Moving out and Moving on
Without Prejudice
I hate the boys moving out, leaving their bedroom littered with the detritus of a Teenage boy. The room smells of Testosterone and sweaty socks and tees. Cast aside are the toys of yesterday along with the wrappers and copies of Zoo, left for Jai, who is 14. I throw them out, time enough for all that later, when he's 16 or so.
The room is rapidly filled with other beds and drawers, new doonas and sheets. Curtains taken down and new ones put up. The room feels brighter, new energy sweeping in with the cross breeze from the door and window. The oldest heroes leaving to return later and for short periods. Life beckons them, jobs, Year 11 and 10, almost grown and gone, making way for the next lot, the 14 and 8 year old boys and the two baby boys aged 3 and 1.
The logistics of a family this big takes Yvette and I all day every day, including weekends. Time off is short/ We try to make Fridays "Do Nothing Day " but it doesn't ever seem to end up the way but we can but try. If one gets sick usually the whole lot of us go down. Acer this time has a virus, high temp and fever. Yvette has it too and then the others may or may not get it. It's rare for Yvette and I be sick at the same time. She usually tumbles first as she is frail, a picky eater and is always thin and for ever cold.
I am the complete opposite, robust and healthy, having shed 20 kilos lately and I have energy to burn and eat only the healthiest freshest food. I also work at cleaning houses every single day as I have to as exercise. I can clean 2 houses in the one day and still keep going. I can mow the lawns and spray the weeds and shift logs and wheelbarrow earth and I do that most days as well as house cleaning. The losing of the 20 kilos the best thing that has happened to me in years and I am making the most of it.
I always promised myself that I would do that if I was ever thin again. Really admire my body rather than hating it and I do. I am ecstatic that I can wear jeans again and G strings. Bras that used to fit just about go round me twice and all my underwear is too big. Curses! As some of it was expensive and I loved, but now the knickers swim on me. Bonus. I don't care a jot that I have to buy new, what a bummer.
Men are more interested in me now, and I don't care about that either. Where were their wolf whistles and side long glances before, when I was fat ? I am still the person or do I give off more confidence now that I am lighter ? I am more popular with both men and women now, especially the fat phobic Yvette who would rather shoot herself than be anything than the perfect Size 6 she is.
She can wear bikinis after 7 boys and look amazing. But she's not interested in attracting attention, in fact she hates attention from males. She's off putting to most of them and that's the way she likes it. She can show her body off but if any male approaches she fades away quickly. She doesn't trust men and for her that is probably as it should be. She has a fella, the Father of her youngest two boys but he and her are on a hiatus in their relationship at the moment.
The more that he is not around the more she becomes the real Yvette she always was. She's always cranky for some reason but is getting better and is one of the most feisty and patient Mothers I have ever met. She rarely loses her cool with the boys, she's so used to having so many. And now the oldest are viable human beings who have launched themselves into the stratosphere of "Batching" and we await results. All good so far, they keen to come home and keen to leave, also, just as it should be.
I left home at 16 and moved countries, state and town. The last move from Wagga to Melbourne and apart from short periods it has been my permanent home for years. I was married for 20, Engaged for 10 and had one live in relationship/partnership for 5. So now I am on my own and I love it. Love. No one to tell me what to do, think, feel. I like that bit. And I like not annoying someone else. I am anal and clean and perfectionist and chatty and highly intelligent and bored easily. So I have to find my passions, like my writing, and collecting and renovating and cleaning.
For some reason cleaning quietens my mind chatter and I am in a trance transforming a house. The funny thing is that women hate you cleaning their house but know it's necessary. And I will do the lot from garden to bathroom. If it's a transformation that big I make the owner work as hard as I do and I soon wear them out. I keep going. I have learned to pace myself and know where the problem areas are. Usually the bathrooms and toilets. When you have a big family or property the two rooms get the most use and are always the worst maintained.
Showers are a pain to clean unless like me you have done thousands and at The Sheraton Mirage and The Royal Pines on the Gold Coast. They train you for 10 days to clean ONE room and then they teach you how to fly through them at speed. Showers are easy for me and hard for the women to get them sparkling. The biggest issue in a bathroom is moistness and heat. A bathroom has to be well ventilated all year around, even in Winter. And surfaces have to be dry to remain clean. Its so easy and fast when you know how.
So is stripping a bed and making it properly, clean sheets, underlay, doona, the works. Once a bed is made the room is immediately tidier and you have a surface, the "Table Top" where you can park your clean washing and anything else that needs a flat surface on. A cot mattress is easier to make on a bed and then lowered into a cot. There are a whole lot of tricks that speed up the time and efficiency of cleaning.
Don't bother with expensive cleaners. Arm yourself with a metal scourer, a sponge scourer, some white vinegar, cloudy ammonia, bleach, a scrubbing brush for grout, a cheap bottle of shampoo and a big pile of rags, that you can wash and keep. Cut up old towels are perfect, and a pillow case for polishing lint. I like to use Windex as well for mirrors and glass on photos and prints.
Put all your supplies in a bucket and I don't bother with gloves as they rip and are bulky and you cannot feel invisible to the eye soap scum except with a bare hand. The quickest way is to start on the left hand side of the room, always and have an apron on or jeans with pockets. Have a rag tucked into your waistband, it will come in handy for everything. I like to wipe all the switches and frames as I go so just start cleaning and tidying. Have a big bag for rubbish in the middle of the room and be certain to not throw away anything precious. If in doubt, don't !
The detailed cleaning will only be done on the first time and every week after that you are just maintaining. Maintaining is a breeze, detailed cleaning is just plain hard work utilising all the elbow grease you have. I have lots of tips to make it easier and you can email me for them
To be continued.........
I hate the boys moving out, leaving their bedroom littered with the detritus of a Teenage boy. The room smells of Testosterone and sweaty socks and tees. Cast aside are the toys of yesterday along with the wrappers and copies of Zoo, left for Jai, who is 14. I throw them out, time enough for all that later, when he's 16 or so.
The room is rapidly filled with other beds and drawers, new doonas and sheets. Curtains taken down and new ones put up. The room feels brighter, new energy sweeping in with the cross breeze from the door and window. The oldest heroes leaving to return later and for short periods. Life beckons them, jobs, Year 11 and 10, almost grown and gone, making way for the next lot, the 14 and 8 year old boys and the two baby boys aged 3 and 1.
The logistics of a family this big takes Yvette and I all day every day, including weekends. Time off is short/ We try to make Fridays "Do Nothing Day " but it doesn't ever seem to end up the way but we can but try. If one gets sick usually the whole lot of us go down. Acer this time has a virus, high temp and fever. Yvette has it too and then the others may or may not get it. It's rare for Yvette and I be sick at the same time. She usually tumbles first as she is frail, a picky eater and is always thin and for ever cold.
I am the complete opposite, robust and healthy, having shed 20 kilos lately and I have energy to burn and eat only the healthiest freshest food. I also work at cleaning houses every single day as I have to as exercise. I can clean 2 houses in the one day and still keep going. I can mow the lawns and spray the weeds and shift logs and wheelbarrow earth and I do that most days as well as house cleaning. The losing of the 20 kilos the best thing that has happened to me in years and I am making the most of it.
I always promised myself that I would do that if I was ever thin again. Really admire my body rather than hating it and I do. I am ecstatic that I can wear jeans again and G strings. Bras that used to fit just about go round me twice and all my underwear is too big. Curses! As some of it was expensive and I loved, but now the knickers swim on me. Bonus. I don't care a jot that I have to buy new, what a bummer.
Men are more interested in me now, and I don't care about that either. Where were their wolf whistles and side long glances before, when I was fat ? I am still the person or do I give off more confidence now that I am lighter ? I am more popular with both men and women now, especially the fat phobic Yvette who would rather shoot herself than be anything than the perfect Size 6 she is.
She can wear bikinis after 7 boys and look amazing. But she's not interested in attracting attention, in fact she hates attention from males. She's off putting to most of them and that's the way she likes it. She can show her body off but if any male approaches she fades away quickly. She doesn't trust men and for her that is probably as it should be. She has a fella, the Father of her youngest two boys but he and her are on a hiatus in their relationship at the moment.
The more that he is not around the more she becomes the real Yvette she always was. She's always cranky for some reason but is getting better and is one of the most feisty and patient Mothers I have ever met. She rarely loses her cool with the boys, she's so used to having so many. And now the oldest are viable human beings who have launched themselves into the stratosphere of "Batching" and we await results. All good so far, they keen to come home and keen to leave, also, just as it should be.
I left home at 16 and moved countries, state and town. The last move from Wagga to Melbourne and apart from short periods it has been my permanent home for years. I was married for 20, Engaged for 10 and had one live in relationship/partnership for 5. So now I am on my own and I love it. Love. No one to tell me what to do, think, feel. I like that bit. And I like not annoying someone else. I am anal and clean and perfectionist and chatty and highly intelligent and bored easily. So I have to find my passions, like my writing, and collecting and renovating and cleaning.
For some reason cleaning quietens my mind chatter and I am in a trance transforming a house. The funny thing is that women hate you cleaning their house but know it's necessary. And I will do the lot from garden to bathroom. If it's a transformation that big I make the owner work as hard as I do and I soon wear them out. I keep going. I have learned to pace myself and know where the problem areas are. Usually the bathrooms and toilets. When you have a big family or property the two rooms get the most use and are always the worst maintained.
Showers are a pain to clean unless like me you have done thousands and at The Sheraton Mirage and The Royal Pines on the Gold Coast. They train you for 10 days to clean ONE room and then they teach you how to fly through them at speed. Showers are easy for me and hard for the women to get them sparkling. The biggest issue in a bathroom is moistness and heat. A bathroom has to be well ventilated all year around, even in Winter. And surfaces have to be dry to remain clean. Its so easy and fast when you know how.
So is stripping a bed and making it properly, clean sheets, underlay, doona, the works. Once a bed is made the room is immediately tidier and you have a surface, the "Table Top" where you can park your clean washing and anything else that needs a flat surface on. A cot mattress is easier to make on a bed and then lowered into a cot. There are a whole lot of tricks that speed up the time and efficiency of cleaning.
Don't bother with expensive cleaners. Arm yourself with a metal scourer, a sponge scourer, some white vinegar, cloudy ammonia, bleach, a scrubbing brush for grout, a cheap bottle of shampoo and a big pile of rags, that you can wash and keep. Cut up old towels are perfect, and a pillow case for polishing lint. I like to use Windex as well for mirrors and glass on photos and prints.
Put all your supplies in a bucket and I don't bother with gloves as they rip and are bulky and you cannot feel invisible to the eye soap scum except with a bare hand. The quickest way is to start on the left hand side of the room, always and have an apron on or jeans with pockets. Have a rag tucked into your waistband, it will come in handy for everything. I like to wipe all the switches and frames as I go so just start cleaning and tidying. Have a big bag for rubbish in the middle of the room and be certain to not throw away anything precious. If in doubt, don't !
The detailed cleaning will only be done on the first time and every week after that you are just maintaining. Maintaining is a breeze, detailed cleaning is just plain hard work utilising all the elbow grease you have. I have lots of tips to make it easier and you can email me for them
To be continued.........
