Cleaning up

Growing up, I hated to clean. I hated to clean up my room. I hated helping clean up the family room. I particularly hated to wash the dishes, but that's to be expected. Who doesn't hate to wash dishes?

Kris taught me the trick to minding washing dishes less: use rubber gloves.

Learned that lesson 20 years too late.

There was one exception to the cleaning-hate rule, though, an odd one that. I didn't mind helping clean up over at the Kleins.

I wish I could say the "not-minding" extended to all of my friends. I wish I could say I wasn't such a rotten child about cleaning up. But I can't, because I was, and I'm mostly embarrassed about it these days. I'm sure eventually I'll forgive myself about being a horrible child, but not. quite. yet.

Yesterday morning, I managed to finish all of my A-tasks: the tasks I have to finish over the weekend, or I'll just explode come Monday morning. You know, the really important tasks like, oh, I don't know, watering the plants, and folding the laundry, and eating all the sugar in the house.

Since I was done, and didn't really want to start on any of my other tasks, I called up Andy and asked him if he wanted help with his tasks around the house. He said sure, and off we went, the girls and I, to Casa Crews to help with the outdoor plumbing and the patio.

We glued together the pipes for an irrigation system extension for the wisteria on the side of his house. We dug up some of the patio area, narrowly missing Shadow as he ran under the pickax as I dug. We rewarded ourselves with a walk over to the nearest Jamba Juice for a smoothie, and discovered Jamba Juice had been bought out by Nike.

Right. Like that's a connection I should have made: they totally fit together.

As I left before dinner to head home with the girls, I couldn't help but wonder why working on someone else's chores and projects is so much easier than working on my own chores and projects. Maybe it's because I can walk away from others' chores even if I'm not done. Can't really walk away from mine: they're still there when I return.