I feel like I'm on the Wife Swap show! No, I haven't got a new husband, but my housework sure has changed. Cleaning this posh penthouse apartment is such a different chore than keeping my little house in the bush tidy. Not only are the standards and expectations different but the methods are too.

The biggest change has to be the dishwashing. It has switched from my least favourite job to the easiest. In the Yukon, where I didn't have running water, I would collect snow from outside (like I'm doing in my profile picture) or get water from a jug that I filled at the community pump house and heat it on the woodstove. Then came the hard part...regulating the heat of the water as I washed up. It always seemed to be too hot or too cold which I'd have to fix by taking it on and off the woodstove. Here, in Vancouver, I just pop them in the dishwasher and turn it on once a day. I can't help noticing how much water and power it wastes (if I put it on before bed it seems to run all night) but it sure saves a lot of MY energy!

Doing laundry is also a breeze. No more laundromats for me. But cleaning the bathroom is harder. The people who's apartment we're staying at have a whole closet full of cleaning supplies to keep their two bathrooms sparkling. In the Yukon all I have to do is knock over the poop tower in the outhouse once a month and kick snow over the yellow spots!