Is it only Stepford Wife Women who manage to have have tidy houses?
Since making the decision to get my entire life sorted, I’ve been devouring as much information as I can on decluttering, organisation, cleaning etc. (essential research, but this way I can also put off actually doing anything for a while longer!). There is no shortage of advice on the internet, but I can’t help but get the unnerving feeling that if I want to stop the chaos and for my house to look vaguely presentable most of the time, I need to also start wearing a chintzy pinny, twinset and pearls. Good God…I don’t, do I?
I could happily lose whole days in the libraries of Pinterest. If you haven’t logged on yet, you’re missing out! It is an amazing source of inspirational pictures and often features links to great websites like Martha Stewart, Real Simple Magazine and IHeartOrganizing (a fantastic blog that I can highly recommend, written by an almost too-good-to-be-true super-mom of three). All contain mountains of ideas, tips and photos but it’s all too perfectly All-American and “white picket fence” to be truly helpful for me. Some mornings they only serve to highlight my shortcomings rather than motivate me to get off my lazy British bum!
Where can I go for fail-safe solutions from real live normal people?????
There are some really useful UK forums online. Mumsnet, Money Saving Expert, Netmums all have busy chat sections that cover good housekeeping issues. These prove invaluable when you’ve got a specific question such as “how do I get rid of moths?” or “what’s the best carpet cleaner?” to broader topics about tips on how to have a minimalistic home or the little things that help you get more organised. All great and at least you get answers from normal people, but there’s often so many opinions and conflicting suggestions it can end up a bit confusing. Also I don’t know about you, but I find forums a bit dull and uninspiring.
What I really need is a British Martha Stewart. I want her to not lecture me, not shame me and definitely not hound me with hundreds of tweets or emails a day, but instead guide me through the myriad of advice out there….oh wait there already is a British Martha Stewart – Anthea Turner (shudder).
The Perfect Housewife
Hmmmm…..she’s definitely NOT what I need!
If you’ve found any good websites or blogs that give great advice and that really motivate you to get your life together, please share!!!! I’ll be sure to do the same….
the chaos queen 