Like everyone else in the world, I’m full of likes and dislikes. I love owning a house, but I hate doing all the standard housework and gardening. I’m fortunate in that my hubby still loves me enough to pull weeds and do laundry when it needs to be done. Granted, there are trade offs in order to keep him happy enough to do these menial chores, but it’s worth it.

However, time spent at home is a whole other situation. My mom isn’t willing to trade a new PS2 game for letting me skip out on doing the dishes and can’t be bribed with beer to let me sit on the back porch while she weeds the garden. Instead I’m developing dish pan hands and have dirt under my fingernails. My parents garden (and yard) is about 10x the size of the tiny area we have at home. While one half of this family is battling little weed piles in the front and back of the yard, the other (that would be me) is pulling weeds from multiple flower gardens and a vegetable patch larger than our entire back yard! After the weeding there are tomato plants to be tied to stakes, slugs to be chased off, fertilizing and turning of the earth to be completed. It’s a continuing cycle of work to be done just to eat fresh veggies – whichever ones have survived being picked over by the groundhog, birds, skunks, etc.

I think I know who has the best end of the deal. I’m expecting my two little front gardens and the backyard dirt patch to be completely fixed and beautiful by the time I get home!

I’ve also noticed that it’s much easier to pass off dishes duty when you’re just loading a dishwasher as opposed to doing them in a sink. I know when we were growing up, dad always said he didn’t need a dishwasher because the house came equipped with two of them (my sister and I). Since we left home years ago it’s just not true anymore. At least I don’t have anyone fighting with me over who will wash and who is drying. When it come to dishes, I prefer to wash and hate to dry. No sister at home means no fighting – I can wash and leave the dishes in the rack to dry.

I’m thrilled to be home and will happily stay until they throw me out but despite my many travels, I’ve never missed home and the hubby so much as I have these past 2 weeks.

Technorati Tags: gardening, housework

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