Housework – Learning to Love it!

In my last entry: “Put on those Aprons and get back to your housework boys!” I began talking about what I call “Rule #2” or “Becoming your Woman’s Domestic Servant”. In order to truly serve your woman, you must do the things that she does not enjoy doing for her. Men were put on this Earth to serve and please Women and the number one thing that women do not generally enjoy doing is cleaning the house!

Our Women Truly Are Our Reasons To Be

This means that good men, men with happy wives that is, (and is that not the very definition of what a good man is?) are men who have taken ownership of the housework instead of expecting the Lady of their life to do it. As the level of dirt and clutter starts to rise, I can always tell that my Queen’s blood pressure is rising with it. If it gets high enough, she will suddenly start to clean herself. She will not say anything but I can tell that I have screwed up and that I need to IMMEDIATELY jump in and start doing some housework! I don’t interfere with what she is doing; I simply go clean somewhere else and continue to do so until there is a semblance of order throughout the house (or I pass out!). Hopefully she will see my efforts and after she has finished her immediate task she will stop cleaning while I continue.

The 21st Century Will Be One Of Male Service To the Female

In order to avoid this situation I try to stay organized so that the house remains fairly clean all of  the time. I do a load of laundry on this night, vacuum, on that night, clean up the kitchen every night, etc. This gives a show of both cleanliness and progress toward cleanliness. But this is the minimum level of being a Surrendered hubby. And I always (and I suppose many of you do as well) want to go far beyond the minimum in order to provide peace, contentment, and joy for the Queen of the manor.

THIS look is what I LIVE for!!!!

There are daily and weekly chores that always need doing. Sweeping, vacuuming, washing the kitchen floor, cleaning the bathroom, straightening the living room, dusting, laundry, etc. These things are constant, and relieving the Queen of these chores fills me with contentment. But this is not enough to keep a clean house! These chores which are constantly in front of us are really just maintenance chores. They must be done constantly! Many men are doing these chores now (at least part of them and this is nothing new). What needs to be added to this list in order to keep a neat and pleasant home, are the deep cleaning chores.

Deep cleaning means to literally take hours of time to organize and throw out useless clutter, scrub down every surface, and clean and detail all the little nooks and crannies of a room so that it feels brand new when you are done! Every room in your house should be deep cleaned at least twice a year. This past Saturday between running different errands to help out our daughter, I spent 3 or 4 hours doing all the weekly maintenance cleaning throughout the house and it looked ‘pretty good’ by the time I was done. I got tired by mid afternoon at the end of that process and it would have been tough for me to dive into another task at that time. Besides I was going to be taking the Queen out for dinner and a show on Saturday night so it was time to quit, rest up, clean up, and dress up when I was done.

A Happy Hubby Staying Out Of Trouble By Being Useful

On Sunday afternoon I continued my weekend cleaning chores by diving into deep cleaning the bathroom. It had become the number one biggest problem in terms of cleanliness in the house and as spring approaches I thought that I would spend my afternoon scrubbing it down and making it shiny, sanitary, and inviting. I had only done a surface cleaning in there on Saturday so I got down to scrubbing the sink and counter tops, washing the mirror, scrubbing out the toilet, AND getting down on my hands and knees and cleaning down around the base of it. It had gotten nasty down there. 

I cleaned up the floor around it where the mop would not go as well. Then I took on the big job for the day, which was scrubbing the shower out. We have glass doors to the shower and the tracks get kind of gross if not cleaned regularly. So I removed the doors and scrubbed the tops and bottoms, then I got a scrub brush and some comet cleanser and scrubbed the shower floor tiles on my hands and knees. Finally I washed down the walls to remove the old soap stains and did the glass itself. This process took quite a bit of time and A LOT of rinsing to get it all right but when I was done it looked 100% better.

Ahhh.... Cleanliness!

The Queen came in just as I was finishing and said: “What are you doing?” I told her that it had gotten dirty and it was past time for me to clean this shower out. She didn’t complain, but she did give a little self satisfied smile to me that let me know that she was well pleased with my efforts. 

Wow, I LIVE for that look! I have been told by a woman whose opinion I highly regard, that a man who does both the maintenance cleaning AND the deep cleaning without having to be told, would rank very high on the scale of women's dream hubbies. Ever since hearing that and seeing the results in my own Queen's eyes and behavior I have worked hard to live up to that reputation. What could make any man feel more fulfilled than to think that his woman (and/or her friends) thinks of him as close to the perfect man? I can tell you that having a clean and comfortable house is a wonderful thing, but if you have that AND a satisfied wife well you are living pretty close to paradise!

Your Service Has Been Found Pleasing To The Queen

So is it a lot of work? Yes.
Does it take a lot of time? Yes.

Is it worth it? Well I would answer that question by asking how important is your Ladies happiness to you? For me, it is definitely ‘worth it’ and I only wish that I could do more.

What are some lessons that I have learned along the way of keeping house for the Queen? 

1)      Men are not naturals at housework at first. I had to learn how to do things one step at a time. I did what I could and I spent some time online learning how to do it better.

Here are a few links to help you do it better and more efficiently:

http://www.home-ec101.com/

http://orgjunkie.com/

http://domesticservitude.blogspot.com/

One of the great things on the Domestic Servitude website is the list of Spring and Fall deep cleaning articles:

http://domesticservitude.blogspot.com/2012/03/spring-cleaning.html

Do everything on these lists and your house will sparkle and your lady will smile!

2)      Doing chores is not the end in and of itself.

This was a bit harder to learn because as a guy I am focused on tasks. I worked hard to have a clean home and good food on the table, but at some point I had lost my rational for doing this and I had become an annoying task driven Felix Unger! I was being a jerk about it. I got right to my chores and seemed annoyed if anyone, even the Queen Herself interrupted me!

This was NOT the way to do it.

I was supposed to be doing this for HER, but I had forgotten her in the equation and I needed to change my attitude.

After a while I learned to be more flexible and happier in my work. I learned to cook and clean with a smile on my face and an open heart, and an open time schedule.

If her ladyship wanted to talk to me, I would put the vacuum away and I listened to her. 

If the work didn’t all get done, it was OK because it was HER schedule and HER pleasure that I was serving. As soon as she had told me about her day at work or whatever other thing she wanted to tell me about (and I had dutifully listened with interest) I quietly returned to my chores.

One of the wonderful side effects of learning to be happier and more flexible was that her ‘interruptions’ sometimes were of a more ‘personal’ nature. I have not really discussed “Rule #3” yet but pleasing her is the motto and I have found that pleasing her is the most pleasant thing on Earth for me. So always remember to be flexible!

3)      Do your chores with a smile! Just like I talked about in earlier posts, smiling will lift your spirits, lift the spirits of those around you, and make you more attractive and fun to be around.

Now Act As if you Like It!

I love this cartoon! In a lighthearted way it encapsulates all of this philosophy. He is doing the housework. He is sacrificing his time, his energy, and any macho delusion he (or society) might have  that he is the one to be served and obeyed in order to be serving and pleasing her. But she wants more. She wants him to smile and enjoy sacrificing and serving her. She is even treating him like her own personal sex object! What man wouldn't want that?

Haven’t women been told to smile and ‘enjoy’ serving men for thousands of years? Well boys, the apron is on the other fanny now! So smile, be cute, do your housework, and live to please your Woman! And frankly, if you do it with a smile and behave as if you love it, she will feel more loved than ever. Oh she will laugh at times at how silly or cute you are being for her, but she will also enjoy the freedom, the power, and the adoration she now feels from you and she will look at you as a lot 'sexier'  too...

Until next time, Carry yourself well, dress well, and find ways to do your chores eagerly with a smile to please your Woman!