I’ve passed the halfway mark of this challenge and circled back to the weekly chores in addition to the daily ones, and I’m not going to lie–I got kind of spoiled over the weekend of having only to do the dailies. I also noticed that although I was fine doing the daily chores, the weekly chores felt like…well, more of a chore.
Because I just did a deep clean of the bedrooms last Monday, it was hard to motivate myself to do it again. “Really? I have to wash the curtains again? I just cleaned them!”
But I know that’s part of the challenge, so I sucked it up and did it. Does it seem excessive to me to wash the curtains again already? Yeah, a little, but whatever. This challenge is only two weeks and having to run curtains through the washing machine is not even close to being a real, legitimate problem. However, I am starting to suspect that women were told to clean their houses likes this in the 1950s so that they didn’t have any free time for thinking. Check out this vintage ad for a washing machine:
Did I feel like a queen while washing curtains today? Not exactly, but maybe the problem is that I have blackout curtains and not light, sheer curtains. Clearly I need to go shopping for new window treatments and possibly a new washer and dryer combo. Then I’ll stop thinking about the psychosocial aspects of this challenge and focus more on feeling like royalty! Although I’m pretty sure Queen Elizabeth II isn’t over in England doing her own laundry.
I know last week I said I was going to give myself the option of adding in cooking dinner every night on top of the cleaning, but I ended up deciding against it. However, I did jokingly serve Jon a plate of food over the weekend by kneeling at his feet and presenting it to him with my head bowed so he could get the full experience of being “the Mister” while I do this challenge. This was his reaction:
Even though the cleaning is going a lot faster this week now that I don’t have to constantly check the to do list, it’s still a ton of work and I’m worn out.
This probably makes me an inferior housewife since women in the 1950s were, according to my source material where I got the challenge info, expected to clean and cook and make themselves pretty so they were like beautiful pieces of furniture for “the Mister” to enjoy at the end of his long workday. Unfortunately for Jon, I haven’t showered today and instead of something “festive,” I’m wearing a t-shirt featuring Lil’ Poundcake. Which, to be fair, could be considered festive if I’m getting ready to watch RuPaul’s Drag Race.
When I sat down to write this post for today, I wanted to write something a little more substantial instead of just an update about my progress. However, now that I’m sitting in my couch and I’ve finally stopped running back and forth across my house while I clean the bedrooms and wash all the laundry, I feel like my brain is powering off. That being said, I’m kind of fascinated by the vintage ads I found for this post in a “rubberneck at the horrific car accident” kind of way. I might have to delve a little deeper into those during this last half of my challenge, but for today…I’m spent.
Day 9: No, sexist ad, I do not want to put Lysol up my Hello Kitty.
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Emily Regan 
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