Having hosted a slew of guests over the past months (which has been easy in terms of enjoying the company but manic in terms of the post guest fall out - washing sheets & towels, changing beds, re-stocking the fridge...) - I think I may have come up with the survival tactics required.
In my first attempts to keep sane during a particular onslaught of frenzied family appearing, I figured the best way to deal was to work my way through my stock of Sauvignon Blanc...blurrrr... a few groggy mornings & skipped work out classes later, I reconsidered this tactic.
My second brilliant plan was to excuse myself at any given time siting extreme urgency of dull chores to be done.... must put that washing away, must just walk the dog 4 miles - takes a good hour + solitude, only trouble is dog now too old to walk so far and ended up literally dragging him home.
Other gems were
- must dash to the supermarket - mother cottoned on to this one and started coming with me so plan hastily dropped.
- must tidy desk... on the plus side this seems harmless enough but the trouble begins when it involves getting sucked into hours on the web followed by the downside of resultant cyber shopping, packages arriving & having to be hidden from hubs and then storing fabulous finds for a week or two so as not to appear like they are new & ultimately forgetting where have hidden fabulous finds so then require new fabulous finds - can you see a pattern emerging here?
- must sign up for school mum duties and appear uber busy - kind of works until you realise that American schools actually require you to really get involved and not just mess about at it - I am not quite a month into my current volunteer gig and am already yearning for those lackadaisical days of the British school form rep when a coffee morning once a term and a pub night were all that is required. Seems here one has to actually follow through on the idea that once your children are in school you are actually bothered about how they spend their day... am kinda leaning towards the 'kids off my hands now where can I go and play?' mentality. Clearly need more time here to acclimatise or rather acclimate!
The answer then (which I came across just yesterday) seems to be head to Anthropologie - weird though it may seem - this shop is a haven of dull chores just waiting to be struck off your list :-
- must grab a little top to wear to this weekends school event : tick
- must get round to buying a pressie for girlfriend who's birthday I forgot : tick
- must re-stock crockery to include a 'vintage' vibe for pudding & cheese courses to liven up the endless dinners required when guests are here : tick
- must sit down for a minute on their nice comfy sofa and imagine that am not in this spiral of bed & breakfast hell when visitors arrive....
Now the only problem with my master survival tactic lies in persuading hubs that the credit card bill at the end of the month should be read in the spirit of therapeutic necessity and not spendthrift housewife!
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