Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

Flylady, Domesticity and Housework.

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Our cleaning lady from Zimbabwe is singing in rich, high voice as she cleans. She is singing worship songs; I believe I have heard the melodies before.

She reminds me of Lena, our previous Brazilian cleaner who also sung as she worked. I love the sound of their singing. It has such a happy feel. Reminds me of Cinderella singing with her broom. Lovely to bring joy, happiness and music into domesticity!

 
Sadly, we are still spending 3-4 hours a week on housework. It’s partly because we are still decluttering the stuff we brought from America, when, because the University was paying, I got movers to pack up our whole house and send it on, without even going to America. (I stayed in England). And that they did–trash cans with trash in them, piles of old newspapers, boxes I had collected to donate. Oh well! A mistake probably!
I like the Flylady.net system of a little bit every day. But since I have started writing again in January, I find it too painful, depressing and boring, to break my writing to do housework. So I leave the whole thing for this one day (on which Roy and I do everything–change lightbulbs, sort laundry, fix stuff, and get rid of more and more stuff we do not actually use, or can upgrade in the interests of aesthetics.
But since I find 15 minutes on a daily basis depressing, guess what I find a whole day? 🙂
Actually, it takes me a while to get into it, a few hours, and then I find I am enjoying it, enjoying that everything is so much more decluttered than the last week.
But I am going to try to do a little bit every day. Never have found it easy. Stay tuned.

And even if I do find a dreamier dream house, I doubt I am ever going to move. Just the thought of spending years setting up house again is daunting. I am amazed by people who say they do it in weeks.

And getting a house just right is very satisfying–among our spring projects–change carpeting upstairs, frame pictures, give away framed pictures we no longer like or care for (yay!), change a fogged window in the bedroom, repaint bathroom, kitchen and upstairs landing, revamp garden.

Can we do it all in a spring?
As well as run a publishing company and write.
Well, I am not going to get involved in any of the above projects beyond choosing colours, so it may, it may be feasible!

In which I Got the Precise House I Prayed for, and when I see better, I will remain content

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When we were house-hunting in 2005, I made a list of 10 things I wanted in a house.
Some of them were fantasies, pipedreams, improbabilities. A detached study, ponds, at least an acre of garden, and since we were in England, stone walls, rambling roses. A stream around the property.
And being a Christian, I prayed through the list most days–passionately, I must confess!
And then, chills ran down my spine, when I saw this house in Garsington advertised on the internet, after we had looked at just one house, a farmhouse, with a “healing” well mentioned in the Domesday book with an acre, yes, but in the one of the worst areas of Oxford (in terms of crime and poverty) and in bad repair. Living in a house that  costs way more than the average neighbourhood price might not augur well for safety I thought, and did we want to spend our time doing repairs.
I instantly knew I wanted the house, as I looked at the pictures and details. It had 9 of my 10 desiderata. The agent never had an easier sale.

Picture perfect, roses on its stone walls, a detached upstairs study (“a granny annexe”) with views over farmland for me, a 1711 house. An acre and a half around it.
Way too expensive. But perfect! We bought it, and made the life-style changes to afford it. I started a business, which has been among the most interesting and compelling things I have ever done–a publishing company.
It was my dream house. I was thrilled. Till I saw a friend’s house, same acreage, but her living room faced her large pond, whereas my pond was out of sight. She also had a large sunny conservatory. She said they was thinking of selling her house. It was 60% more than mine. Buy another dream house?
Or be content, and stay rooted. We instead built a large conservatory, twice as large as any of the rooms in this old house. I love it.
One does not need perfection. Better to learn the fine art of being content.
Also, given that it has taken us four years to set up this house, and we still have boxes to unpack, I simply cannot contemplate doing it all again.
And moulding and reshaping a house is satisfying. We are constantly tweaking it, putting in new lighting, new bookshelves. We now eat in the conservatory and our dining room is a library with wall to wall bookshelves. I love it!

Buttercup and Daisy– Our Aylesbury Ducks

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Buttercup and Daisy are our Aylesbury Ducks, birds bred over centuries to be too fat to fly.

This is an injury we have done them, for they have on one frightening occasions been caught by a fox.

One of the most terrifying moments of my life was seeing their white silhouette in mid-air in the jaws of a fox who let them go as I screamed.

Another time, a fox caught one by the wing, and it somehow escaped, and unusually for such timid birds, entered our living room in terror.

While our hens entered the kitchen, or roosted on the kitchen or living room windows, the ducks content themselves with coming to the back door of the kitchen and quacking urgently when they are hungry. They are very fond of each other, and hilarious in how they turn their heads at exactly the same angle to watch, for instance, an airplane fly overhead.

They are thoroughly amusing pets we’ve raised in our living room from ducklings who were just a few ounces, and do earn their keep, alone of all our pets, by producing one large beautifully shaped egg each everyday.

Affluenza

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A surprise among the lists of ten most popular websites is a spunky North American one, Flylady.net. It’s basically about the problem of too much stuff and how to organize it. The stories and testimonials are chilling–about the real distress caused by those who have too much stuff, more than they can handle, organize, keep tidy, deal with. Flylady offers a simple system of chores, one step at a time to get your house and life together until
Every room will be orderly
Every mess heap shall be laid low
The pathways straight
The surfaces clear
And the glory of order shall be revealed….
And the family shall rejoice together….

And yes, confession, I have used Flylady on occasion…. and am doing so now. Like all systems, it works if you work at it (rather than blog about it). 🙂