How are Weekend Warriors bred?
You know who Weekend Warriors are. They come into work on Mondays and have managed to deep-clean their whole house, weed their garden, paint a bedroom, do all their grocery shopping for the week, experiment with a new baking item, bring their kids to the park for a few hours, get a couple hours in at the gym, go out to dinner and a movie with their spouse, and read a 600-page novel? I'm lucky if I can accomplish one of those tasks in a weekend.
How do these people become like that? Is it a gene in them, or the way they were raised?
In regards to housecleaning, I think of my best friend growing up: every Sunday morning, the whole family would deep-clean the house. It usually took about three hours, with all five of them working on it. There were no playdates or phone calls allowed during this time, only cleaning. It fascinated me. Their house was always spotless, and on weekdays they picked up regularly.
My upbringing was slightly different: it was on a case-by-case basis. As in, when the house is messy, clean it up. Sure, sometimes it would get messier than we had realized, but we would spend an afternoon cleaning it like crazy. My mom also liked to incorporate at least one larger project, like cleaning out the kitchen cabinet. Everyone would deep clean the house, then work to purge what's in the cabinet. In all honesty, that cabinet was lucky to have been gone through once a year. I also remember frantically cleaning before any guests came over, or before going on a trip anywhere.
Flash forward to the future: I know this best friend of mine still loves a clean house. Whether she's stuck to the Sunday routine or not, she stays on top of all cleaning for her house and it's always pretty clean. I, on the other hand, go through stages. I let things wait until I'm either motivated enough to clean or it starts to smell (ha ha...kidding?). Or, should I have the threat of anyone coming over, that's motivation enough to clean.
This analysis with these two situations tells me that Weekend Warriors are not bred, but rather learn from the environment around them. The question now is, is it possible to retrain yourself to become a Weekend Warrior if you've never been one? It can't be that easy to convert, since I only know of a handful of people I'd consider to be Weekend Warriors.
I suppose the first step would be to quit blogging and finish cleaning my living room. Is there a book I can get on this? Becoming a Weekend Warrior for Dummies kind of book? Ha ha ha not likely...but I'm going to amazon.com just in case...
Oh Leah dear, if you get up early and tell yourself NOTHING ELSE HAPPENS UNTIL YOU DO ... Fill in the blank ... you get TONS accomplished :)
ReplyDeleteOh dear, I think I have ruined you for life. When I was little, your grandmother was always cleaning. I used to beg her to play with me, but ended up helping her clean instead. As more kids came along and she helped dad more and more outside, cleaning went by the wayside and on days that she couldn't work outside, we did major cleaning. As I got older, I found that if I helped dad outside, then I didn't have to clean inside! Guess what I chose! I never did get a love for cleaning and see it more as a necessary evil. Hopefully you can break through the bad example I set.
ReplyDeleteI married a clean person. You could do that too.
ReplyDeleteI think it should be noted that there is no book on becoming a Weekend Warrior. How does society expect me to survive life without a manual?!?!?
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