Gentle Reader, I have two things I've gotta get off my chest and so, I apologize in advance for you having to bear the brunt.
This morning, I'm mentally glaring (as opposed to mentally cheering my fellow voters yesterday...I'm getting quite the mental work-out, non?) at: clothes hampers and early trash pickup.
Let's talk about clothes hampers. I have approximately 5 of them (hampers, not clothes...though sometimes I wonder, what with my shocking post-partum wardrobe choices I've been making. Ugh). And I have yet to come up with a suitable methodology for collecting clothes in them.
For example (and the reason I'm glaring), the two in Super J and my room. I've tried to segregate our clothes into "colors" and "whites/delicates"...and that lasts for a couple of days and then before you know it, things are mixed up or laying on the floor. Argh. Then I got on a kick where I only wanted to wash MY clothes a certain way when Super J was on a kick to do the laundry for me (I know, I'm awful. One must allow helpers to help if one wants help, regardless of how they help. Get them trained TO help and THEN re-negotiate HOW the help is helping or else they stop helping!!! This is the lesson I learned from this. Now, back to the hamper grouse). So, I said to my beloved, "Put your clothes in here" (in a hamper conveniently located by his side of the bed, where he normally chucks his clothes on the floor) and I put my hamper near the bathroom.
So, where did the clothes go? Yep. In my hamper...or in Super J's hamper until it started getting a bit full and then right back onto the floor. Argh! The kids do a pretty good job, but that's because at night before baths we tell them, "Put your clothes in the hamper," and there's only one hamper for all three of them outside their bathroom, and then one in their bedroom. (yes, I know that's only 4 hampers...see? I'm having hamper trouble!!!!).
Gentle Reader, do you use hampers? Effectively? What am I doing wrong????? Ugh.
Next grouse (isn't this post getting ridiculously long??? Yes. Because Miss Q is sleeping and "Higglytown Heroes" are entertaining Miss O and E who are, admittedly, still in their pajamas. Oh wait. So am I. Still!!!! It's glorious ME time. Wahoo!!!!! I am screaming that. To myself. On the inside...while doing laundry).
So, okay. Grouse: Trash pick-up that comes early! Super J, bless him, took out the garbage before he left for work so it's not like the garbage got missed (though that has happened before), but I had plans, Gentle Reader. P.L.A.N.S. I needed to clean out my fridge and I'm weird about letting increasingly rotting food fester in my garbage for a week. So I normally clean out the fridge on THE day of garbage pickup. AND, here's the grouse. Our normal pick up time is later in the afternoon. Seriously, like around 3:00-ish. I've been trained that I can take out poopy pants, clean out the fridge, etc etc., for hours on Thursday, because "The Garbage Guys" as the girls call them, don't come until the afternoon. The Recycle guys come whenever they want, but I don't really care about that. It's the Refuse guys that have ruined EVERYTHING today (I'm blaming them instead of my own procrastinating self) by coming at 9:00 am! NINE! That's six hours early! And that begs the question...is this going to be a regular thing? Or can I slip into my lazy ways again next week??? Ugh. See? It's so frustrating that I just had to grouse. I should be quite grateful that our garbage even gets picked up weekly. Sigh. Oh well. Now I just have to figure out...do I let my rotting food rest a while longer in the fridge or chuck it, where it will stink up my garage because we are going to have warm weather for the next few days. Argh. Grumble grumble grumble.
UPDATE: After reading my post through, after posting it, of course, I realize that it sounds like my fridge should be super fantastically clean if I chuck stuff weekly on garbage day, right? Well, honestly, the catch is that I don't do it EVERY week. No. I forget about all the perishables in the vegetable rotting bins and then discover them and am grossed out by the sliminess of them and then make a mental note to chuck them on Thursdays. And you can tell by all the voter cheering and hamper grousing (and that's just in the past 24 hours!) that my mental space is getting pretty limited!!!! So, sadly, I forget and consequently, still have oozing "vegetables" and a couple of suspicious hot dogs and luncheon meat that needed to exit the kitchen but are now still in the fridge. And now you know my secret shame...that's no longer such a secret.
ANYWAY!!!! Thank you for letting me vent. I feel much better. :)
7 comments:
I'm with you on the Hamper thing! I can't tell you how often I see clothes almost in the basket, yet not always quite making it. It's like they lost steam and couldn't make it 2 more inches! What's up with that! Someday maybe...
I also have garbage pickup issues. But I try to tell myself that I am grateful and lucky to have 2 days that they pick it up. We are so spoiled(like your food!) Suggestion: you could set aside a spot in your fridge for rotten food. Could work?!
We just use one hamper...but that means I have to do laundry more often...and it's ALWAYS overflowing! It's a game to see how full we can get it!
We're in an apartment, so the garbage isn't an issue, but the hampers? I mostly gave up. Levi gets up and puts on his own clothes in the morning, which is great, but finding the very peed pullup still in the jammie shorts when I finally walk into his room several hours later, not so great. Most of the time, one corner of my room serves as the dirty pile, and I sort it just before I put it in the wash. Not something I have the energy to worry about. Usually I'm lucky to have underwear to put on in the mornings, so pre-sorting it isn't such a big deal.
I, too, have a hamper - a really cute one with a lid. More often than not, the lid sits on the floor beside the hamper while my clothes are piled to overflowing - while I hope the tower 'o clothes doesn't topple to the ground.
It is so easy to trip over the molehills, isn't it? The mountains are no problem... the molehills - wham!
So, hampers - I have solved the hamper issue with my stepdaughter by giving her 2 - one in her bedroom and one in the bathroom. And I do not wash anything that is not in a hamper. That seems to work really well. With my husband, it is a different matter, but I am hoping that will resolve as we make some changes in our room soon. Our hamper is not in a convenient location, so he chucks clothes in its general vicinity and I pick them up and put them in the hamper... sometimes less than graciously.
Garbage - if we have something that is nasty and it isn't close to garbage day, we put it in a plastic bag in the freezer, then chuck it out on garbage day. That way it isn't smelling up the fridge. That won't work with smelly diapers, so you might just run past a dumpster and pop those in!
I shall forever HATE laundry! I did buy a divided hamper and taught my three oldest how to sort their laundry, which they did a pretty good job of, when their clothes actually made it to the hamper. But, the divided hamper doesn't fit in my parent's house :( so we're once again down to one hamper in the master bathroom and one next to the dryer, that I have to sort pretty much on a daily basis...since if I don't do laundry on a daily basis, it totally takes over the hosue.
TOTALLY believe in being hamperless. This is why I love my laundry room on the 2nd floor. D and I have a Nike bag that D has had since he was 18 in the dorms that we chuck all our stuff in. When it is nigh to overflowing, I haul the bag down the hall. The kids just chuck their clothes on the floor of the laundry. Which I close the door on and ignore.
That's how I roll, sister friend.
And I have realized I, too, am a TOTAL schedule geek. Don't harsh my mellow, garbage men. Just like if we don't hit Wally world first thing Monday morning for grocery shopping, I feel like my week is off somehow. So sad.
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