Right, it’s decided, this family are becoming nudists. No I’ve made up my mind I can’t be talked out of it.
This post is brought to you from under a pile of washing so high it makes Everest look like a hill.
We’ve currently experiencing yet another season of wet weather, most of the area on the Mid North Coast is on flood alert, and I’m too scared to even look at what’s happening in Queensland given what they went through last year.
Just so you don’t worry, there’s no risk of Shambles Manor flooding. One of the advantages of purchasing on top of a rocky hill is that you are well out of contention for any flooding. Of course it also means the cost of building sky-rockets and you get to a point where you run out money and have to learn to love unfinished floors, un-landscaped gardens and the gaping hole where the pool would have been.
So due to the non-stop rain instead of celebrating Australia Day with a barbie at the beach, bribing my brother with beer to take some good-looking family shots (and up close shots of the food, sand etc – he doesn’t really get the point of those) so tonight I could write a beautifully, lyrical post about what it means to be Australian and share with my overseas readers a little of the beauty of a summer day in Oz, I will write a ranting diatribe against laundry. Glad you stopped by now?
There are clothes and towels everywhere. I’m about to break the ban on using the clothes drying. The ban came about because the winter electricity bill sent Mr Shambles reaching for his heart medication and took some pretty fancy juggling of funds from me to get paid off.
But right now I don’t care about electricity bills, or the bloody ozone layer. Look I know we are in trouble with the environment, I know it matters but I’m in a crisis of my own and don’t have the energy or time to worry about the world crisis. I know that makes me a bad person ruining the world for my children but I’ll deal with that when the sun comes out again and the washing is done.
What I care about is the fact we are running out of clothes and there are dirty ones strewn throughout bathrooms, bedrooms and in the hallway. Another of the sacrifices that had to made when money became a problem with building was we lost downstairs, all of downstairs. So the laundry got moved to a cupboard in the hallway. Unfortunately we still haven’t got the cupboard doors to hide the laundry. So clothes are spilling out of the hampers, over the floor. Hippie Child should do well in high jump at this years athletics carnival – she has to leap over the piles to get to her bedroom.
The new decorative feature of our lounge room is an assortment of clothes horses holding the damp and soggy clothes we have managed to wash – we could be here for weeks before they dry.
Seriously people if in the next few days if I get to a point where all the clothes are washed, dried, folded and put away I am going to put a ban on them ever being worn again. Note, I’ve long given up on the possibility of ironing en masse we do that on a as-needed basis when we pull the items out of the wardrobe and have a debate on how many creases you can get away with before the iron is heated up.
I can’t even pretty up this post with a photo – who wants to see someone’s dirty laundry (literally) – you’ve probably got some of your own you can go stare at – although at least you can comfort yourself with the idea that you now know someone in a bigger mess than you. See that’s my role in life – make other people feel good about themselves by sharing my excruciating reality.
Now off to give the family my new ruling that we are embracing nudity as a valid way of life. What have you got planned for the day?
With the rain you’re getting you might get that pool yet!
Yep the hole is rapidly filling up!!
I also decided that if my family would quit wearing clothes and eating it would make my life so much easier. Never ending laundry, folding, cooking, dishes, garbage, grocery shopping. It is a nightmare!
I’m right there with you.
Hey Janine, you know we love you guys but the image of you all getting about sans clothes is a little too much to bare (ha ha).
I never said it was going to be pretty.
It seems to me, way back when I was young, we wore the same clothes more than once, sometimes more than twice. Have ou ever thought of just folding the dirty laundry and putting it back in thier drawers/ Maybe they wont even notice for years.
Now there’s a plan.
“close up shots of food, sand etc”, wot tha??? yeah i don’t get it,were you going to build a banger/ lamb chop sand castle??? plus you gave me flashback nightmares of my product shot days, shame Sis!…..& don’t think i DON’T read your blab, sorry blog!!!!!…..now put ya bloody clothes back on & wake up to yaself, you’re spose to be the mature one…..
ps….did ya know mums staying at the ‘Mantra Quayside’ tonight? no flies on Bet this Australia Day…..
We have the same ironing policy in my house…wouldn’t it be good if someone could invent plastic clothes that we just have to wipe down!!! Hang in there..the rain can’t last forever.
Plastic clothes that sounds perfect.
I can handle everything but putting it away. Right now we’re sitting here with kleenex stuffed up our noses. It’s cold and flu season over here. Your floods sound more fun.
Get well soon.
Oh my goodness, I say that I have the exact same mission in life. I am here to make people feel better about themselves by comparison. And for pete’s sake, do what you need to do to get caught up! Use the dryer!
I have quite a nice size laundry but it doesn’t work mostly because the builder, architect & my husband all seemed to nod & agree when I made my suggestions as to how it would work best and then ignored all of them. You think as the only person familiar with washing clothes I might have an idea but no…. so every few weeks I stand there pondering what might have been & look at the clothes strewn everywhere including the hall and try to reorganise once again. Glimmer of hope though my brother in a recent visit told me it wouldn’t be that hard to move the laundry tub which would allow me to correct most of the problems, now about the money I need to do that! ps -love it when your brother pops by to read the blog.
My mother once told me, the happiest day of her life was the day she realized the laundry was never going to be done. That was the day she quit worrying about it.