A guest blog, by Arlene Ritley
Everyone has something they hate to do around the house. So those particular tasks are often put off until the need arises, or the funds are available to hire someone to do them.
My husband would rather have a root canal then do the dusting. I, on the other hand like to dust. And if I may say so, I do a great job with a dust cloth and a can or bottle of spray wax. Proper way to dust is the one chore in my family that has been handed down from one generation to the next.
But to get back to the topic “tasks I hate to do”. I have two tasks I absolutely hate to do and that is
- Clean the oven
- Clean the refrigerator
AH you say. Only two tasks you hate to do. Yes only two as I have, over the years, delegated more of these “hate to do” tasks to others in my family.
Cleaning the oven
Cleaning the oven is easy to do now if you own a self cleaning oven.
Not so easy to do if you do not have a self cleaning oven. What I did years ago when stoves had to be cleaned by hand, was wipe up spills with a damp paper towel. Then when my oven could no longer pass a sanitation inspection, for example my mother or mother-in-law were coming for an extended visit; I had no choice but to
SELL THE HOUSE
I actually did this twice during my early years.
Cleaning the refrigerator
Cleaning the refrigerator is a little more complicated and one I absolutely hate to do.
Take all the food out a shelf at a time. Wash – Dry – Put the food back where it was, throwing out expired and unused bottles and jars. Shelf, by shelf, by shelf. That’s only the refrigerator. You can’t forget the freezer. But I found a way to get the task done.
A POWER OUTAGE!
One that lasted for a day and a half. All the food went bad and had to be removed. While my husband bagged up the food I cleaned and sanitized the entire refrigerator, in and out. When I was finished my refrigerator sparkled like a diamond. Power outages happen more frequently now with Global Warming. When and if this happens again, you’ll know where I am and what I’m doing.
The moral of this story is . . .
. . . delegate tasks you hate to do to someone else, then
. . . find a creative and out of the box way to do the few tasks you hate.
This guest blog was submitted by Arlene Ritley, an editor with the Island Moon Newspaper – one of South Texas’s largest community newspapers.