What is my hobby? My hobby is House Work! Part 2

In my previous entry I discussed some of the early experiences I had in learning to properly serve her ladyship. I had a backlog of ‘dude chores’ that she had wanted me to do for a long time that I went through and eventually caught up while I did some of the maintenance housework as well.

I still have ‘dude chores’ to do these days but having caught up with the backlog means that I don’t have to spend so much time on them that I neglect the actual housework. Oh I still mow the lawn and trim the bushes, and yes in the spring and summer this takes some of energy away from me that I would prefer to put into cleaning the inside of the house. But, if I am truly putting in an effort on both fronts, my Queen knows it and simply enjoys watching me work for her. 

My Favorite "Norma" Rockwell Painting! Life As It SHOULD Be! Happily Domesticated Men Living To Serve And Please Their Queens!

I think that watching me wear myself completely out for her sake gives her a feeling of ‘joy of ownership’ at times. One time we went to a party at a friend of hers’ home. I had worked all day around the lawn and the house. By 10pm I literally ‘konked out’. An hour or so later she made her farewells and took me home. I apologized for having been a ‘party pooper’. She just smiled and said: “Oh it’s OK. You’ve been good. Besides I have better uses in mind for your energy.” I felt loved and well kind of ‘owned’, and it all felt good.

Worn out for the Right Reasons!

We have also reached an agreement where I am not expected to do ALL the dude work. Some household repair jobs just baffle me. Just last year she decided that we (I) should replace all of the old electrical outlets in the house. They were loose and plugs would just fall out. We were also experiencing sporadic electrical issues throughout the house at the time.

I did a couple of them and frankly I never felt comfortable doing them. I guess electrical work is one of those things that just frightens me and I realize that I am not really qualified to do this stuff.

I "COULD" do this but...

After a few weeks of “encouraging me” to get this job done I simply told her that we would both be a lot happier and the job would be done better if we just hired someone else to do it. It would be done quickly and correctly. It would cost us at most a couple hundred dollars. AND I would feel much more confident about not burning down the house later via faulty wiring.

At first she was not very happy with this idea as I suppose most wives figure that they married a man and a man should be able to fix anything! Well I probably could have done it, but I think going with a societal division of labor in this case was a wiser move.

Eventually she acquiesced in this and hired someone. The whole job was done in one day and he found faulty wiring that was causing some of our intermittent outages and fixed that too. This simple decision has led to a happier home for us. There simply are jobs that contractors are better suited for than some of us AND if we are going to pick up the slack and do all of our other jobs it is important that we males are not working 24/7 and never simply being there and being healthy and rested to please her.

All Guys Should Stay Busy Doing Our Chores In Order To Free Our Wives For Bigger More Important Things...

So right now, I do the housework. I basically took ownership of all of it. She will do some at times but I am the responsible party for that area of our lives and I am responsible that our home is neat and orderly. I keep the lawn mowed and trimmed and the bushes in shape too. I do some dude work as well, but I am not the traditional fixer upper hubby whose sole contribution and it could be a big one was to repair and maintain EVERYTHING about the house, from the water heater to the squeaky hinges on the doors.

For some of you doing those jobs is something you are really good at and you enjoy. More power to you. But for me to battle with them and use ALL my time on then (mostly because I am very inefficient at them and can afford to hire a handy man when needed) seems a poor use of the Queen’s resources.

Okay, so after explaining that you are probably wondering what do I do?

Well you should get a clue from the title of this article. I clean the house. So let’s talk about some good ways to clean the house. First off, there should be an overall strategy. We men are not trained from birth to know these things, and if you are in a service position for your Queen you do not want to constantly be asking her what to do. Nor do we have many other ‘Sweetie hubbies” to work with and learn from. Might be nice to have a House Work hubbies Association that we could all belong to, but that ain’t gonna happen.

There are two ways I have learned. The first is to do it and make mistakes and try again. The Queen can accept most mistakes especially at first. In fact as long as I didn’t ruin anything she rather enjoyed my hapless attempts! She could laugh and feel superior, then say “Look! You do it like this!” I could feel humbled and have numerous opportunities to swallow my pride as well. So for both of us it was kind of female dominant fun.

Look Silly Billy! You Need To Get ALL The Spots Off First!

But there comes a point when expectations rise and you don’t want to be fumbling about any more. You want to have a finished product that you can be proud of. And she wants a house that she doesn’t have to “Do Myself because you are so stupid!” all the time. She wants a house that is neat, orderly, and clean that she doesn’t have to do anything about INCLUDING reminding you!

Luckily, we live in the internet era. So even if there is no submissive male housework self help group in your neighborhood, there are still plenty of good resources that you can use to learn from.

Here are a few that I have learned new tricks from and you might as well:

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

http://domesticservitude.blogspot.com/

http://www.housekeepingchannel.com/

http://orgjunkie.com/

The Home Ec one I find useful and have subscribed to her regular e-mail updates. I find interesting tips in my email that actually do make me more efficient.

The last one “Orgjunkie” allows me to segue into the first topic in having a housework strategy.

I like to call what I do ‘house work’ instead of ‘house cleaning’ because the key to a pleasant home is more than just sanitizing the surfaces. It is organizing and clearing things up.

If you go through your house and dust and wash everything but you still have every room simply filled with ‘stuff’, then your home may be ‘clean’ but it is hardly a neat and comfortable place. Organizing what you own and deciding what you will keep and where is the first thing you must do when you attack a room for a true ‘deep cleaning’.

Making Their Woman's Home Sparkling Clean Should Be Every REAL hubbies Desire...

I have talked about ‘Maintenance Cleaning’ before and that is the set of routine chores that must be done over and over and over again. You do the laundry every week. You scrub the toilet at LEAST once a week. You wash the dishes after every meal. You vacuum regularly, etc. These things have to be done and it is a part of every week’s functions.

But the other side of keeping your home neat and pleasant is the ‘Deep Cleaning’ part. To be a proper house keeper or even ‘male maid’ (with our without the high heels and petticoats) you need to regularly clean your house from top to bottom, one room at a time.

Do your chores regularly and with a smile!

I suggest that you simply choose a room to start in. Look around the house, which room is the biggest mess? You’ll probably figure it out pretty quickly. Once you have decided, start picking up everything that is not attached or is not proper furniture for that room and decide whether you should sell it, donate it, throw it out, or clean it and put it where it belongs.

You need to start by making 3 piles. Sell it. Donate it. Or throw it away. Everything either goes into one of those piles or gets cleaned and put where it belongs.

When you have done this and it’s not as easy as it sounds. I think that you are probably a bit like me and you are sentimental about everything. But in order to be the cleaning servant that your woman wants you to be it is time to be ruthless. Eliminate clutter!

Don't just wipe and clean, ORGANIZE!!!

When clutter is eliminated, you will also find that your housework goes so much faster and things look so much better than they did before. Ask yourself, “Is it easier to wash a counter top that has ten items on it or one that has one or two?” In order to CLEAN that kitchen counter top EVERY DAY, you need to move every item on it and put it back. Get rid of things you don’t need or store them where they do belong!

Whew! Once the emotional trauma of removing all of your old treasures that you no longer, or probably ever needed to begin with is over, you can begin to ‘clean’ the room. Remember organize, then clean.

Clean the room by going from Top to Bottom! Of course! Dirt and dust and gunk fall down hill. It’s like taking a shower and drying your hair first afterward. You dry it first because the water will run down hill if you don’t. Dirt is the same way while you clean, it will fall downhill onto previously clean surfaces if you let it. Take a broom to the ceiling corners and get rid of dust and cobwebs. Then wipe or wash the blades on the ceiling fan. Dust the shelves and the picture frames. Don’t forget the tops of the door frames! Then clean and polish the furniture and the items on them. Finally, sweep and vacuum the floor and rugs. Top to bottom....

You can just pick a corner and move either left or right from there. Just do whatever gets you moving and feeling like you have a plan.

Try it this weekend. Dedicate at least 2 to 3 hours to doing nothing else. When you are done, it will look good and you will feel proud! And how about your woman!? Well! If you have never actually deep cleaned a room for her before she will LOVE IT! And oh boy is that ever worth the time and energy!

Do it right and earn the acceptance and joy of your woman. WHAT could be better?

In Part III, I will give you a rundown of what some of my house work weekends are like.