7 Tips for Terrible Homemakers from a Terrible Homemaker

I’m pretty sure being a good homemaker is not hereditary because my grandmother gets up at 4 am to iron the sheets when she has guests at her house. I am still at the stage where I attempt to make a flat-looking folded fitted sheet and just end up with the “ball fold.” By the way, I trademarked this fold so you have to pay me 35 cents every time you use it. 4am is also the hour I associate with the most lonely, dark time of the entire day, so I would never voluntarily wake up at this time. I used to think about it a lot, walking around with my daughter in the stroller outside, that all the partiers had gone home, and even the early risers wouldn’t be up for another hour so if I died no one would find me for a while. Did I mention I’m not a morning person? Aside from ironing, I also suck at pretty much all housekeeping duties, even the basic ones. But, no need to despair fellow moms not having anyone over because people expect you to know these things. I know some tricks!

1. Stay away from the Internet when you are cooking: The interweb does not understand that you can’t burn dinner. It only wants to own your soul. So don’t even check your email because 50 minutes later you end up looking at non-working slideshow of celebrities who have “spouses with surprisingly humble jobs” and that meal/tea kettle/cutting board you left on the burner is toast. And everyone is hungry!

2. Find a Cooking Blog That Suits You: If it is not making your life easier, it’s just for fantasizing. This is called “Food Porn.” Totally ok in moderation, but someone has to go shopping tomorrow at preferably one store. Steer clear of ones that end an explanation of a 25 hr pretzel recipe with “I just had 2- don’t tell my fiancé!” This blogger is an ambitious young lady who has an unbelievable amount of time on her hands, thinks that eating two pretzels is a large amount, and has no idea what is coming to her. Her life in no way resembles your own.

3. Appear to accept help and advice: Some of my friends and family are good, motivated, thoughtful homemakers. They have noticed some gaping holes in my skills and truly want to help. I love them, and I love that they want to help, but I am a hopeless mess. Still, I don’t want them to think I can’t be fixed. So I let them organize and feng shui my house because it really is nice to have it look good for 13 hours. And I really appreciate that they think I could change. Every once in a while something sticks.
4.  Get kitchen items that keep track of things for you. Some good options: timers, a kettle that goes off automatically, and an overly  attentive/worried husband. After I very solidly torched 3 teakettles, a kettle that turns off when heated changed my life. Before I met my husband I burned every single pan of oatmeal. Now I burn half. Winning!
5. Catch yourself off-guard by doing a cleaning or cooking tornado: Unfortunately, reading about organizing is not the same as getting organized. I hate to drop you down hard in reality, but you did not just clutter-bust your house while reading this post, it just feels that way. So you have to get crazy when you’re waiting for like someone getting on their shoes, or for water to boil, or for any customer service person to answer your call. Then one tiny corner will be clean. No one else will notice, but you will feel a little less stressed when you pass by it and not even know why.
6. Make an “I Did All This Shit” list instead of a “To do” list: I love, love to make To Do lists. It’s the best. I feel so useful and organized. But I never really complete much of them and seeing them around unfinished is SUCH a buzz kill. Props to my sister for giving me this tip- write down what you did instead of what you won’t. Even if it says “picked up piece of unknown game no one cares about 6 times.” Way more satisfying than an unchecked list with lots of time-sensitive and necessary things on it. Trust me.
7. Ignore all advice and criticism: If none of these seem possible, and people still be hatin,’ just remember: a charred taste adds dimension to a dish, and there is a certain number of drinks after which people will stop judging your cooking and cleaning.

Cleaning Is Not For Everyone

I’m pretty sure no one in my life would deny that I am a messy person. Though it might not be obvious to naturally organized people, most messy people stress about their mess and do want to do better.  The really depressing and unfortunate thing is that I have actual improved my cleaning and organizing skills 100 percent since I’ve had kids.  But of course nobody notices because kids are unbelievably efficient mess-making professionals.  I recently read an article called “Tips for Messy People” that was very obviously and unhelpfully written by someone who has never been messy. For example, one of the 5 tips was a suggestion to “Dust. Seriously.” On the scale of what can be improved with my cleaning habits, dusting is nearly dead last, next to polishing silver.  First of all, I would have to make it to the area to dust, without having to tiptoe through the square foot spaces in between the solid blanket of toys or see where the dust is, under the dirty dishes.

The best method I’ve found for cleaning up is to invite someone over who I think might judge me for my mess. I give myself a really narrow window, like 20 minutes, and then crash around the house putting laundry away, cleaning, wiping down surfaces, and washing dishes really fast.  The only potential obstacle is not really wanting to hang out with the person once she gets there.

But you can always pretend! Just yesterday, I cleaned my daughter’s room in record time just imagining someone I wouldn’t get along with was coming over.  Of course it was immediately ruined by a sibling doubles game of “Laugh Hysterically While You Empty an Entire Dresser.”  He might look small, but my son is an incredibly focused and diligent unloader of dresser drawers and a devoted teammate. I would stop him but it really is the best of his limited repertoire of infant games. It very clearly beats out “Find Every Hidden Penny in the House and Put it In Your Mouth” or “Touch the Bottom of the Plugger, Play With the Toilet Water, Suck on Your Finger” or “Sit on the Edge of a Stair and Free-Fall Forward.”  So, what can I do?

I know I do make things hard for myself, but I think there are equally strong forces working against me. For one, every single member of my household has an aversion to the vacuum cleaner. My husband never uses it, the cat meows gratingly as soon as he sees it coming and my children are completely TERRIFIED of it.  When my daughter was littler she would cry through the entire experience, repeat “I don’t like va-coom” for hours, and then get PTSD every time she spotted it in the house. We actually had to hide it because the sight of it was causing so many issues. Now, when I bring it out she says, “Why are you getting out THAT THING?!”  and my son will shrink away from it if you try to make him touch it. So to actually use it I have to send my daughter to the kitchen “safe zone” and carry my son in the Ergo so he knows at least mommy will have to go down with him if the thing bites.

Lastly, this is a picture of my kids’ lost sock basket.

EVERY SINGLE ONE is unmatched. There are 28 individual socks. Are you freaking kidding me? Exactly how can I fight a small sock-eating creature that lives in my dryer? No matter what I do, he will always be there.