Miss and Mrs Mike have their say on the division of labour...

There is clearly SOME truth in the previous blog but we'd like to state, for the record, that Claire has in the last few days helped construct the new Greenhouse with her Grandfather (without even chipping her nail-varnish or breaking a nail) AND she mowed the lawn several times last summer.

However, we concede completely on the observations made about preparation (or lack of) when painting or varnishing. It was very frustrating that when I painted the living room wall shortly after we moved in it look extremely patchy when it dried, not due to poor quality paint but the fact that I'd not stirred it first. Once Mike had pointed out the error of my ways, I had to go over everything I'd just done (and it did look much better). You'd think I would have remembered this when I came to paint the bathroom a few months later but got caught out when Mike inspected what I'd done and then asked whether I'd stirred it - and wanted to know where the stirring stick was (there was no way I could claim I'd stirred it when there was no stick anywhere in the room!). Anyway I did remember to stir the red paint when doing a second coat in the living room, pity the newspaper I had put down didn't go quite far enough. Still the carpet has only a slight tinge of pink in that corner now, after much scrubbing with soapy water.

Put the speed we start a task down to enthusiasm (or impatience) to get things done or indeed to get a number of things done at the same time. Claire and I work from comprehensive 'to do' lists and multi-task to maximise the number of things we can achieve but that does mean that sometimes we have a number of things still in progress or as quilters describe their piles of sewing, UFOs (unfinished objects). 

I was 'on holiday' last week and created a massive 'to-do' list and a shopping list for all the remaining items we need to do or to buy before we can open for business. We're not quite there on either count but a lot closer than we were, thanks to additional help from my parents over the last few days. We're now the proud owners of a fully planted greenhouse, a spider-free summer-house and weed-free flower borders. Also a fully painted living room, a linen store with fully labelled shelves and a door on the bathroom!

But it's back to the paying job tomorrow and leaving Mr Mike in charge again, with his own 'to-do' list. (I'll make sure that Claire is monitoring progress in my absence). Maybe if he reads the quote below, then this time next week we'll be set to go......


“Multi-tasking is dead. It never worked and it never will. Intelligent people love to sing its praises because it gives them permission to avoid the much more challenging alternative: focusing on one thing.”  – Timothy Ferriss

PS I think that what Karl Marx really meant to say is that it's just as well we all like different things, life would be far more complicated if we were all alike (and no-one would clean the loo either!)