Ignore it and hope it goes away. :)

Seriously, while i do ignore a lot in the summer, i try to get the minimum done BEFORE i go out because i know if i go out, i won't be coming back in. So, the dishes get put away, vacuuming done sometimes (when it gets too gross), laundry goes out on the line, etc.

Of course, the trouble is, i love to sit on the top step of the deck with my morning coffee, and sometimes i wander off...

Nag the DH more. Ignore the mess when he doesn't do it. Really I don't care that much.

OMG Marcia "i love to sit on the top step of the deck with my morning coffee, and sometimes i wander off..." me too! I think I'm just going look at the garden for a minute, then I see a weed or something that needs deadheading and a few hours later I find my old coffee with a beetle swimming in it...

There is NOColor=#FF0000> such thing as house work in the spring and summer.

What has to be done gets done...(quick vacs, dusting, dust mop floors......but thats it. In the fall I do a major cleaning.....somewhere between the end of gardening season and the garden clean up.

Ohhhhh I am sooooo hoping for some privacy screens so I can have my early mornings out in the gardens again.

Sierra

It's just hubby and myself so I don't have to worry about kids making messes and not cleaning up. I try to keep things 'tidy' all summer and then at least the house is presentable. I do have to set aside one morning a week so that bathrooms and floors get done. I'm with Sierra on that I leave the major cleaning for fall. That is when things like carpet cleaning and cleaning the dog drool splatter on the bottom 4' of walls gets cleaned.

Syreeta

Gillian, one of these days i'm going to get dressed first, too. LOL

LOL ~~~ I love these answers! Obviously I'm amoung the right group of people! LOL. Maybe I'll nag the kids more too! "You can't go to your friends house until....." that should help a little!

I'm always out there in my PJ's first thing in the morning with my coffee cup [travel mug -- because I know it will get put down & forgotten for a while] and then I water the plants and do some weeding.... and scurry back in for a quick change of clothes at some point because too many people walk by at a certain time of morning... LOL

Good thing my kids enjoy gardening with me or I'd never see them! DD #1 is getting pretty good at weeding & knowing what's a weed (most times!). We have some pretty good Weed & Chat times out there.

Oh yeah I forgot to mention, I do have a legitimate tip for housework - the DH bought me a "Roomba" robotic vacuum for Christmas and it's pretty good to put on and leave. I would have to say it's better on smooth floors than carpet; it's fine for tidying up carpet but you still have to vacuum sometimes. But my house is mostly smooth floors and I have 4 pets (6 right now! Mom & Dad are on holidays and I have extra cats) so the Roomba really helps keep the drifts of pet hair under control.

I could use one of those! Besides our own dog, my son's spends a lot of time here when he's working - double dog hair! His dog's hair is blonder than ours and doesn't blend into the laminate floor colour quite as well as our dog's does! :>

I was wondering if they really worked! It would be great here too because our whole house is hardwood/lino except for 2 bedrooms. Very cool that they do work!

Hmmm, now if only you could teach them to go down stairs....

Well they won't go down stairs, they have a sensor to tell them when they're on a cliff, but one thing you have to watch is ramp-like objects, they go up and get stuck. I have one chair with wooden ramp legs and the roomba is always hung up on it. You also have to move cords and rug tassels and stuff. It's best to watch it work the first couple of times anyway, to learn what to look out for.

My best tip for summer house work is :) Paper plates only, unless of course the priest is coming over for some reason, then you can use a mug or tea cup :) OH and my favorite excuse for sitting out in the AM with my coffee is the "Phone back list" :) you know, all those folks who couldn't get hold of you the day before, well, call them in the AM from your front step, if your lucky they will come over in their pj's and help you do a bit of weeding too :) It works! Of course the next day you have to go over to her yard and do the same. I have a pal only three doors down, and we have been doing it for years! :) I use to love those MOO MOOS, though they never did anything for our girlish figures at the time :) but hey, if no one is in the house to mess it up, why do you have to clean? :)
Arn't BBQ's great???
I always tell my hubby I am saving some house work for those rainy days ;)
I loved reading your posts everyone thanks for a few giggles tonight. Happy gardening everyone :)

Ha ha, big thunder! Gotta love that "phone back list" idea!

And yes, BBQ's are the best and I use them everynight if I can during the summer.

I was just thinking too that I will buy a bucket of those special wipes for each room for spot cleaning and those special dusting clothes... and loads anything else that make it easy! LOL. I'll spot clean my way through the summer! LOL

"OMG Marcia "i love to sit on the top step of the deck with my morning coffee, and sometimes i wander off..." me too! I think I'm just going look at the garden for a minute, then I see a weed or something that needs deadheading and a few hours later I find my old coffee with a beetle swimming in it..."

Hehe...Marcia and northspruce...this was me yesterday....I TOTALLY..forgot to go to WORK...never mind forgetting housework!!!
For some reason I got it lodged in my head that my first client was at noon...so I am out on the deck, coffee in hand (thank goodness I had drove hubby to work so I at least had my track pants on, not PJ's...LOL)and I think to myself...self, its so nice and you have a lot of time before you have to work (its 8:30 am)you might as well do some planting and cleanup.
Off I go with my pruners and cut off all the dead branches on the hedge out front, then since I still have the pruners in hand I do a walk about and clip off anything that is still a bit too long sticking out of the ground...then I decide I should move all the indoor sown stuff outside to get some real sunlight....then one of my roses I bought is just sitting there, not sprouting so I take it out of the pot and see it looks dead...so I re pot it and we'll see what happens..(I have the gurantee from Rona and we are going back down at the end of may, so I will see what happens by then!)....then I see the little "heart" of anemone corms hubby gave me for Easter, so I pot them up....I loosen the soil in my larger "containers" and decide to top it up and plant some lettuce in them...then I think that I might as well plant some peas and beans while I am out here, so I do...along with some sweet peas...by this time it is 11 AM so I figure I should go in and start getting cleaned up for work..well as I walk in the patio doors my phone is ringing and it is one of the girls I work with asking if I realized that I had a client at 10:45...and she had been sitting there waiting for me...OMG...I could have died...all I had time to do was wash my hands, and my feet (flip-flops) brush my teeth, throw clothes on and fly out the door...I made it there in 10 mins...
I giggled about it all day...
So when I just read this therad I had to tell this story!

haha.....this is funny!!!! I would never do a thing like that. LOL!!! LOL!!! LOL!!!

Sierra

LOL Hunner too funny! I can honestly say I have never forgotten to go to work because of gardening. I have ruined many a meal though. And even some cookware.

I actually use Flylady's system and minimal time is spent on housework, no matter what the season. Six in the family, 3,000 square foot house and I spend 45 min. a day which is divided up morning and evening.

Makes it so I have have plenty of time in the garden without the inside falling apart.

Gloria

Thanks Gloria...I'd never heard of Flylady before...I googled her, signed up, and am now a proud 'fly-baby'. (And I have a really shiney sink.) I'm so disorganized I need a system like this. :o)

Verena

I just mentally flipped Flylady the bird and am now going to pour myself a large glass of Sunday rum in my messy living room. When I'm done it I will leave the glass on the coffee table with no coaster and transplant my lobelias. No offense Fly babies. Life's too short to make my bed.

:0)

haha.....I'm with you Gil! Too funny!

Sierra

LOL!...Make mine a paralizer...though the dish'll have to go into the dish washer. Poor DH...if it wasn't for him...LOL...he's the neet and tidy one!! I'm a new flybaby because I know a clean & organized house will mean a lot to him...just realized though...what's a baby fly??

Verena
"The Maggot" LOL! ;o)

LOL...you guys....Gil...I'm with you on the life is to short for housework bandwagon....as I look at my (formerly) white sheer curtains that are now completely covered with mud because the dog got into the pot I had set in the front window...and when I left yesterday and looked back at said front window I noticed a pile of soil sitting on the ledge...completely visible from outside...did I come home and clean it up...NOPE...I took my new pitchfork and shovel and continued on out into the yard.
The mess isn't going anywhere and who knows how long the sunny warm weather will last...right?
Ohhh as I was typing this reply, I figured I should go and see how bad that mess really is....FAR worse from close up...good thing its cloudy here today and I got most of what I wanted done outside yesterday...guess I better get to it...oh and don't even let me get started on my kitchen table...AKA...the plant holding area/computer desk/dumping ground...LOL

I admit it - my boys do housework. We can get a week's worth done in about 1 1/2 hours on a weekend. Everbody has a list, which rotates around so no one's stuck with one job all the time. They each have daily chores too - one empties the dishwasher, one sweeps, and the little one does garbages, pop cans, etc. They all help with dishes. When we really don't want to do housework, we do a drive-by cleaning that takes about 20 minutes, and I can live with it for another week. DH, unfortunately, has made a real art out of finding things that HAVE to be done when it's housework time. Summertime sees a lot of drive-by cleaning. When the kids were little, they helped pick up their stuff, and I tried to have 1 clean room, and rotate the clean room from place to place. Life is too short to spend it cleaning! The first thing I'm doing when I win the lottery is getting a housekeeper. I don't clean my kids' rooms - that's what doors are for!

I just realised my last post might have been a little mean. Especially when the thread was soliciting housework advice. Sorry, I was just being silly. But I do have a bit of a knee-jerk reaction to having my housework analyzed. Flylady sounded like my ex-MIL. We all have that thing that makes the vein stick out in our forehead ;0)

But I really did leave the empty glass of rum on the coffee table and transplant lobelias. It's ok Verena, you can have a paralizer and a shiny sink too! :0)

LOL Gil, I do hear ya!

I like alot of the things that Flylady says and tried to follow her mission (oooops, I've fallen off that wagon and can't get back on!). I do like her idea of having routines. (which I follow very irregularly -- ooops)

I actually emailed her about the shoe-wearing thing. I told her that she would never convert me about that and in mid-winter I would rather just step into my boots which I leave by the door. I would hate to have to undo my lace-up shoes and then get my boots on. Funny, she never did email back about that ;)

I love the idea of a "Drive-By-Clean-up" LOL! Too funny.

I give my kids timers and we play "Beat the Timer" when it comes time to clean their rooms. Usually I just get them to remove laundry and clean up the real garbage. Sometimes they continue on with the clean up and play "Trading Spaces: Boys vs. Girls" and try to get creative with their rooms. Two of my kids sleep downstairs --- who ever sees that? The other ones sleep upstairs and one does have a glass door (used to be the previous owners 'library') so I just get her to put things in a toy box. Done. Fast and Easy.

Yup, in the summer-time my house looks like a tornado went through it... but I already bought some "cheating methods" ;) and they are working great! Even the kids beg to use them! Gotta love it!

Ang

Gil...I'm SOOO offended!! *snort* I guess I'll forgive you though...those lilies and all... LOL ;o) Flylady reminds me of my DM...I couldn't count the number of times my mother has said to me "a place for everything and everything in it's place" (Of course their 100+ year old house has a full basement, a walk in closet in every bedroom, large coat closet, pantry, double the kitchen cabinets...etc...) Again I say *snort*! Maybe if I sold everything...our three bedroom house has a half basement and one...count it...one closet (it's only 1' deep and 2.5' wide...) No broom closet...no coat closet...no closet in the master bedroom...no linen closet...Hmmm wonder what the REAL problem is?? A place for everything?? HA!

There...I'm done my rant...I feel better now...where'd that paralizer go??

Ang, I have to agree with you on the shoe thing though...the only person wearing shoes in my house will be my 85 year old Grandma, who needs her orthotics, as well as the traction!

I do like the idea of daily reminders of which tasks to target to keep the whole place clean though...takes the brain work out of it...I'd rather save that for my garden. I'm in the habit of vacuuming everyday, mopping once a week...but everything else just tends to slide until it HAS to be done...like every last dish in the house is dirty and "Hey Dear...looks like we'll be doing hot dogs on the fire tonight..."LOL

Verena
Whose sink is still shining... ;-)