Still Struggling
Things are still pretty hectic, catching up after the unintentionally extended holidays. I swear a holiday can take six weeks off your life. I’m well past the age where I can pack the night before a trip, so lose a week before the holiday for packing, buying extra cat food, writing instructions for cat sitters on how to operate the clockwork feeding machine, cancelling the milk, etc. Then there’s the two weeks actually away, which turning into three this time around.
Then there’s a few weeks catching up with the housekeeping as it’s all I can do normally, as a single parent with two kids in an too-large house to keep up with disinfecting, shopping, washing, etc. Notice the absence of cleaning from the list. I have a scheme. Every three months I call an industrial cleaning company and claim that tenants have just moved out, which is cheaper and way more convenient than having a cleaner come in every few days. (My job, of course, takes me to plenty of places where tenants really have just moved out, and trust me, we’re actually way cleaner than most.) And, by the way, if you haven’t read the book or seen the film about Simon Carr’s odd take on life as a single parent (The Boys Are Back), I recommend them.
