Italian Tendancies
Day two of the wall washing/dejunking/clean everything madness.I am amazed that our home , heated by natural gas, is COATED in an oily, dirty,black dust and crud film. I have lived in places that were heated with an oil burning furnace in my lifetime, and after a season of heating in this fashion it becomes essential to do a big spring cleaning/washing down to remove the residue. It literally seeps into your cabinets and drawers. Supposedly natural gas heat is cleaner. You could not prove this to me at this point.It makes me wonder just what the heck the inside of our lungs look like. Three non smokers living in a smoke free building with black lung disease. Yuck !
I have also discovered that one of the biggest pet peeves I have about my husband has been genetically delivered to my son, and is probably rampant in my father in law. It is one of the things my MIL jokingly calls "Italian Tendancies", and is evident in every male with this particular last name. One way it manifests is the belief that food simply appears on the table from the kitchen at meal times( I can deal with that, and my husband does a lot of grocery shopping and does the dishes, but has yet to really learn to cook) , but the other one that drives me absolutely insane is twofold. First, if it is a box with a logo, it must be saved. Shoe boxes are sacred ( even more so if they say Nike on them I guess). Second, ,if it no longer works, stuffing it in a cabinet will encourage the fairies to visit in the night and restore it to it's rightful glory.Yeah, Tinkerbell glows for a lot of reasons kids! For some, this makes sense. Those who mechanically tinker with things , pull parts from one dead thing and use them to bring another to life mainly. I grew up with many people who had that skill and used it daily. However,if the only tinkering you do is with a keyboard and mouse, the dead electronic toys, goo gas and what nots are not potentially useful. They are dust collecting junk that requires more time and energy be devoted to the task of simple home upkeep. These things are the bane of my existence. I hate nicknacks for the same reason. Those lovely trinkets collect dust and add about an hour to the time required to basic home sanitation. It's not that I am not sentimental or artistic, but more like I am practical and there are only so many hours in the day. So as we went through my son's room and came across treasures that were broken, I told my son fix them right now or out they go. We are talking things with broken cords, non existent parts , shattered screens and other such wonders. All taking up space that could have been used to store the loved, played with, working stuff. We live in 928 Square Feet, and there is no room to set up shop for a potential handyman in training, and places like The Goodwill can really do nicely without them.
So while I can do nothing about my husband's weirdness ( I save that right for things of far greater importance), I can do everything to Un-Italian my son. So we cleaned, he considered, parted with the dead, and after we finished he smiled and said "Mom, you are right. A clean room is a happy room and it loves you back !"
There is hope for the future.
I have also discovered that one of the biggest pet peeves I have about my husband has been genetically delivered to my son, and is probably rampant in my father in law. It is one of the things my MIL jokingly calls "Italian Tendancies", and is evident in every male with this particular last name. One way it manifests is the belief that food simply appears on the table from the kitchen at meal times( I can deal with that, and my husband does a lot of grocery shopping and does the dishes, but has yet to really learn to cook) , but the other one that drives me absolutely insane is twofold. First, if it is a box with a logo, it must be saved. Shoe boxes are sacred ( even more so if they say Nike on them I guess). Second, ,if it no longer works, stuffing it in a cabinet will encourage the fairies to visit in the night and restore it to it's rightful glory.Yeah, Tinkerbell glows for a lot of reasons kids! For some, this makes sense. Those who mechanically tinker with things , pull parts from one dead thing and use them to bring another to life mainly. I grew up with many people who had that skill and used it daily. However,if the only tinkering you do is with a keyboard and mouse, the dead electronic toys, goo gas and what nots are not potentially useful. They are dust collecting junk that requires more time and energy be devoted to the task of simple home upkeep. These things are the bane of my existence. I hate nicknacks for the same reason. Those lovely trinkets collect dust and add about an hour to the time required to basic home sanitation. It's not that I am not sentimental or artistic, but more like I am practical and there are only so many hours in the day. So as we went through my son's room and came across treasures that were broken, I told my son fix them right now or out they go. We are talking things with broken cords, non existent parts , shattered screens and other such wonders. All taking up space that could have been used to store the loved, played with, working stuff. We live in 928 Square Feet, and there is no room to set up shop for a potential handyman in training, and places like The Goodwill can really do nicely without them.
So while I can do nothing about my husband's weirdness ( I save that right for things of far greater importance), I can do everything to Un-Italian my son. So we cleaned, he considered, parted with the dead, and after we finished he smiled and said "Mom, you are right. A clean room is a happy room and it loves you back !"
There is hope for the future.