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Showing posts with the label housecleaning hobby

Today’s Creative Visitor

This week’s prompt for Poets and Storytellers United ’s Friday Writings  is: The Visitor. Here’s what I came up with, stimulated by today’s every-so-often visitor.   A Morning Caller She drops by from no where approaching silently,  stepping stealthily, suppressing giggles.  She whispers.  I didn’t know I had heard but here I am  enjoying her flash of inspiration, cleaning the microwave.  Yi-haw!    ♾️ I’ve a grand update about my Knee Joint Replacement Recovery Update. Happy, giddy news. I danced in the kitchen this morning to Creedence Clearwater Revival, Martha and the Vandels, the Hollies, Santana, and others. My new joint loved it. Knee-haw!  Off I go to visit other  Friday Writings   participants. Please, come join me.

Today

"Why are you cleaning? "asked Molly the pinky-nose (wild) Cat, as she scrambled among our feet, the broom, and the vacuum cleaner. "Are we having another party?" Nope, it's the 23rd, our monthly housecleaning date, a 2020 venture. So far, so good. With the Husband and I working together, we're done in a couple of hours. So it seemed today. Sweep. Dust. Vacuum. Scrub. Molly made sure she was somewhere else. This is what you see when you walk up our driveway. Sorry, I don't remember the names of anything that's not a rose, daisy, spider plant, California poppy, canna lily, jade, or uhm, I think that's it. Geranium! How I can forget geraniums? We have pink, white, red, bi-color, vine, bush, smelly, and not smelly at all. They live in the front yard, too. They're up towards the house so you can barely see them in the photo. I have a decent success rate of propagating geraniums for someone who goes on intuition and by hit-and-miss.

Late, Not Late

The White Rabbit said he was late. What was he late for? The tea party? Curious minds, such as mine, want to know. Oh my. The Husband is doubl y smart. Initially I wrote "Curious minds, such as me, want to know." That seemed off. Should it be "such as I"?  Still didn't sound right, thus I asked the Husband. Neither appealed to him either. Ever the good grammar student back in the schooldays, the Husband asked, "Is it an object or a subject? My eyes crossed. "Read it again," he said. "Curious minds, such as me, want to know." "Mine." "Mind," I repeated. "Mine." "Mine?" "It's curious minds that want to know." My eyes uncrossed. I'm giving an example of a curious mind. Awwww. The Husband is a genius. Alas, he didn't know either what the important date was the White Rabbit needed to make.   HOPPING BACK TO INITIAL THOUGHT I brought up the White Rabbit

All on Mama's Birthday

"Will you be able to get by the vacuum cleaner?" the Husband asked, who hauled the vacuum cleaner upstairs and set it beside the bathroom door, as I pretty please asked (so I hope). "I'm sure you will." "I have a plan," I said, tippy-tapping on the keyboard, not realizing yet that he had headed down the stairs. "Bathroom, office, and bedroom. I'll vacuum in that order."  At least, vacuum the bathroom today. Over the next few days, I'll also dust and vacuum downstairs. No party, thanks for asking. (For those who are new to my quirks, I generally do heavy cleaning for an upcoming party.) Sometime soon, we'll be going on a short road trip to Northern California to visit the Husband's family as well as take in a bit of the coast and redwoods. Since Molly the Cat will be roaming indoors for a few days, I thought I'd clean the house. Maybe even give her a dry shampoo. By the way, the photo above of Missy and the Husband

To Do: Organize Garage

The garage hasn't seen a car inside it in nearly 15 years. I doubt it ever will. There are fewer boxes and stuff in it. I can see across the garage to the door now. Everything just needs to be squished up against each other so that we can finally move the stuff from the rental locker into the garage. But, before that can happen the Husband and I need to look into all these boxes and figure what to do with the stuff in them. Shudder. But, that task is not for today. Sometime this week, we'll tackle it. Yes, sometime. I'll even write it on our TO-Do board in the kitchen. Yes, I will. Today the Husband and I have bigger plans: We're running away to the beach. 

Being Spontaneous

Finally! I am done cleaning the stove. This was not a chore I planned. The idea was to wipe the top of the electric stove and the back splash with a very hot soapy rag. La la la I go and before I know it I have disassembled the stove top and scoured gunk off the drip bowls and then took off the range fan filter to scrub the grease off with baking soda (better than cleanser). Yeah, I know, I can purchase the drip bowls and fan filter at the hardware store. No need to exert extra muscle power. Here's the thing: I'm in the middle of cleaning the stove and there's no guarantee that our local hardware shop will have the precise things. And, if it doesn't, then that would mean a trip to one of the big box hardware stores in the next town, less than 20 miles away. Wait for it. Here it comes. . . But, if traffic is stop-and-go on the two-lane highway out of our town, which can happen any time of the day, any day of the week. (Nobody wanted to think ahead about the incr

Moving Things Around

That picture exemplifies a good reason why the Husband and I don't like to move things in the office. Yesterday, I finally repotted the umbrella plant that has been crying for a bigger pot for a couple of years. Yaay! We decided that the better place for the plant was in the corner by the window next to the Husband's desk. There wasn't much stuff on the corner table but there was quite a lot of stuff on the floor to get to that corner table. Much of that stuff got dumped on the floor next to my desk. I try not to look down.

Moving a Bookcase in Six Steps

It's chaos. I'm not talking about what's going on in our country. My chaos is personal and oh so mundane, but real: The chaos I create when I want to move one thing. Just one lousy thing. Doesn't matter what it is, a lamp, a table, a bookcase, or a box of research. To move one thing requires moving a lot of other stuff—before, during, and after moving that one thing. This morning I wanted to move a short, almost empty bookcase from its temporary spot against the wall to a permanent place alongside my desk. A matter of three feet, if that. Step One: Move the bookcase and various piles of paper files, books, and boxes from beneath my desk and the other side of it to whatever surface is available and not in the path of moving objects. Step Two: Remove the floor lamp from the side of the desk to wherever it's not in the way. Step Three: Nudge little by little the desk (a sturdy pine kitchen table, so somewhat nudgable) more towards the wall. Step Four: Re

Setting Around-the-House Goals

Some mornings I wake up with a mission in my mind. Today, for example, the goal for the Husband and me is to bring down another bookcase to the living room from upstairs. Very easy, you say. Certainly. As long as I keep us on task, which means not getting distracted by something else. I have a not-so-committed goal to make something out of cabbage and ground turkey. Maybe make a non-stuffed cabbage casserole. Stuffing cabbage sounds too time-consuming. I know: What else do I have to do? Well, bring down the bookcase and all the books in that bookcase. I'd also like to go outside and prune the apricot tree while it's still cold. And, maybe one or two of the scraggly rose bushes. It's nearly 11:35 a.m. See what I mean about getting distracted. No? Well, I just wrote this post.

Mopping

Scuff marks, cat tracks, and stains. I no longer could ignore it. The kitchen floor needed mopping. Because I am hopping along on a cane, the Husband agreed to mop the floor. (My knees are alternating between being painful.) All I had to do was fetch the tools—the bucket and mop handle out of the shed and the mop head out of the closet. Problem was we had no mop head. Sigh . Snap! Light bulb. I had the answer in my hand. The cane! The Mama's cane, actually. She rarely used it to get around. What she did use the cane a lot for was shining the kitchen floor. She threw a rag on the floor and danced it around with her cane. Yup. Like mother, like daughter. I dipped a rag in a bucket of vinegar, threw it on the kitchen floor, and danced it around the worse parts with the cane. Ha! I'm quite late this week for ABC Wednesday . As the saying goes, better late, than never. Which the latter I thought it would be for the letter M. Seeing the doctor about my knees this morning got

Giddy.

The Husband and I are listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival , while I'm clicking on the keyboard. It was a fun morning. We drank freshly-brewed coffee and ate olive bread with butter and cheese, as well as finished the leftover berry strudel and custard tart that a friend brought over for dessert last night. The food and drink put me in a giddy mood. Still am.  I think the coffee was made from drunken beans. Yes, I do. As we got breakfast together, we wondered what to do today. We knew what we didn't want to do. And, so far I haven't done the laundry and the Husband hasn't cut the lawn. We thought of what we could do—maybe hike at the Pinnacles National Park, or drive over to Monterey, or go see a movie. We haven't done any of that either. I doubt we shall. We did some stuff this morning. The Husband brought in the garbage cans and cleaned Molly the Cat's litter box. I collected all of the Mama's artificial flowers around the house and washed them

Eden Hills' Friday Hunt v1.3

The Friday's Hunt , a photo meme hosted by Teresa of Eden Hills , is a lot fun.  She gives you three items to photograph each week, and you can choose to do one, two, or three of them.  I had a photo last week that would've been perfect for all three items this week. Oh well. Starts with C I've decided to use my archives for the alphabet item. I took the photo of this cow in November 2014 during a hike with the Husband. Moooooooo. Week's Favorite The Only and Older Brother surprised us with a visit on Sunday. He brought BBQ for lunch, so I'll excuse him for not waving to the camera. I did get him to smile. Just as good. (Yes, that's a smile.) Inside One of my goals this year is to reduce the clutter in the house. Everywhere. Everything. So far I've accomplished sorting and organizing the business cards and library cards that I like to collect. Baby steps, but at least they are forward steps.  We're supposed to have rain over the

Uhm.

While I was at the dentist this morning, the tech guy came to fix our Internet connection. I didn't realize he would need to go in our office. Otherwise, I would've stuffed the dirty laundry further into its basket, which is in the hallway outside the office and picked up my bra off the office chair. Or, if I was home, I would've run up the stairs before him and quickly put the unsightly out of sight. The Husband said he apologized for the mess. "That's OK," the tech guy said. "Is it that time of year?" "No," the Husband said. "That's who we are." The Husband was nice. It's really who I am. We both wondered what the tech guy meant by 'the time of year'. Will I be better about the clutter, piles, and things tossed around the office, the hallway, the stairs, and our other spaces? I doubt it.  I'm going outside to rake some leaves.

Being Inspired

Recently, Birgit of BB Creations honored me with the Inspiring Blog Award. Thank you, Birgit, I appreciate it very much. The award came with a request that I write about three things that have inspired me this past few weeks. As usual, I started by pulling out the dictionary. Inspire -- To rouse/motivate/encourage/influence/incite someone to do or feel something. In particular, to do some kind of creative thing. Highly incited to clean the bedroom Being bit two nights in a row, and having those bug bites swell and itch to no end, inspired me to find the source and do something about it. Poor Molly the Cat was brushed and combed several times throughout the day. Then I decided to look under our bed since I was being bit on my feet. Horror! Carpet beetles were feasting on a blanket that once belonged to the Husband's parents, which we had tucked under the bed last summer. Out came the vacuum cleaner again! I got down on my stomach and back to vacuum and ended up with a

How I Spent My "Gone Reading" Day

I need to put up my "Gone Reading" sign more often. I got some good reading done yesterday. It did take awhile before I actually ran to the bedroom and escaped into another time and place but when I did I read for two hours before it was time to make dinner. In the evening, I went back to the mystery I was reading until I turned the last page of the book, which I will tell you about another day. To feel okay about going reading, I decided to cross a few things off my To-Do list. I finally put the photos I had scanned back in the Mama's albums. Some of them even went back on the correct pages. Hopefully, the Mama won't notice. I filed away some documents and put papers to shred in a neat pile on the floor. I even researched what kind of milkweed grows in our area and where to purchase the milkweed seeds. Milkweed is what monarch butterflies munch on as they pass through from here to there. When I was a kid, monarch butterflies were a common thing to see around

I Am the Mama's Daughter

"How do other people clean their refrigerator coils?" I asked the Husband as he walked through the kitchen. I was laying on my side, looking at thick globs of dust clinging on the coils. "They don't," he said. "The vacuum cleaner can only reach so far." "Use a yardstick." Sigh. Earlier yesterday morning, the Mama asked me, "When are you going to vacuum the refrigerator coils?" Sigh. I thought I'd done it six months or a year ago, but the way time flies, it was probably two years ago.  I need to wash the kitchen floor soon, so I figured I might as well deal with the coils first. It would only take 10 minutes. Ha! Maybe it would've, if I had not gone and fetched the big yellow flashlight and shined it on the coils. Sigh. I had to make some kind of effort to get at those globs of dust. Not that the Mama would get down on the floor and inspect my job. That's something she can no longer do. Getting herself down o

Priorities

"Su-sieee!" the Mama called from the bottom of the stairs. "Su-sieeeeeeee!" She shouted two seconds later. I had only begun to get my head out of whatever I was writing. "Su-sieeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" She yelled louder. "Hold on. Hold on." I called as I stumbled down the hallway to the stairs. "What is it?" Silence. Halfway down the stairs, the Mama held up a bottle and asked, "Do we have Windex?" "Windex?"  I immediately envisioned her standing on the highest step of the tall ladder to clean the windows from outside. I peered at the label over my computer glasses. "This is Windex." "It's not blue." Oh, God, I thought. Will she ask me to go to the store now? Can I get her to use vinegar instead? "Windex comes in different colors now," I said. "This has lemon in it." "Okay," she said, taking the bottle from me. "What are you going to do?&qu