MORNINGTON | ROSEBUD | PORTSEA
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.
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DON'T BE DISAPPOINTED THIS SPRING
to have your carpets Professionally Steam
Cleaned before the Festive Season Rush
MORNINGTON | ROSEBUD | PORTSEA
.
.
.
.
DON'T BE DISAPPOINTED THIS SPRING
to have your carpets Professionally Steam
Cleaned before the Festive Season Rush
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I HAVE a real love/hate relationship with
To Do lists. Especially the ones I make at the
start of every school holidays. Because my
regular job is tied to the school terms,
I tend to have a running list of jobs rattling
around in my head that I’m sure I’ll get around
to ``on the holidays’’.
Oh stop laughing … I know … but knowing
doesn’t seem to stop me writing them all down,
very neatly, with the heading ``To Do’’ at the top of
the page. Sometimes I even do a nice heading in a
different coloured pen.
And, in the first few days at least, the sheer
number of jobs on the list doesn’t daunt me. After
all, I’ve got two weeks to get everything done.
TWO WHOLE WEEKS. Ages …
Well okay, perhaps the last holiday list was a
little optimistic, including, as it did, stripping the
wallpaper in the guest room, repainting my son’s
room, and setting up a proper home office.
Perhaps if I’d left it at that, there might have been
a slim chance, but it didn’t end there. Oh no.
The list also included:
• Clean out the Taj Mah-Hutch (that’s where the
rabbits and the guinea pig live – and yes, it’s
quite big).
• Wash Shakin’ Dog
(big job but at least he trembles himself dry).
• Worm the cat
(enough said, can take days).
- Extra horse riding lessons, one basketball clinic.
- One trip to the movies.
- Play dates and sleepovers
(no, not me, the kids … although).
• Vacuum the car
(not for the feint-hearted, trust me).
- Finish this column, preferably on time.
- Do my tax.
- Finish building all the Lego Star Wars stuff that
arrived last Christmas.
- Bake something (anything!)
- Do a proper inventory of the kids’ winter clothes
and make good use of the sales to buy one-sizeup
for next year and, wait for it …
• Have lots of time to relax together as a family
because, after all, WE’RE ON HOLIDAYS!
And that was just page one …
But there’s just something so, I don’t know,
relieving, about corralling all those mental
notes that clutter up your cerebral hard drive
and make you forget the gold coin donation on
free dress day (or, for that matter, free dress day
itself!) and putting them somewhere other than
inside your head.
Once it’s on paper, it’s a plan, of sorts. And that’s
the bit I love. Surely I can’t be the only working
mother whose head space resembles an air traffic
control tower most of the time. And while, deep
down inside, I know the To Do list never gets
finished, it makes me feel a whole lot better when
it’s not rattling around in my brain.
with Karen Tatman
Have you read a book called I Don’t Know How
She Does It by Allison Pearson? It’s one of my
favourites, mainly because each chapter ends with
a list of all the stuff that the heroine, Kate Reddy,
is desperately trying to remember.
Admittedly, her life as a highly paid funds manager
with two small children, a long-suffering husband
and an e-mail lover is nothing like mine (except
the e-mail lover bit … JOKING MUM!), but I
still like to read it when I’m feeling particularly
overwhelmed. It sort of puts things in perspective.
But I always find myself thinking … perhaps if she
just made herself a nice list?
Anyway, as I was saying, for the first few days
of the holidays, the size of the list seems quite
reasonable then, one morning, it’s the Sunday
of the middle weekend and all I’ve crossed off is
worming the cat. No small victory, he’s rather a
big cat, but I can feel the rising tide of, not quite
panic, but definite unease. It is, after all, rather a
big list.
Okay Karen, just breath … and prioritise. There’s
still a week to go. In desperation I invite two of the
kids’ friends over for a play date and a sleepover.
I offer them $5 each to finish building the Imperial
Star Destroyer while Betty Crocker and I get busy
in the kitchen. TICK! TICK! TICK! Three jobs down,
and one … seriously messy house.
Not sure who it was that said:
``If you’ve got kids,
doing housework
in the holidays
is about as useful
as shovelling snow
in a blizzard’’.
But they really nailed it. And it’s kind of hard
to focus on the higher order jobs when you’re
struggling to find a path through the dirty clothes
piled knee high in the laundry. And then, as if by
magic (definitely of the Dark Arts variety), suddenly
it’s two more sleeps until school goes back.
Interestingly, it’s always at about this point in the
holidays that I find myself secretly looking forward
to the routines and rhythms of term time.
Sure we’re all busy, but there’s a kind of
orderliness to the general disorder of family life
when the kids are back at school and I’m working.
And I don’t even kid myself that I’ll get around to
any big jobs because I’m simply too busy. If the
dishes are done, the floors are swept and the next
day’s lunches are in the fridge by the time I fall into
bed, I feel pretty much on top of my game.
And after all, there’s always the
next holidays for all those big jobs …
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