Marsha Maung:: Freelance graphic designer and writer

It’s been…what…6 days since I moved out of the safe confines of my in-laws’ home. Gone are the days where you sleep until there’s food on the table. Gone are the days where you surf the net until someone tells you it’s time to fetch the kids. Gone are the days of peacefully working behind the computer while the kids entertain themselves with other cousins.

 

I have spent 90% of the time in this new apartment washing one thing or another. It’s amazing! Every time I finish washing something, there’s something else to wash. The kids have this radar thing going too – when the floor is clean, their radar spots it and they run around in the clean area until it’s dirty again.

 

My fingers are coarse like sand paper and no amount of lotion is going to repair this!!! My back aches. My nails are chipped. I call out ‘Joshua’ and ‘Jared’ in my sleep. I’ve pissed off at least 6 clients because of this house moving thing that has taken FOREVER!!! And I almost poisoned the whole family with overnight ikan bilis (anchovies) broth left wrongly in the refrigerator instead of the freezer!

 

So far, everything’s really…..swell?

I am a mess. No, not mess as in mess but messy as in messy. Ppphhhttt, as if THAT made sense but I loathe the idea of calling myself messy so I will settle for calling myself ‘organized in a messy way’.

There.

Since I am going to be moving out to my own place next week (my grandmother found the PERFECT lucky date to move, so, there’s really no escaping. Unless I like the feeling of having a knife in my rear end planted there by well-meaning elderly people in my family – BOTH sides), I thought I’d write a little about housework, mundane and pain-in-the-butt chores like picking up your own clothes, doing your own laundry, sweeping your own floor, mopping the damn floor, wiping and dusting tabletops and computer tops and TVs and….see, I get even get TIRED writing about it. Plus, I have this sinus problem that makes it impossible for me to sweep or dust anything without popping a few blood vessels in my nostrils.

I’ve used my sinus problem as an excuse quite successfully over this lifetime but I guess I will no longer have a choice when I move out without my maid in tow.

Yeah, I have a maid but we’re leaving the maid with my mother-in-law since I am younger, more energetic and supposedly more able than her. Sometimes I question this logic. She may be older but if you look at my mother-in-law, you’ll see that apart from creaking knees, she moves without much effort around the house. In fact, she runs faster than me! But since all the families congregate in my mother-in-law’s place (my current residence) everyday, it would make sense to leave the maid here instead of having to get another maid and contend with another full-blown ‘How can this maid be so dense not to understand what ‘’o-oi’ and ‘mum-mum’ mean?’ problem. They don’t teach maids our baby-language (which they should, by the way) as in mum-mum means eat, shee-shee means pee, mm-mm means big business in toilet, o-oi means sleep…etc.

I think housework is a stupid chore. Why can’t we live in organized clutter? I mean, isn’t it OK if we all know where things are and where the broom, the mouse, the speaker phone, the handphone charger and the fork and spoons are? Isn’t that enough already? Do we have to live in hotel-like environment in order to function? Isn’t it enough that we have clean clothes to wear, half-decent shoes to put over our feet, and a home that does not smell like the insides of an ashtray? If not, then let's all move to Hyatt Saujana or something.

I mean, let’s look at it this way…you wipe, mop, sweet, vacuum…and whatever else it is that you do to a home….tonight, you go to sleep in a this sterile environment feeling extremely proud of yourself and then you wake up in the morning and there’s dust everywhere. DUST, DUST, DUST!! It’s frustrating because you’ve worked so hard to keep the place clean and then all you get is a night sleep without enjoying the cleanliness at all! Why bother?

My table is the messiest place in any place that I live or work. In the bank I used to work, I heard the receptionist say to my client when he came to visit me, “There, see the table with four piles of files stacked up on the front of the table? That’s Marsha’s table” You can’t see me coming in from the door because the files form a sort of protective wall from public eye. Eh, I like it this way, ok? But my office mates laugh at me and my boss asked me if I had enough space to write anything when I pile everything on top of my table and I say, “Sure”. But in the end, they got me a special second table where I pile MORE files on top of it. The extra table did not help me clear the original table but instead, I built a longer wall of files!

It is ironic that when I was living with my parents, I shared a bedroom with my sister. Now, she’s someone who is totally opposite of me! I couldn’t care less and she cares about everything - sad to say, she’s my YOUNGER sister. I make a mess, she cleans up. She puts her toiletries in organized compartments, mine can be found under the toilet bowl. She organizes her perfumes and lotions in sections, mine can be found dumped inside my underwear drawer. In fact, she’s so meticulous that she used to iron my school uniform when we were in school!! She complained but my mom has given up asking me to do the task because I was never home, anyway.

Now that I am married, my HUSBAND has taken over the role. He is the kind of person who WANTS and NEEDS to stay in a hotel-like home and don’t want to lift a finger to do anything! Therefore, in my personal, opinion, he should just take his ass to Indonesia and find himself a bride there! Harumph! Accordingly, many Indonesian women know how to clean a home (any home) with their eyes closed.

And as I was saying, housework is tedious and mindless. Why do housework when you know that everything is going to be messed up again – especially if you have kids? You put their toys back into their organized toy boxes with special labels, and the next minute they are everywhere again. Why bother folding the blankets and comforters when you know they’re going to be used again tonight? Why bother mopping when you know one of the kids are going to spill their VITAGENS on the floor again?

But even if my own personal space is cluttered, I have to keep the rest of the place clean and as organized as I possibly can. In other words, I will clean every other spaces that affects others. When it comes to my own space, leave it alone! I like the organized mess that I am living in right now.

Written in jest, of course. Sometimes, I DO wish someone would clean my mess up for me......any takers?

House cleaning tips

 

House-cleaning schedule (there’s a SCHEDULE??)

 

Springcleaning

 

Getting organized

 

Cleaning up after pets (Urgh!)

 

Marsha
www.marshamaung.com