For several months, at a time when I was working a steady-ish job and my income could be counted on to enter the bank account at predictable intervals, we hired a cleaner to wage war on our home. She was phenomenal and I think about her daily. She usually brought two or three other professionals with her and they would tackle the entire kit and kaboodle in under two hours. They would arrive, we would leave. They would clean, we would wander around on a trail somewhere or swim in the lake. We would return covered in dirt and mud and walk into our spotless house and their pristine work would last for exactly ten minutes. I still thought it was worth it. Because even if I cleaned that diligently (which I don’t), I could still never manage to get to all those fiendish little spots that reveal themselves when the morning sun hits the floor/windowsill/bookshelf/counter/faucet (etc) just right. You think, “I will swab that down later!” And then you never do. But they always annihilated every last smudge.
But then my job wasn’t even steady-ISH anymore and it didn’t make a lot of economic sense to keep outsourcing the cleaning (ie it wasn’t affordable). I went back to doing it myself. I should note here that my husband is a particularly neat and clean person. He’s the only adult male I’ve ever lived with, so I can’t exactly compare notes, but from what I’ve garnered from friends in similar male roommate situations, he’s pretty squeaky on the clean-o-meter.
His bathroom drawer has two items: a beard trimmer and a cute little pouch. The cute little pouch has only two accessories: nail clippers and tweezers. He sweeps a lot. It’s a bit of a running joke/truth that he is known to take utensils out of my hands to clean them while I am still cooking. He always seems to materialize whenever I’m in the kitchen and starts putting ingredients back in their rightful spots before I’ve even added them to the dish. This can be annoying but wouldn’t you rather someone be clean to a fault than dirty? And it’s not like he’s Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets. He’s just a normal dude…who happens to like things clean. Riveting.
I say all this to confirm that yes, we do split household responsibilities and his tolerance for grime is arguably lower than mine; however, since I am not working full-time and have a flexible schedule compared to his, I naturally end up doing more of the domestic work. I’ve heard and read about families that thrive on “fair play” and maybe I’ve misunderstood the concept but it seems that our marriage is at its healthiest when we don’t split hairs over equity. Maybe I do more this week and he does more next. It’s an ebb in flow on its own timeline and I’m far happier not keeping score. Since we’re in it for the long haul, I’m fairly confident it’ll all come out in the wash.
Once every couple weeks, I finally reach my limit on living among dust bunnies and get to work. Here are the two ways I end up cleaning: half-assing the whole house or whole-assing half the house. The latter is preferential. You know all those crusty spots I mentioned earlier? I DO actually find them whilst giving the headquarters a good scrub down, but since I know I’ve got four other rooms to go, I’m not going to drain all my elbow grease on that one grimy corner. But if I know I’m only doing the upstairs or the downstairs or the bathrooms or however you want to parcel it up, I will actually bring my A-game. Life is long and my attention span is short.
So I relegate one hour of the day to cleaning a portion of the house and I do a good job. If I do this several days out of that one week a month I clean, the whole house is done and I miraculously haven’t slipped into glassy-eyed nihilism over how pointless all of this is anyway when my kids are due home any minute now. What’s more tedious than cleaning? A mind-numbing breakdown of strategic housekeeping. Did I mean to write an essay about scrubbing floors? Of course not. But nonetheless I’m hoping to win something for my spectacular vision, a Nobel Prize for example. Forbes 30 Under 30 would also work.
Perhaps I have a bit of a complex about wanting to feel like a visibly productive member of the household when my income has dwindled, but truthfully, it really does feel satisfying to contribute in this way. Sadly, I feel like I must clarify this since trad-wife-ing is having a puzzlingly zeitgeisty moment.
Skincare in the summer?
I don’t know if it’s because the brainwashed-on-beauty-standards portion of my soul is gleeful over naturally suntanned skin or if it’s just so hot that I’ve given up, but very minimal makeup in the summer feels as necessary as extra moisturizer in the winter. I have a small cast of characters I employ this time of year and feel deeply comfortable with the skeleton crew.
Vitamin C - Slather it on, day and night. No need for anything else, honestly. It’s the only serum I’ve tried that ticks all my boxes (and there are surprisingly many when it’s this intimate with your skin): all pronounceable, understandable, naturally derived plant ingredients, bunny certified, in a glass jar so you can reuse or recycle, doesn’t leave a residue or feel weird rubbing in and last and best, it SMELLS so good! This seems like it’d be an easy common denominator among all serums that lie so close to the nostrils but I’m sorry to bring the sad news that I’ve tried quite a few “clean beauty” vitamin c’s and most of them smell strange at best and icky at worst.
Makeup/moisturizer/SPF - You could debate me on this and probably win but I think I look worse with concealer and foundation and a really fully done up face. It just settles into my wrinkles and makes me look old. Wouldn’t know how to contour if it came with an arm that did it for me. This just gives my face a nice tint that could reasonably be my actual skin tone even though it’s not.
Liquid Lash Extensions Mascara. There’s a “TM” in there somewhere. Here’s the description on their website because I won’t dare try to summarize how cool this stuff is: “Our award-winning tubing formula wraps each lash in lightweight ‘tubes’ that build and extend beyond the lash for maximum length.” I’ve never read a truer statement in my life. It’s not like regular mascara that pools under your eyeballs at the first drop of sweat. It’s not like waterproof mascara that goes on like concrete and stays there until reckoning day when you try to pry it off with a chisel. It goes on smooth. When you’re ready to part ways, you get your lashes wet and honest to goodness it really does glide off onto your fingers looking like tiny, black, whisper-thin noodles. I bought it once from an ad on Pinterest and might as well stock up for the rest of my life. I anticipate all other brands just giving up at this point.
If you really want to get fancy for perhaps that one audition that you got in the last month, you could add some eyeliner, eye shadow and bronzer (currently on sale!). These are all in the Thrive Causemetics family too because they really are deriving their products from fairy dust and alchemy. Nothing else would explain it. Oh, but I actually do like this liquid blush from Pixi. Or Petra? Or Pixi by Petra? I don’t know who or what to call her.
Outfit of the week
I know people tend to do Outfit of the Day but I don’t change my clothes that frequently. So here she is:
I do not enjoy extreme dressing in any direction; therefore I give you my favorite outfit of late that scratches an ever present itch I have for clothing in balance. Casual but with a collar and could go to the playground but you need groceries on the way home and you won’t rest until you’ve infused every newsletter with a rant about flat shoes (archy shoes are evil and I won’t yield a millimeter on this) and it’s sunny but you’ve already lost FOUR pairs (not exaggerating) of nice sunnies but you still need polarized so these will do the trick without washing everything in oompa loompa orange. I rented the shirt from Nuuly and will not be returning. I actually don’t know where you could just buy it, but here’s the brand site for other ideas. Our all-time best, multi-functional crop/bra underneath. Athleta shorts I have in multiple colors. Mine are old, but these look similar. Vans. Shades.
Have a lovely holiday weekend,
Alli
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