bed.

I have a kind of routine which involves doing all the important stuff in the morning so I can get on with having a nice time. But rather than having a checklist to wander round doing zombie-like it's to make sure I look at all those places and check whether they need cleaning/sorting or not. I can very easily not see mess so making myself look I know it'll be dealt with. Otherwise something could sit in the porch or on the table for weeks and me just get used to it being there.

We had a new heating system put in at our old house when we'd lived there for about 3 years. When the bloke took the radiator off in the kitchen a very large pair of ladies underpants fell onto the floor. They clearly didn't belong to me. The plumber said his wife would be made up that there was someone else in town who cleaned their house as infrequently as they did!

idristhedragon

I subscribe to the minimal housework school of thought too.
For exasmple this morning I went upstairs, emptied the bathroom bin (as even cramming room had gone) grabbed the dirty washing out of our room and the boys room, grabbed my fave mug out of the bath where I left it on monday, came downstairs, emptied aforementioned bathroom bin and kitchen bin in dustbin and then folded washing thats been on airer since sunday (now in basket in kitchen but its a start) put a load ofwashing in and one in tumble drier and then cleaned worktops, table, sink, and swept floor. I didnt bother mopping as the dog keepscoming in with wet feet.
I have a rug in my front room that NEEDS vaccing every day so I do it every other ha ha
I really need to sort out the floordrobe so Im going to do that now as I only have 2 out of 4 kids here and Prof is going straight to the gym so I have a couple ofhours when I need to do little more than chuck a pizza in for the 2 kids that are here!
i LOVE the idea of talking books while sorting- I often put the telly on but its easy to be distracted!

GreyQueen

:eek: Valk, those poor kids.............!

I admit that I do clean under appliances. I do certain chores once a year, in the same month that I moved into this flat. Randomly, when the mood strikes, I will do the following; drag out washer, cooker, fridge and clean under and behind, have curtains down and bung thru the washer and take the Venetian blind from the kitchen into the bathroom for a sponge and rinse.

Last year I skipped the Venetian (which I'll prolly do soon, when the mood strikes) and I didn't do under the fridge last month when I did the other appliances because I got a new one in May and did it then.

The reason for the routine is that I'm forgetful and things otherwise might degenerate into squalor. I did occur to me on Monday this week when the w.m. repairman was dragging the appliance out and also wriggling around on my floor to be glad things were clean in there, but it hadn't crossed my mind until he was actually doing it.

I grew up in a highly-cluttered and untidy home with no real housekeeping routines except that the kitch and bathroom were always kept very clean. But because things weren't turfed out with any kind of regularity, lots of irritating things happened; things went AWOL, things went past usable, things fell off or onto other things and broke or were otherwise spoiled. New things were bought because the old ones were lost, etc etc etc.

I work hard at some things but with things I don't like, such as housework, I'm lazy. My laziness (mostly) doesn't take the form of not doing the stuff, but in trying to apply my [STRIKE]low cunning[/STRIKE] err intelligence to the task to work out the easiest way of doing stuff.

I long ago worked out that cluttered was hard work and streamlined was easier. Such as washing a bedsheet as soon as I got out of my pit. Having spent the day on the clothes airer, it is now dry. It'll be back on the bed tonight and ironed in situ with my patented wriggle-and-squirm technique. The iron and the ironing board are staying safely in the cupboard. Planning ahead to eliminate a chore.

On the subject of ironed vs un-ironed bedsheets, I figure anyone who is going to see the bed is either a close pal or somebody who better stop admiring my Eqyptian cotton and start paying attention to me, IYSWIM.:rotfl:

Either way, I get off scot-free on the ironing front.

lostinrates

Oh, I do iron bed sheets, he who shares 'em doesn't care but it makes me feel happier, and therefor more more relaxed and feeling indulgant, plus....ironing keeps me warm when I can do it!