Hey Polly last night I sneaked into your house and cleaned up your house... to my standards... if you think it still needs cleaning, it's just cuz you're too demanding... :)
--Ray
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I'm not slow; I'm special. (Don't take it personally, everyone finds me offensive. Yet somehow I manage to live with myself.)
It's probably because you haven't looked at the other house's mess for so long that it overwhelms you... And you have a choice--if you get tired of it, you can stop. Cleaning someone else's house is a volunteer duty; cleaning yours is a grudging imperative.
Hey ray... I sent a message at 10 am telling the kids that we would be home about 3:30 pm and that we expected the house to be pretty much clean already... My kids all understand what 'I' mean by clean... Both Daughter and Sweetee (Son1's fiance) sent me messages informing me to have no fear... They claimed the cleaning elves came to our home last night, and did a great job.
THANKS rayb!!! Sounds like you met MY standards...
Then there is the phenomenon that happens when coming home from a vacation... The house WAS pretty clean, by the time we unpacked the car... sorted the dirty clothes and passed out the presents, the house needed cleaning again...
Poncho, tell you what...??? Tomorrow, you pretend your house is mine... I'll pretend my house is yours... and we'll try rayb's idea that it's easier to clean someone else's house... Course if that doesn't work, the cleaning still has to happen, so we could always try... racing... that sometimes worked when my kids were little.
I think it does boil down to the idea of service vs. duty. I've had the same question in my life- it's fun to clean w/and for others but hate to clean my own place. Maybe a solution is to look at it as service to ourselvees, in cleaning our living areas.
One time when I was a teenager, I had a fight w/my dad over this issue. I was scheduled to go to a church event where we were cleaning someone's house. My dad didn't want me to go- he wanted me to clean at home instead. Well I argued,e tc w/him- "please let me go", I think I said something like they are poor, they need help. Both my dad & I shed a couple tears in this argument. I won by the way.
Somehow I don't understand why a parent would object to letting his kid do a service project by going and cleaning someone else's house. Even if his own house was a mess. Not unless he made the stipulation they had to come home and work on their own home.
I think it's easier to clean someone else's house, just like it always seems so much easier to solve someone else's problems. When it comes down to us helping us, we suddenly feel inadequate and don't even want to try. At least that's how I am. It just takes more motivation.
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Why is it when you clean your oven (using the self-clean option) it ends up making your whole house stink? It reminds me of the time we were moving out of an apartment in Orem and the apartment managers wanted us to clean the oven and we scrubbed that thing and the whole apartment. We left it way better than we found it (we told them so too) yet they went around the place with the white glove treatment. We didn't think of it as our apartment anymore so you see it isn't always easier to clean someone else's house!
Somehow I don't understand why a parent would object to letting his kid do a service project by going and cleaning someone else's house. Even if his own house was a mess. Not unless he made the stipulation they had to come home and work on their own home.
That's just how it was at that time, it's hard to explain sometimes. Another time, after grad school, I lived at home for 3 years. One day we had a big RS service event and so I had already made 3 trips to the stake center- about 10 minutes from their home (one time for me to go to do my volunteer job there, one time to bring the sis I vt, and a final time to help someone w/cleaning up, etc). So then my dad asked me to bring my brother to the youth dance. By then I was tired of driving back and forth and said I didn't want to drive him. (eta: the whole event was a sort of stake wide swap meet, so in the final trip, I helped bring boxes to someone's home (so she could then donate them to her country), move things around in her home, set the boxes up in her home, etc, it was very tiring work). Anyway, I think it gets to that song line, "are we giving the least to those who matter most of all".
Anyway, it's ok, just got to remember to do something for people at home too.
I agree it's easier (and definitely funner) to clean someone else's house. I think it's kinda' fun to clean my mom's house... not fun to clean my own house, but must be done. Maybe you see how short a time it actually lasts.... maybe the mess just gets to be kinda' unnoticeable after a while. Example... I keep horse stuff in the back of my wagon. People probably come in my car and think, "What's that smell?" to which I'd reply, "What smell?"
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