I'm not better...just different!

One of my favorite blogs to read is Swistle and she has recently posted a couple items along the lines of husbands doing things wrong and how we feel we aren't allowed to say that, we have to say they just have their own way to do it. She listed several examples in her house and it made me think about my house. I hope she won't mind me stealing her idea, after all, "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" and I really do love her! She put a comment on my blog and I am still geeking out about it!
My most hated household chores are (in no particular order) putting away the laundry, sorting the laundry, emptying the dishwasher, washing dishes, and vacuuming. I think the main reason I hate them is that it is almost always me who does them.
About a year ago, I started making the boys help me sort the laundry. I do all my laundry on one day a week, a carry-over from the days we lived in Germany and our apartment was on the 4th floor while the laundry was in the basement. So on laundry day eve I have the boys bring out their hampers and check for towels or undies in their bathroom then I schlep out our rolling hamper and Pattie's hamper. We dump it all out and start sorting. First thing though, the boys have to make sure all their things are right side out. Am I the only one who does that? I have always had a thing about (socks especially) being right side out when they get washed. I just don't think they get clean otherwise. Then we make piles for each color and usually end up with about 8 loads of wash which gets wheeled to the laundry room and then I am on my own. I don't mind the wash/dry/fold portion of this chore though. Everyone has a basket that their clean stuff goes into while it waits to be put away. All the baskets except mine are still in the living room from Sunday! To be fair, mine is in my room, still full of clothes. The boys put away their own things, eventually, and I do mine and Pattie's. My husband can build up three weeks or so before he decides to put stuff up.Yet he will ask me if there are any clean socks...*sigh*
Vacuuming is a necessary evil. We have a Lab mix that leaves copious amounts of black hair all over the place, and we very often have another mixed breed black dog that we watch for a friend of ours. Between the two of them we could make toupees for all the bald men in the world. But I digress...we should vacuum every day (we don't always, but we should). The boys are in charge of vacuuming their room and all the rest usually falls to me. My husband does not mind vacuuming, and he does it often, but not the way that I think works best. It is not something I have to go back and do again after he does it though!
When it comes to the kitchen I get a little mad. I'm sure that somewhere out there, someone just LOVES to wash dishes. If I ever meet this person I may have to strangle her with my bare hands. I have a lot of kitchen issues. I don't like the cabinet doors left open, I stack the kids cups in boy vs girl stacks and their bowls and plates in size order. I put all the circular storage container lids together and all the other shapes together. I separate the containers into stacking shapes as well. When we moved into this house I had a brilliant idea! I would have Jayme help me organize things so that he would know where everything went and I would not have the inevitable trouble when he unloaded the dishwasher. "Fran, where does X go? What about Y?" Oh, the best laid plans...I still get the questions, or I look everywhere for something only to find it in a very unusual place or they are still in the dishwasher waiting for me.
He also doesn't load the dishwasher the way I do. I can get almost twice as much stuff in there. He unloads it a lot so you would think that seeing the way it was loaded would give him a clue. I am hesitant to correct him because at least he is doing it, but if he loaded the dishwasher, I usually re-do it later. And if he hand washes things...I put them in the dishwasher later. Sorry babe, you suck at dishes, but I am glad that you try, even if I show it by rolling my eyes and sighing loudly while I re-do them.
Jayme likes to tell me that I have OCD. I quickly correct him by saying, "No I don't! I have CDO. It's just like OCD but the letters are all in alphabetical order like they should be."