With any luck, as we grow older, we begin to carry out household chores more or less autonomously without much thought. The degree to which certain people keep their houses in order depends largely on personality. For me, I've had to train myself to be more conscientious of my surroundings. I am, by nature, not wired to notice certain things out of place as being a "problem". It's gotten better. But one thing I still struggle with at 29 years old is laundry. I have no issues doing laundry but I have problems putting it away and getting it mixed up with other dirty laundry.
Just out of curiosity, what are your own problematic areas of domestic responsibility?
All of them. I'm a 44 year old non domesticated human. I'm terrible at cleaning or putting things 'away' to where most females would consider appropriate. I'm so totally different from my mother and father, sister and brother. They are all successful whereas I'm poor and disorganized.
On the upside, I'm far less bi-polar than certain uncles of mine, and comparably, I'm at least doing something, and know where my things are located.
Well, many have argued that setting your living space in order is a good way to increase overall efficiency in your life. But, judging by your profile pic, you look like a musician which makes you an artist by default. Much of the psychometric data on creative people is that they are less organized than non-creative people. I'm highly artistic and creative too, in a literary sense. I've really had to tyrannize myself to keep my space in order. It's possible.
And, you shouldn't have to "tyrannize" over yourself. Cleaning, organizing and decorating/designing can be fun and creatively challenging! Also, it helps if you are always adding or subtracting to what you have going on visually. I am constantly changing pictures, pillows, colors ... and even curtains.
Recently, I have given away so many things to the Good Will, since who knows when I will have to move. Maybe sooner that I expect. I love how empty it is now. Also, I Iearned long ago, not to collect, stash or display memorabilia and dust collectors.
The detailing. It takes looking around as though you were someone else. Finally, you catch sight of the dust, the crumbs, the smudges, the cobwebs … all that stuff YOU never even SEE! (But others DO notice!)
It takes a certain amount of house pride to care about how "nice" everything looks. If you don't care about the effect or the feng shui of the place* or the impact your house will have on visitors, either outside or inside, you won't care enough to keep it organized. And if you don't have anyone over … who cares? Let it be a dump!
Actually, the home I like to visit the most is always a mess. It is comforting, somehow: Laundry in baskets, piles of toys, blankets and clothes…
Kitchen full of dishes to be done, but tons of snacks …
* " ...feng shui has become an aspect of interior decorating in the Western world and alleged masters of feng shui now hire themselves out for hefty sums to tell people ... which way doors and other things should hang.
Apart from any mystical implications, Feng Shui may be simply understood as a traditional test of architectural goodness using a collection of metaphors. The test may be static or a simulation. Simulations may involve moving an imaginary person or organic creature, such as a dragon of a certain size and flexibility, through a floor plan to uncover awkward turns and cramped spaces before actual construction.
This is entirely analogous to imagining how a wheelchair might pass through a building, and is a plausible exercise for architects, who are expected to have exceptional spatial visualization talents. A static test might try to measure comfort in architecture through a ‘hills and valleys’ metaphor. The big hill at your back is a metaphor for security, the open valley and stream represents air and light, and the circle of low hills in front represents both invitation to visitors and your control of your immediate environment. The various Feng Shui tenets represent a set of metaphors that suggest architectural qualities that the average human finds comfortable.
Others ... practice ... forms of feng shui, including hanging special mirrors, forks, or woks in doorways to deflect negative energy.
In recent years, a new brand of easier-to-implement DIY Feng Shui known as Symbolic Feng Shui, which is popularized by Grandmaster Lillian Too, is being practised by Feng Shui enthusiasts. It entails placements of auspicious (aesthetically pleasing) Five Element objects, such as Money God and tortoise, at various locations of the house so as to achieve a pleasing and substitute-alternative Productive-Cycle environment if a good natural environment is not already present or is too expensive to build and implement.
Feng shui is so important to some strong believers, that they use it for healing purposes and to guide their businesses and create a peaceful atmosphere in their homes, in particular in the bedroom where a number of techniques involving colours and arrangement are used to achieve enhanced comfort and more peaceful sleep."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feng_shui
I am a man of routine and habit, taking large chores and breaking them into bite sized morsels whenever possible. I have little if any aesthetic sense, just clean neat and functional. My other half deals with the aesthetic and what it is the neighbors are likely to think. In the real world, I suppose some of that sort reasoning is appropriate.
It is the BIGstuff, I don't like, like painting rooms in the house. I am an object that would always prefer to be at rest.
Jessie, I live in a condo and am motivated to keep everything in order 98.6% of the time. However, I have always had major issues with laundry.
Jessie, if I had to list three household responsibilities that I dislike the most, all three would be laundry. This issue goes all the way back to my first year of college.
When I was teaching public school, I had a crazy colleague who disliked doing laundry so much that she only did it every six weeks. In the faculty room one day, she complained that she had to do laundry the night before and needed something like 10 washing machines in her apartment complex to get it done. (I hope you’re laughing because all of us back in Philadelphia sure did.)
It's comical and I can definitely see that happening.
My biggest obstacle with laundry is that I live in a very small house and have limited space for dressers and cubby holes. If I put laundry away in a drawer, its because those clothes are off-season and I don't want to look at them for 9 months.
Often times, I will leave a clean load in the dryer and select my daily clothes out of that or else they'd end up on the bed in my spare room.
And socks...don't get me started on socks....haha
I understand your issue. I live in Pittsburgh and there are extremes in our weather which means extremes in how we have to dress.
For me it's doing minor household repairs. Fix the little hole in the wall or re-paint that spot where we scarred the wall moving furniture. I don't do it, I don't do it, I don't do it and pretty soon I don't even see it anymore.
Yeah it's a weird perceptual game we play with ourselves. Imagine how that works when we fail to acknowledge our emotional baggage....
An unattended dam will break as does the human psyche.
I have a space issue and as a result am always looking for things to get rid of. The biggest problem that I have with “stuff” has been books, which I don’t want to get into.
Do you have a style? What kind of art do you have?
Dusting, or undusting, as Amelia Bedelia would say. It's there, but I don't see it. Then, one day the sunlight hits the dresser and geez, it looks like I haven't dusted in a year.
Artwork? Style? I have very contemporary art that I bought at West Elm online. A lot of it is recycled metal art. I also have collages of Decomates clocks in two rooms. I used to have wood and roofing nails wall art that I made myself. Yes, I’m artistic. Dusting that stuff though was an impossible task.
"With any luck, as we grow older, we begin to carry out household chores more or less autonomously without much thought."
No, as I get older, I become more aware and less automatic. I am more mindful about order and flow. I become more aware of why I am cleaning or organizing. I have more desire to have things under (my) control with everything I use placed in certain places for specific reasons; mostly for feng shui reasons which to me means ease of moving through a house and keeping things well cared for and clean.
In conclusion, cleaning your home can be an act of creativity.
by StrictlyQuotes 13 years ago
How to Feng Shui your bedroom for romance
by Mohan Kumar 12 years ago
Do you believe in Feng- shui? Does order and flow enhance mood?I really get upset if there is too much mess and disorder and I could feel it draining my energy. AI though I am not obsessive about tidiness there is something harmonious about clean lines and decluttering.
by DreadPirate 13 years ago
If a house is not feng shui, is there a way to improve the flow without having to do construction?I feel that my house has bad luck due to poor construction due to lack of consideration to feng shui.
by Annie 13 years ago
Do you hate Laundry day?Is they a way of getting out of it?
by Ravi Rajan 23 months ago
This is quite humourous Misbah.I also clean clothes often, and the "good" fortune of finding long-lost money in my jeans has happened umpteen times with me. In fact, I even accidentally washed a computer mouse along with my Bermudas and it was a miracle that the mouse worked even after...
by quicksand 10 years ago
Do You Believe In Feng Shui?Have you heard about Feng Shui, and if so have you checked it out as well? If you have had any experience in Feng Shui, what opinion have you formed of it?
Copyright © 2024 The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers on this website. HubPages® is a registered trademark of The Arena Platform, Inc. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners. The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.
Copyright © 2024 Maven Media Brands, LLC and respective owners.
As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.
For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy
Show DetailsNecessary | |
---|---|
HubPages Device ID | This is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons. |
Login | This is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service. |
Google Recaptcha | This is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy) |
Akismet | This is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Google Analytics | This is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Traffic Pixel | This is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized. |
Amazon Web Services | This is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy) |
Cloudflare | This is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Hosted Libraries | Javascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy) |
Features | |
---|---|
Google Custom Search | This is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Maps | Some articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Charts | This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy) |
Google AdSense Host API | This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Google YouTube | Some articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Vimeo | Some articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Paypal | This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Login | You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Maven | This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy) |
Marketing | |
---|---|
Google AdSense | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Google DoubleClick | Google provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Index Exchange | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Sovrn | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Ads | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Unified Ad Marketplace | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
AppNexus | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Openx | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Rubicon Project | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
TripleLift | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Say Media | We partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy) |
Remarketing Pixels | We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites. |
Conversion Tracking Pixels | We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service. |
Statistics | |
---|---|
Author Google Analytics | This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy) |
Comscore | ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Tracking Pixel | Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy) |
Clicksco | This is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy) |