Projects Versus Chores

When torn between doing what you want and doing what needs to be done, the choice seems obvious. But why does it have to be so?

I know I’ve written on this matter before, but the fact still remains that nothing motivates me to clean the house more than being able to have a little me time to be creative. It actually is the creative process that allows me to legitimize my attempts at balancing housework with craftwork. I say attempts because sometimes I get too involved in one over the other. However, the process still helps.

Carefully writing down all the tasks that need to be done into two columns, one side Wants and one side Needs, will help to organize everything you want to accomplish. Personally I do this in my head… most of the time. When I’m especially unfocused, it does help to have it written down and placed somewhere central, like the refrigerator. And so today I will attempt to balance the Needs of cleaning the carpet, vacuuming, laundry, dishes and bathing the dog with the Wants of starting my commission baby quilt, church youth auction quilt, another Desperate Housewife’s Quilt block and figuring out what design to do for our Christmas cards this year. Does anyone else do this or am I just an oddball?

Household Chores

I can’t believe I’m actually going to admit this, but I miss doing the dishes and vacuuming on a regular basis. Sad, isn’t it?

This morning I was staring at a pile of dishes in the sink and counter, a full dishwasher that required unloading and a floor that, while I know was just vacuumed, needs to be done again and thought, “I miss this.” I don’t know if it was because while I was unemployed my life pretty much consisted of maintaining the house or if I truly enjoyed the tasks, but I can tell you without a doubt that I tried to focus my time at home on getting the chores done. It could be because once the chores were done and the applications filled out and all records put into a log I was finally able to craft or cake. Maybe that is the part I miss? I’m not so certain.

Now that I have a job and my free time is relegated to making dinner after I get home from work (I love to cook, so this isn’t a complaint!) before checking my email and heading off to bed, crafts and cakes seem like the chores I’d put off into the realm of toilet cleaning and mopping. You know, the dreaded stuff. So as it is I haven’t made a cake in quite some time and the idea of doing so is like a dagger in my side that yet another venture I tried failed. Okay, so technically it hasn’t failed. I still take cake orders, but with my work schedule and living situation it is much more difficult to do anywhere near as many as I used to. It has also made me realize just how much time I’ve spent making cakes and how little money I’d make from them, if any. Same thing is true with my Etsy Shop, with the exception of the patterns I sell. Somehow by not having the same amount of time to devote to these hobbies as I used to has made them unenjoyable, and that’s sad.

Today's Chore List

1 – wash dog bedding and sofa quilt
2 – bathe dog
3 – feed and water chickens
4 – wash dishes
5 – attempt more packing
6 – pile stuff for garage sale
7 – price stuff for garage sale
8 – take the latest financial aid paperwork to school
9 – work

This looks doable. I wonder how much of it will actually get done?

Day Off

I’ve got the day off and while some people may look at that and squeal with delight, I’ve got work to do. Especially on my sister’s baby-to-be’s quilt and baby shower cake.

It is always nice to have a day off in the middle of the week… until you realize you’re going to have a busy weekend. That, of course, means that chores that would normally wait until the weekend will have to be started and groceries bought and laundry done and chickens fed and watered and the coop cleaned out and checks to deposit in the bank and so on and so forth until my mind decides it can only focus on one or two things or it’ll collapse in on itself.

So, with that, I’m probably going to have to make a priority list. Priorities for today include the following: Groceries, just in case Snowmageddon Snowpocalypse Arctic Blast 2011 comes true (thanks Anni for getting that title stuck in my head); baby quilt finished for the baby shower Saturday; a rough sketch done for the cake for the baby shower. Small list equals a better chance of completing it. More coffee equals a better chance of not being Mr. Grumpypants if I don’t.

Leaves

With the wind we’ve had the last couple days there has been an explosion of leaves fall from our trees. Unfortunately it’s supposed to start raining before we’d be able to get to them.

Some years our weather is so rainy and gross the leaves never really change to their pretty autumnal colors, they just simply go from green to brown. But this year, funnily after a wet and cold summer which followed a warm and dry spring, we’ve had a fairly warm fall with just a few days of rain. This has allowed the leaves to change into the gorgeous fall display most other parts of the country get to see, with yellows, oranges and reds gracing peoples yards. Of course, the downside is that they all have to be raked up before they kill the grass beneath.

One thing we’ve done this year is mow over the leaves with our lawnmower to mulch them, however the last time left quite a bit of mulched leaves which, hopefully, will start to break down before it kills the grass and turns our front yard into a swamp. I’m thinking it might be a better idea to use the mulcher on the leaf blower in vacuum mode and dump the rest of the leaves in the vegetable gardens to compost for next year. Of course, that means I have to clean out the gardens, which honestly, I’m pissed off at my tomatoes anyway so perhaps this will be quite therapeutic.

Chicken Chores

The chickens were looking a little restless as I looked out at them this morning, pacing back and forth. This usually means they are out of food and/or water.

During the main growing season, our girls don’t get to free-range as much as they do during the winter, mostly due to the fact that they are all Destructicons and will devour anything in their path. A majority of their free-ranging is supervised, which basically means while we are outside to monitor them. This morning as I was feeding the dog, I noticed them all pacing the front of the coop’s run, a sign that they want out because something that should be in the coop isn’t. Going up to the chicken coop and letting them all out for a while, I noticed the waterer was empty.

Okay, so for some, this may not seem like a big deal, but I remember when we only had to fill that waterer once every five days or so. However, with ten girls in the coop, three of which are quickly becoming full sized hens, that number has dwindled down to every other day. I know this shouldn’t be too alarming to some, but perhaps this means I need to get back to my daily attendance to their chores. This doesn’t entail much, but rather doing a head count and checking the inside of the coop and henhouse for any problems that may have arisen, and of course checking their food and water daily.

And so now, even though it is technically still growing season, I’m becoming quite upset that we have a plethora of green tomatoes on the vines refusing to ripen (although not too upset, as this means a plethora of fried green tomatoes!) the girls are out free-ranging, unsupervised, and figure whatever they get to is theirs to eat. Of course, the first place they go to in the vegetable garden is the strawberry barrel, which I’m quite certain they’ve eaten more of than we have. Then again, if I were a chicken, I’d want to go after those delicious strawberries myself!