The Ladies' Lounge
- Thread starter GofD
- Start date
Kim
Well-known member
Hmm it usually has a good effect if I cook a good solid home cooked dinner. Fuel ....
Cauliflower cheese with a hint of mustard, lamb mince with mushrooms and garlic, corn cobs, followed by fresh fruit salad. Elderflower cordial.
Wev e both had a very hardworking but very constructive week. Also lots of driving because best friend in hospital some distance away in Swansea. Need to change gear.
Ah, sauna. That'll help.
I'll keep you posted
Cauliflower cheese with a hint of mustard, lamb mince with mushrooms and garlic, corn cobs, followed by fresh fruit salad. Elderflower cordial.
Wev e both had a very hardworking but very constructive week. Also lots of driving because best friend in hospital some distance away in Swansea. Need to change gear.
Ah, sauna. That'll help.
I'll keep you posted
Elizabeth
Well-known member
Don't we all!
I have my chicken soaking for fried chicken...something I do MAYBE twice a year. And knowing that fried foods will be off the table after surgery, I may as well do it now. Takes about two days for me to get it ready to actually fry...a trick I learned LONG ago working for a fast food place that make fried chicken.
Elizabeth
Well-known member
What I do is soak in saltwater for 12-24 hours first, rinse, then soak in a milk bath for another 12+ hours. It takes the "foul" taste out and makes it oh, so tender. Then I roll in an egg wash (mine being egg beaters as I'm allergic to egg yolks), and roll in a flour/breadcrumb mixture. Then I fry it up.
Soaking it in the saltwater bath is the real key.
Kim
Well-known member
soooo with you there sister! Cannot stand housework
I I also love how because I free lance and work from home, people think I am a housefrau - annoys the bejebus out of me!
This is my favourite fridge magnet...... Unfortunately only my Mother takes it literally!
Liz.... the fried chicken sounds interesting, what do you soak it in? oh and could you post in the Food thread?
Elizabeth
Well-known member
soooo with you there sister! Cannot stand housework
Liz.... the fried chicken sounds interesting, what do you soak it in? oh and could you post in the Food thread?
Sure, as soon as I have it ready for a photo!
Kim
Well-known member
Housework ... is very different for a woman because we're EXPECTED to do it.
Not only for others, but also to a ridiculous degree of perfection for ourselves.
A great deal of female self respect is bound up in it. Being a house servant.
I learned almost 40 years ago to reject that. I was doing my degree and I found that when I tried to settle to intensive study for exams I suddenly felt virtuous about hyousework. By the time I'd done some I was too tired to study.
Eventually I understood what I was doing and cut out 90% of the housework, then got a good degree.
People ask me how do I achieve so much?
Many achievers asked that answer about getting up early, working long hours, various organising systems.
I don't often get up early though sometimes I work through the night and sleep in the day.
I do often work long hours but then I also spend a whole day lying in bed watching DVDs and reading.
I do use organising systems like grading stuff A for Action! B for Before too long and C for Crap it can wait.
(A gets done mostly, B gets done around half and the rest loses its importance, C rarely gets done but occasional bits get filed or very occasionally actively done.
But the two biggest things that open up my energy are
NO TV - without the corporate manipulators flooding my brain I feel stronger, more hopeful, more ME and clearer about what I want to do. I did give my small son a small (very small) TV on ration until he was about 10 so he could learn about conventional society where people do weird things like ironing or washing cars.
MINIMAL SURVIVAL HOUSEWORK
Washing up once a day MAXIMUM sometimes less. Also train men to do it - mine are very good. Everything is stacked in racks to dry.
Sweeping, hoovering about once a fortnight (was twice a week when son was small). Now he's a young man he does all that.
Sinks worktops scrubbed thoroughly about onc e every week, and no compulsive wiping.
Bathroom cleaned about once every 2 - 3 weeks maybe once a month. Rubbish bins get slooshed with salt water.
Shelves, other surfaces cleaned about once a year or less. I enjoy doing woodcare stripping off the surface nourishing the wood, then re-oiling it to dry to a shell finish. It's an annual ritual.
All this is done in quick bursts, fast enjoyable work, not peffing about for long periods over it. Similarly tidying is done rarely in a burst every few months. Things stack in piles and are easy to find as a result - you can see where everything is. i also enjoy it when I've just tidied a room - messy and tidy are different pleasures.
All our clothes are simple stuff which 90% can be washed, dried, hung and worn. A few things I steam clean as they hang on hangers. I do iron actually - once a year for a treat my Victorian nightdresses or a special blouse. After that one iron these things steam clean nicely and hang out their wrinkles back to the way the iron made them go.
Bedlinen naturally is wash, dry, fold and use - I have heard of strange customs like ironing sheets but I find it hard to believe! Freshly dried stuff folded flat is perfectly adequate.
One aim I have is to lie on my deathbed and look at all the great things I've created. I do NOT want to look back and say ah well I kept a tidy house.
My house is comfortable nourishing messy and efficient. It feeds us clothes us sleeps us and gathers us together. I don't live in a blasted magazine and I don't live up to snobbish women and bullying men who want women to be wifey slaves.
Like this I get to be one of the few women around the subject of housework who can say I really like it.
But then I go several days without doing any at all.
I can plug into the great tradition of the chatelaine, the lady of the house, creating order creating cleanly surroundings. Mostly when I feel like it. Then it's a cool game.
Not only for others, but also to a ridiculous degree of perfection for ourselves.
A great deal of female self respect is bound up in it. Being a house servant.
I learned almost 40 years ago to reject that. I was doing my degree and I found that when I tried to settle to intensive study for exams I suddenly felt virtuous about hyousework. By the time I'd done some I was too tired to study.
Eventually I understood what I was doing and cut out 90% of the housework, then got a good degree.
People ask me how do I achieve so much?
Many achievers asked that answer about getting up early, working long hours, various organising systems.
I don't often get up early though sometimes I work through the night and sleep in the day.
I do often work long hours but then I also spend a whole day lying in bed watching DVDs and reading.
I do use organising systems like grading stuff A for Action! B for Before too long and C for Crap it can wait.
(A gets done mostly, B gets done around half and the rest loses its importance, C rarely gets done but occasional bits get filed or very occasionally actively done.
But the two biggest things that open up my energy are
NO TV - without the corporate manipulators flooding my brain I feel stronger, more hopeful, more ME and clearer about what I want to do. I did give my small son a small (very small) TV on ration until he was about 10 so he could learn about conventional society where people do weird things like ironing or washing cars.
MINIMAL SURVIVAL HOUSEWORK
Washing up once a day MAXIMUM sometimes less. Also train men to do it - mine are very good. Everything is stacked in racks to dry.
Sweeping, hoovering about once a fortnight (was twice a week when son was small). Now he's a young man he does all that.
Sinks worktops scrubbed thoroughly about onc e every week, and no compulsive wiping.
Bathroom cleaned about once every 2 - 3 weeks maybe once a month. Rubbish bins get slooshed with salt water.
Shelves, other surfaces cleaned about once a year or less. I enjoy doing woodcare stripping off the surface nourishing the wood, then re-oiling it to dry to a shell finish. It's an annual ritual.
All this is done in quick bursts, fast enjoyable work, not peffing about for long periods over it. Similarly tidying is done rarely in a burst every few months. Things stack in piles and are easy to find as a result - you can see where everything is. i also enjoy it when I've just tidied a room - messy and tidy are different pleasures.
All our clothes are simple stuff which 90% can be washed, dried, hung and worn. A few things I steam clean as they hang on hangers. I do iron actually - once a year for a treat my Victorian nightdresses or a special blouse. After that one iron these things steam clean nicely and hang out their wrinkles back to the way the iron made them go.
Bedlinen naturally is wash, dry, fold and use - I have heard of strange customs like ironing sheets but I find it hard to believe! Freshly dried stuff folded flat is perfectly adequate.
One aim I have is to lie on my deathbed and look at all the great things I've created. I do NOT want to look back and say ah well I kept a tidy house.
My house is comfortable nourishing messy and efficient. It feeds us clothes us sleeps us and gathers us together. I don't live in a blasted magazine and I don't live up to snobbish women and bullying men who want women to be wifey slaves.
Like this I get to be one of the few women around the subject of housework who can say I really like it.
But then I go several days without doing any at all.
I can plug into the great tradition of the chatelaine, the lady of the house, creating order creating cleanly surroundings. Mostly when I feel like it. Then it's a cool game.
Kim
Well-known member
So very true, this is a big part of why I hate it so much, it's because it's expected of me as a woman to be a slave to societies norms... I have always rejected it.
but.. I love a clean house
so it is a dichotomy, I just need a maid I think.So very true, this is a big part of why I hate it so much, it's because it's expected of me as a woman to be a slave to societies norms... I have always rejected it.
but.. I love a clean house
Dragonfly yes I know what you mean.
Two buts.
But why are we women obsessive about clean and tidy hyouses?
Because we've been trained - deeply programmed, to be like that.
Toy cleaning kits, mops, hoovers! Dolls houses. Aprons. Toy stoves - to clean.
Magazines that thrust these gleaming impossible models of houses at us. To get those photos takes a whole team of people DAYS of work! Yet we're supposed to copy that on our own, in the bits of time we have over from childcare or making a living or both.
Childcare itself is an industrially messy job - what a contradiction that the workplace for that is supposed to be immaculate or else we're failures. No one expects a cow barn or a car workshop to be squeaky clean! (Hospitals are but that's about infecting weakened bodies.)
So why not work on that heap of conditioning to reduce its stranglehold?
I didn't start out any different. Nor did I change overnight. It took a gradual process of change as I bit by bit chucked out the stuff that clogged up my life.
The second 'but' is political. Is it right to get another woman to do our cleaning? She'll get paid very little. She then goes home to clean her own home too and probably do childcare as well.
Some feminist UK architects once designed a small housing estate.
The apartments had tiny kitchens for breakfasts and light snacks.Also a smallish sitting room.
The community had a big dining room and kitchen for suppers and residents took turns to make meals in small teams, often of one family. There was nothing to stop you eating at home as an alternative.
Washing machines, driers, larger cleaning equipment was all centralised and operated like a hire shop except you didn't pay, just signed to use it.
If you wanted a party or a meeting or event there was a hall which also had video, TV - it was too long ago to have computers..
Also a sauna and hot tub suite!
The domestic work to be done individually was cut down a lot b ut there was still that small apartment to call "mine."
There was a nursery with paid staff most of whom lived in the community as well.
Apparently it was a howling success. Some husbands were a bit uncomfortable as they were expected to cook and clean in the communal kitchen, dining room, hall, laundry and sauna. But they got used to it.
Big business doesn't want us to live like that. It wouldn't sell so many washing machines, driers, fridges, TVs, kitchen tables etc.
Nor would women feel guilty about our homes and buy so many fresheners and gadgets!
GofD
Well-known member
Sounds divine!
Elizabeth
Well-known member
I'm the typical American, I need my space.
Right now, we live in a 4 plex townhouse http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Townhouse and see the one under Canada & US, original definition. We have three floors and are on the end unit. We own ours. Not sure about the other three as the guy we bought from was in the process of selling all 4 of them. So we only share one common wall and a front porch. BUT we have no control over what our neighbors do and no space to put between them and us. And they have kids who prefer to use our door as a backstop for their games. Trying not to be the "horrid old next door lady" I've said nothing to them but it's danged annoying. I want space between my house and my next door neighbor's house.
Now, dh is fairly well trained as I managed to marry him "broken in". He had been married before and was a single dad when I found him. So other than not being able to figure out the controls on the washing machine, he does well...handles the rest of the laundry, and vacuum's better than I do. But we are both medically retired (disabled) so a cleaning team became a necessity to keep the level up to a reasonable standard. We can manage as long as they come in every other week...otherwise it gets the best of us.
Kim
Well-known member
Yeah I need space too, not up for communal living I'm afraid.
Even sharing with DH and DS is enough thanks lol I am one of those people who is (well was I guess) quite happy living alone, so long as I have people in my life... people that go home, to their own homes... LOL
Even sharing with DH and DS is enough thanks lol I am one of those people who is (well was I guess) quite happy living alone, so long as I have people in my life... people that go home, to their own homes... LOL
I think we all do though certainly Westerners are brought up to "need" more than other cultures do.
But the project I described allocated everyone (each household) theior own space. Bedrooms, bathroom, small kitchen, sittingroom. Stdies have become more standard with the computer age so nowadays the design would have one.
The communal resources made sure that you also had the use of a larger kitchen and dining room for having dinners, parties, meetings; also a hall for these events.
Plus top level laundry/ steamer/ carpet or floor cleaning equipment where there'd often be others working so could share the work.
Plus a nursery and a sauna suite. No reason why not a pool.
For problems like kids encroaching on privacy there would be a neighbours meeting every week and a bigger one every month where such issues could be negotiated with third parties to help the two neighbours having a problem - instead of suffering in silence.
We're a gregarious species. That means a group animal. Humans have achieved so much because we work together.
GofD
Well-known member
We lived on board our boat (40 feet as newlyweds) for over 18 months. Very small living quarters, but we ate every night up on land with a bunch of other livaboards. Everybody just brought whatever they had for dinner, and threw it on the grill. We all shared wine and stories and snow days. Best times of our lives.
Elizabeth
Well-known member
Well, it does help to have lots of square miles to play with.
Hey we're yachties! Agree some of my greatest memories are aboard.