Wash, iron, dust and other four letter words

I was never destined to be an Austrian housewife. On any given day you could walk around the village and see people vacuuming the outside of the house. Outside!!!!!!! My husband believed me when we first met that I didn´t know how to use a vacuum cleaner. My mother-in-law comes to me every Christmas, Easter and other religious holiday, when the villagers walk around the village behind the Priest, to remind me that it is time to make sure windows are cleaned and the house spruced up. I told her to get the route changed. Or just tell them I´m foreign. It seems to work for everything else. Pregnancy books in Australia will tell you to spend time with a new born and forget about the cleaning (which I followed to the letter. Although 6 months is a long to forget about cleaning). Pregnancy books here focus on maintaining a hygienic environment. Household duties will always be something that is not a priority for me.

It is my mother´s fault (but then it always is isn´t it). I´m sure that she had a pathological problem with cleaning. Cleaning the house was a regular punishment for us when we were children. Cleaning was our associated Saturday program. It is the activity that caused the most conflict within our house while growing up. I just don´t see the point. Why dust something when the next day it looks exactly the same? Why not buy more plates and then you only need to wash up every 3 days (I´m the sort of person the dishwasher was designed for)? Why buy clothes which need ironing when other clothes are just as nice and more practical? I can see through the window OK without having to wash it every month. Since having children, even trying to keep things pristine and tidy is even more of an impossibility. My children walk 2 steps behind me when I do housework, undoing everything I have done. When children want to help, why is it that things then take three times so long? I have long lists of things I would much rather be doing.

Sit outside and look at the flowers
Play a game with my girls
Cuddle my husband and have a glass of wine
Go for a walk or bike ride with my family and look at nature
Lie in a hammock and read a good book
Lie in the bathtub with some nice blues music and lovely smells
Be creative with the feel of clay in my hands
Grow something
Watch a nice film
Meet with friends
Dream about ideas
Catch up with old friends........