I Hate Weekends
I know that sounds really insane, but I always seem to be more tired—no, more exhausted—on the weekends than during the work week. It’s not that I don’t work hard at my job; I do. But somehow it doesn’t generally drain my every physical, mental, and spiritual reserve like the weekends do.
Probably I expect too much. There’s just so much to do, and I never seem to get caught up. In fact, the more I do, the more there seems to be to do. I’ve been trying all day to get the house clean. I managed to get the bedrooms clean, although I have no clean sheets for the five-year-old’s bed, so he will have to sleep in my bed tonight. I’ve also threatened the kids with sudden, instant, and even immediate death if they put so much as a hair out of line in the next 24 hours.
And God help them if they mess up their rooms. My room took one hour to clean, including changing the bed linens and mopping the floor. Each of theirs took three. I’d like to wring their little necks, but I suppose it’s really as much my fault as it is theirs. Who lets them get away with untidiness until their rooms are mountains of mess? Who doesn’t have the courage to tell the grandparents that any additional toys are going straight to either Goodwill or the E-Bay sale bin? Who doesn’t make them periodically cull the piles of toys they have? Yeah. It’s partly my fault. You can’t expect a seven-year-old and a five-year-old to value tidiness. It’s unreasonable.
At least ours is just clutter. The “dirtiest” thing I found in their rooms was a Pringles can their dad gave them to play with. It’s all clean. No dirty dishes or dead bugs. Just mounds of clutter. Tomorrow’s project (in between church trips) is the laundry, as much as I would rather it be cleaning the living room. I have to get the piles of folding and ironing out of my way before I go mad.
I also need to take a couple of hours and finish an editing project that I probably shouldn’t have accepted — but we need the money. Badly. And if it’s anything like the last project I got from this person, it’ll net me about $500 by the end of summer. I have another editing project running too, but I haven’t heard from the author in over six weeks, so I am wondering what is happening there. I will probably call that person tomorrow, too.
Anyway. I am zonked; it’s 9:15 and the kids are just now getting supper and baths, and as soon as I get them in bed and get the supper dishes washed up (should have used paper tonight, but wasn’t thinking), I’m taking a long, hot, soaky bath and then pouring myself into bed.
2 Comments
I feel your pain. Don’t know if you can afford this, but in the past when I’ve worked a full time job, I’ve had a housekeeper. You can get someone to come daily, weekly, every 2 weeks or even just once a month. Honestly, I don’t think it’s fair for a woman to work hard all week and then have to spend all weekend doing housework and cleaning toilets. That’s just wrong on too many levels.
Ah, yes. A Housekeeper.
It was wonderful when I had one. She came on alternate weeks and did the dusting, the vacuuming, the bathroom scrubbing, the windows, and the kitchen. She was a dream. I had a yard guy, who also came on alternate weeks and mowed, edged, mulched, and picked up leaves and sticks. Life was much simpler then.
I had to let them both go last Christmas, along with the hair guy, when I realized that I was going $500 into the hole every month. When I was laid off from my job at the pilot’s union, I lost a $37K a year job with benefits that included health insurance, 401(k) and pension plan, cell phone, computer training, and a lot of other lovely perks. My new job pays $33K with absolutely zero benefits. They can’t even give me compensation in lieu of insurance. It sucks.
So the kids and I have had to cut way back. No more housekeeper, no more yard guy. No more once a month haircuts. No more Sunday breakfasts at Perkins or CK’s. No more Friday night pizza and movie parties. No more fantabulous $75 birthday cakes from the local bakery. Now we’re keeping level, and trying to pay off the debt that we accumulated in the last two years: six months of unemployment, and eighteen months of underpaid employment. And replenish my emergency fund, which has been devastated by first one thing and then another.
I’m also beginning to look around for another job, as they’ve made it clear at work that there is no money in the budget for raises or benefits. Sorry, as much as I like the job, I simply can’t live on the salary.