Five Things I'm Not Good At. The Reds confess!

RHYS BOWEN: Last Time I hosted JRW I posted five weird things I was good at that most people weren’t.

Having confessed to all the things that scared me yesterday I thought I’d confess today to things that I am not good at, things that other people find perfectly easy.

1.         Opening things. Packages of cake mix. I invariably open one end just as I read the instruction “Open other end.”  Jars. Bottle tops. Potato chips. Medicines. If I were left alone I’d starve because I couldn’t open any item of food successfully.

2.         Also wrapping things. When I was in a gap year I worked in a corner grocery store in Germany. When customers bought boxes of chocolates we had to gift wrap them. You should have seen the faces after my attempts at wrapping. And thank heavens you can buy gift bags now because my Christmas wrapping was pathetic. My biggest fail is with strapping tape. I pull out a length. It immediately gets itself stuck on my clothes, folds up on itself, sticks to the wrong part of the package etc etc.  Always a disaster.

3.         Ironing. I have never mastered the art. My mother ironed everything, including my father’s underwear. When my girls were small she sent me adorable smocked cotton dresses for them. They were worn once then sat in the ironing basket until they were outgrown.

4.         Running. I have always been a terrible runner. When we had to run around the field at school guess who was among the last?  Strangely enough I’m good at sports that just involve short bursts of speed. I was a pretty nifty tennis player. Played for school and college and women’s league. And table tennis. I can still beat younger people. But my legs just won’t obey when I run.

5.         And finally proofreading.  I am useless at proofreading my own work because I see what I think I have written, not what is actually on the page.

So how about you, Reds. Five things you don’t do well that are a breeze for everyone else.

JENN McKINLAY: 

1. Navigation. I have no sense of direction. I will always go the wrong way. Always. I’m not even allowed to go to the mall by myself because my people fear they’ll never see me again.

2. Being sick. I am the WORST sick person. I whine and complain as if I’m about to die. Thankfully, I am rarely ever sick, which is a mercy for those who have to live with me.

3. Housekeeping. This is probably why I don’t like stuff. I don’t enjoy cleaning things and I can’t have cleaning people because I’d have to clean before they got here. Our dust bunnies have names and live in a warren under our couch. LOL.

4. Taxes. I can never get my paperwork to my accountant on time (she has the patience of a saint) and while we file on time, I rarely pay on time because I’m never prepared. Every year I promise to be better but nope.

5. I am a horrible musician’s wife. While I can know the words to a song, I can never remember who sang it, when it came out, or who produced it (why does anyone need to know this?). Hub knows all these things about every song ever written, I swear. He is a tolerant man. 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Rhys, I’m laughing at your running comment. I had to do a questionnaire for my last physical therapy evaluation - you know, rate your ability to do this activity from 1-5. I got to running, and said to my therapist, “I haven’t run since I last got pregnant in 2000!” She let me skip that question.

1. Like Jenn, I’m not good at housekeeping. While I’d LIKE a sparkling clean home, I absolutely don’t care enough to engage in the endless grind that is dusting a 3,000 square foot 200 year old home where two cats and two dogs live.

2. Cooking. I don’t mean I can’t cook tasty meals, I can hold my own as a kid-pleasing home cook. But that’s as far as my talents lie. I constantly marvel when I’m visiting Celia and she turns out adventurous, gourmet dinners in a kitchen that’s smaller than mine! Like the cleaning, there are just too many other things I enjoy more than cooking, so any possible advancement gets sidelined.

3. Keeping plants alive. I have loads of houseplants, all of which are the hardiest species known to mankind. Any plant that couldn’t survive a nuclear winter is not going to make it at my place.

4. Keeping in touch, especially by mail. My poor mother and I were so mismatched in this regard, and it resulted in a lot of hurt feelings on her side and guilt on mine. She had a book solely for tracking every family member’s birthday and anniversary. She bought cards a year ahead of time and kept them in a box with monthly dividers AND she would write the mail-by date in light pencil on the envelope. Me? So, so not that. If you’ve ever gotten a card from me, save it, because it’s a collector’s item.

5. Getting out of any social situation on time. Because I like to talk. Lord, do I like to talk. Ross and the kids used to do a kind of huddle around me when it was time to leave the after-mass coffee hour. They would force me to the door, while I continued conversations over the childrens’ heads. I try to be better when I’m a guest, but honestly, there’s a 50% chance I’ll be the last person standing after a dinner party.

HANK PHILLIIPPI RYAN:  

1. Finding the meeting link. People arrange virtual meetings with me, they send a link. I swear,  totally swear,  those links vanish the minute they hit my mailbox. Where do they go? Where? I am ALWAYS looking for the darn link at the last minute and my editor now knows to just send it to me just before the meeting starts.

2.  Navigation. Totally. NO idea where anything is or how to get there. It’s ridiculous. I can read a map, turn onto Elm Street in three blocks,  that’s no problem. But how that translates to the real world is baffling. And dead reckoning? My husband can get there from here by just imagining how you’d have to go to do that. Never. Not a chance.  I do think it stems from the “north is up” problem, and also being left-handed. Sister left-handers will understand. Do NOT go the way I suggest.

3. Figuring out how showers work in hotels. Push, pull? Up, down. They say: the pointer always points to hot–but which end is the pointer? I could go either way on that. Plus, once you make the decision, the water temp always changes midstream, and then IN the shower, you have to make the terrifying  high-stakes decision of which way to turn the thing.   So I wind up scalded or freezing as well as wet.  

4. Small talk. I am terrible at small talk. I meet a new person, and after hi-how are you-fine, I am DOOMED. I know all the stuff you are supposed to say and I know the rules but it never works.  What’s the latest with you, I ask. Nothing, they say. Same old same old, they say. GAH. I tend to simpy run away.

5.  Labeling things for the freezer. “I’ll remember what this is,” I tell myself. “You can clearly see it’s chicken and zucchini.” “You’ll be able to tell by the shape that it’s a baguette.”  My poor freezer is filled with unidentifiable little packets. Do not tell me to label things. I know that,  I just don’t do it.

 LUCY BURDETTE: Rhys, these are things we think we aren’t good at, not what our husbands think, right? Because I think I’m an excellent navigator, but this makes John giggle…

1. Parking the car properly in a normal space. I tell myself to stay right or left and then I'll be fine, but I almost always end up with the car hugging the line so the next driver can’t get out. I pin this on my macular pucker surgery–depth perception hasn’t been right ever since. 

2. Getting rid of books I’m certain I won't read and preventing myself from buying new ones. This is a disease, Reds, and I'm afraid it’s Not Curable.

3. Addressing the kitty litter box early and often. I hate this job and every time I do it I tell myself if you’d scoop every day this wouldn’t be a problem. But it is.

4. Small talk, if you think Hank is bad, imagine two or three times worse. I was once on a  date with a cute boy in high school and I didn’t say a single word the entire time. Not a Single Word. Things have improved since then, but not so much…

5;. Spreadsheets. The Friends of the KW Library has some new smart board members and they want everything done on spreadsheets, in Google Drive. My brain does not work in spreadsheets. Period. 

DEBORAH CROMBIE: So funny! I am totally with Lucy on the parking. I thought I was the worst parker in the world, but maybe I have competition! (In our defense, we're short, and that makes it harder, I swear.)

1. I absolutely cannot remember the words to songs. It's like algebra, there's a missing link somewhere in my brain. But I have no trouble singing along once the song has started! And I can recognize songs from the first couple of notes. (Husband plays guitar–he's always testing me.)

2. I cannot fold. Anything. T-shirts, towels, you name it, I can't fold it. Everything comes out looking like lumps. Weirdly, however, I can fold a fitted sheet pretty darned well.

3. I can't keep up with email. (That is a whole other blog topic, email. Gah.) So if you have emailed me and you haven't heard back in a timely manner, I apologize. Send me a reminder. Or two…

4. i read recipes online all the time. I am especially addicted to NYT Cooking, to which I subscribe, and I love my Recipe Box. BUT I have never managed to make a recipe in the amount of time stated! Do these people have sous chefs? Do they do all the prep and then start the countdown timer? I am organized, my kitchen is organized, and I have pretty good knife skills. So what gives?

5. I am terrible at any kind of time management. See #3 above, as well as #4.  I'll say to myself, "I should probably start that recipe a half hour earlier…" But do I? Nope. There is always hope, however.

RHYS: I'm nodding my head and saying "Oh yes. Me too" as I read this list.  Housekeeping...I can wipe the kitchen counters and floor occasionally but thank heavens for Mirian who comes in once a week and does a thorough clean.

And Hank, those hotel bathrooms! A complete enigma to me. The number of times I've been hit in the face with cold water because I turned the faucet the wrong way!

Julia, keeping plants alive.  I kill every orchid I'm given even though I read the instructions and try hard. But I am good at navigating. Once I drove from Houston to New Orleans and turned into the hotel parking lot without having to check my route once. And this was before GPS.  And taxes. I do my taxes on time, every year. This is why the US can keep up with Stealth Bombers, because I fund them, single handedly.

So Reddies, now it's your time for confession!

Housekeeping Skills

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I was switching out an old print in my downstairs bathroom for a little watercolor I brought back from my summer trip to England. But first I had to move the stack of books artfully arranged on the shelf (everyone has decorative books, right?) including this massive tome–HOME COMFORTS by Cheryl Mendelson. At 896 pages it is, to quote the blurb from USA Today, "...to the house what The Joy of Cooking is to food."

Now, I'm embarrassed to admit how long this book had been gathering dust on my shelf, and that it obviously did not do much for improving my housekeeping skills, but it reminded me of a stage in my life when I had aspirations to do things around the house properly. This was undoubtedly in the heyday of Martha Stewart–in fact, Martha published a housekeeping handbook around the same time–so there were obviously a lot of other people who dreamed of perfect lavender-scented linen closets.

Alas, I learned that I cannot fold for toffee, even a t-shirt, and our extra sets of sheets and duvet covers get stuffed into the very awkward wire shelving in my very small bedroom closet. (I do technically know how to fold a fitted sheet, they just never come out looking like anything but lumps…) I dreamed of crisp, ironed sheets, polished silverware, and an organized "spring cleaning" schedule, none of which ever materialized. But it was nice to be reminded that this book is an encyclopedic "how to" for anything you might need to clean, organize, or store. It's also still very much in print, so there's no shortage of people still interested in the nitty-gritty of housekeeping. 

How are your housekeeping skills, dear REDs, and can you fold a set of sheets?

RHYS BOWEN:  I grew up in the days when we had a ‘ daily woman’ to come and clean and sheets went to the laundry. So I can’t say I came to marriage with any housekeeping skills. I do find polishing our antique furniture very satisfying but apart from that I do the minimum thanks to a lovely cleaning lady who makes the house look perfect once a week. I can’t fold sheets. To avoid this I wash them then put them straight back on the bed !

LUCY BURDETTE: Debs, I am thinking of the piles of books “artfully” arranged everywhere in our house–no one dusts them. At least I should change out the pile in the guest room so visitors have something new to read. I finally took down the ironing board that was in the upstairs hall, with stacks of things on it LOL. That shows that neither John nor I iron anything! I do try to keep up with the fridge and freezer, and I cook and clean up the kitchen. Other than that, I am no Martha Stewart!

JENN McKINLAY: I have five cats and two dogs so I am a champion vacuumer! Mercifully Hub and I live in a petite three bedroom ranch house so it’s manageable. I don’t have cleaning people because I work at home and get stabby when I’m interrupted. JK…mostly. Also, I despise clutter - no tchotchkes, no stacks of books, surfaces are clear (Hub is the opposite so that’s a challenge). My decorating style can best be described as “no one lives here” making the cleaning much easier! 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Here’s the thing. I’m just not good at this. I am eager to keep things looking nice, and I love our house and the way it looks, but things like–the inside of the freezer! Oh my dear heaven, it’s Jenga. Every time I pull something out (yay I found the thing!) it's incredibly likely that a million other things will tumble out and truly, once I was critically injured (not really, but felt like it for a fraction of a second) by a block of frozen cheese that fell on my toe.

But if I take everything out, as I truly have done, it might melt and it’s all so bizarrely shaped that the whole enterprise is futile. 

And I cannot ask the once-a-week wonderful cleaning people to do it.

I am a good after-dinner kitchen cleaner–at least I thought I was, until I saw Jonathan at work. How do you make it look so…clean? I once asked. He looked at me like I was nuts.

My mother taught me, he said.

Mine…apparently didn't.

((I am good at sheets.))

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I discovered my housekeeping skills, which I thought were sub-par, improved immensely once I wasn’t picking up after FOUR OTHER PEOPLE who left their stuff everywhere! It’s also helped that I switched from owning large, fluffy dogs to two small Shih Tzus, who have hair, and who therefore don’t shed enough fur to fill a basket every day. (Don’t ask me about the cat. I’m waiting for her to die happy at the end of a long and healthy life.)

What I want: the sort of house Rosamund Pilcher used to write about, where all the furniture smells of beeswax and the silver is always polished and there are fresh flowers in every room. What I have: mostly dusted bookshelves, clean dishes in the dishwasher, some houseplants I haven’t killed (yet.)

HALLIE: My children complain that I never taught them to clean. Which is because *I* never ever learned to clean. My mother was determined NOT to be the cleaner upper. She worked as a writer, and used what she earned so she could work some more and not be waylaid by household chores.

I've been so fortunate to have found a completely fabulous human being to clean my house once every other week. In two and a half hours she wrings order out of chaos. She's been coming to my house for almost twenty years and I'd be lost without her. 

Yes, I *can* vacuum and sweep and make beds and the rest of it, but I'm not very good at it and, omg, I would so much rather not.

DEBS: In my defense I will say that I'm a champion kitchen cleaner. And vacuumer, which everyone teases me about, but we have two big very hairy dogs and hardwood floors. If not kept up with, the dustbunnies turn very quickly into tumbleweeds.

Like Julia, I want to live in a Rosamund Pilcher novel, or maybe in a room in a Victoria Magazine spread... I just need someone to do it for me.

But my burning question, after reading my fellow REDs' comments, is for Jenn: HOW DO YOU NOT HAVE STACKS OF BOOKS?

How about you, readers? Is your housekeeping a lost art?