I was going to start logging time spent on housework, home maintenance, and house and home maintenance related errands, so as to prove that my colleagues whose wives do all of these things have an advantage. Now I think I will log this time in the hope that it will cause me to do more housework and home maintenance, as I am behind.
TODAY
8 breakfast
9 e-mail
9:30 clean house [5 hours]
2:30 lunch
2:45 commute to meeting at 3
3:30 house related errands [2 hours]
5:30 e-mail
6:30 house related errand [1/2 hour]
7 dinner
8:30 gym
10:30 write this post
11:00 read for research
00:00 to sleep, perhaps to dream
PROJECTION FOR TOMORROW
6 breakfast
7:30 grade and prepare classes
9:30 teach
12:20 commute [25 minutes], lunch [15 minutes], e-mail [15-30 minutes] and house project [30-45 minutes]
2:00 office hour and prepare class
3:30 teach
6:20 I should seriously go to the gym but watch me go shopping and then come home and cook shrimp and broccoli salad … I should go to the gym and do research … all right, I will shop and cook, and I will consider that recreational rather than work, and I will go to the gym and I will do thirty minutes of research.
So there it is: 7.5 house related work today, and at least .5 of an hour projected for tomorrow. That is 8 hours in two days, or 9 if you count the shopping and cooking I plan to do tomorrow night, contra about 11 of work at my job, and normally on a Monday and Tuesday those eight hours would have gone to work at my job, so yes, housework does cut in.
I want to do a lot of housework and home maintenance before classes end. I also want to get in summer shape and catch a good research rhythm, but housework comes first because it is from housework that all else flows (and yes, I can explain that).
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
I would feel very challenged by home maintenance matters. The other things would not bother me.
Z,
You’re getting obssessed with home maintenance. Screw it!. Today is Saint Valentine’s Day….Enjoy the day, the night and the show!
Carpentry/painting/repair are not my greatest skills and I would love to hire them out.
However everything does flow from housework, so you can have a clean, well lit space. I’ve realized that before my ‘decline’ the priorities were always housework, working out, and research, in that order – but never failing on them. Everything else just fell into place then.
Happy Valentine’s Day! Good day up here. The government is reducing post secondary student tuition by 30% this year to encourage more people to obtain higher ed.
http://www.tcu.gov.on.ca/eng/
Enjoy the day!
Our no-maintenance condo in Seattle has shown us that life can be beautiful in a small, well designed space. It has a modern kitchen, washer and dryer, ample closet space, and a very nice view. We love our house in Hawaii, but we can’t take care of it on our own. We never could, really, even when we were younger. At the condo we just pay a reasonable monthy fee, which covers the cost of a lot of the onerous duties of home ownership: garbage collection, window washing, security, etc. When we leave, we lock the door and don’t think or worry about the place at all, knowing that things will be taken care of. We spend maybe three months out of the year there.
Of course if we lived there full time we would have to find space for our various projects!
A dull Valentine’s day so far!
No maintenance condos have a lot to recommend them although the ones here are ticky tacky and boring … there are some in Houston and Mexico DF I could really learn to love.
Thanks you N G and congratulations!
What I really did after class: come home, drink wine, talk, see a film on Rio de Janeiro music, and do a little reading for research. Should have done more, should have worked out, we will see.
Housework, and gym workouts, are really boring but one needs a beautiful house and office for one’s research atmosphere and one needs to feel well, look beautiful,, and so on as well, so all of these things have to be thought of as ongoing art projects.