Well, minions, I feel it is time to shake things up. This afternoon in a listy mood I devised a cunning stratagem to keep me on the baking-apple-pies-in-a-ruffly apron side of the tracks. (Having led a sheltered life, I’m not entirely sure what goes on on the other side of the tracks. Scarification? Hash beef Wellington? Power-padded shoulder suits?) I have decided to bribe myself.
Basically, I’m gonna use my Suite101 earnings to buy nice things for myself and the house; but given that many of the items I like aren’t strictly frugal, I’m going to use them as a reward for being clean and virtuous. With points. For example, small domestic tasks such as giving the snortlepig a bath, taking her for a walk or changing the pillowcases are worth one point. (So is “eating a piece of fruit”, which might be seen by some as a copout, but given that from one season to the next scarcely an apple touches my lips, I thought it was worth an entry. I don’t like to brag, but the future of the human race would probably have been a good deal brighter if I had been the one kicking about with Adam.)
Slightly more complex, time-consuming or unpleasant tasks, such as cleaning out the chickens’ cage or taking the baby to music class, get me two points. Running errands in town and planting veggies in the veggie garden (to which I have a strong weather-related aversion) get me three; and so on. I have assigned various values to several one-off tasks I need completed, such as finishing various sewing projects and painting the house; and have further decided that the successful sale of a print article is worth an entire 20 points.
Then, of course, I have to assign values to the things I want. I’m not quite sure how I’m going to go about that; probably intuitively rather than mathematically. I was thinking the Dieselpunk bodice I want might come in at about thirty, whereas something really marvellous like this ought to be worth, ooh, a hundred and fifty? Difficult to say. It has to be hard enough that I have time to actually acquire the funds via Suite, otherwise the whole bribery thing is a bit moot.
And not everything will be quite as frivolous as steampunk corsets, I hasten to add. Mostly I’ll be using it to buy fabric, I suspect, for my ever-growing list of Quilts I Want to Make. And a hat rack.
Helpdesk Man, as usual, treats this scheme with tolerant amusement, telling me that I can buy myself dieselpunk bodices whenever I please without having to assuage my guilt by cleaning out chicken cages. He is a pleasing sort of husband to have; which is all the more reason to clean out the chickens, innit.