[SIZE=12pt] I really like house cleaning but sometimes, things just get out of hand. Fall cleaning for me should qualify as an Olympic event. Its not like the place is really dirty, but let's face it, stuff happens. One of the biggest problems I have is with a house this old, broken down, outdated house that I call "the money pit" is no matter how hard I try, it still never looks really nice. This time, my fall cleaning adventure went out of control and has become a major calamity for the entire family. [/SIZE]
I seem to remember saying I wanted my fall cleaning done extra super good because I just cannot bring out my fall decorations if everything is not scrubbed clean from top to bottom around here. What a dummy. This huge cleaning fetish of mine has worn me into a frazzle. I do this overhaul spring and fall thank heavens, but it never ceases to amaze me how much stuff accumulates in a few short months and how we manage to be so dirty!!! I remain, Lily Munster.
First day the bedroom: I began over hauling our bedroom and that meant taking every thing out of the closet, which I knew was going to be frightening. How does this stuff get in there and who does this? Nobody knows and when I ask, nobody did it. Amazing. Besides our clothing, I simply cannot imagine why my closet is home to a bird cage, a broken television, 6 packages of flea collars, why? a cat bed, huh? What cat? Four thousand issues of Hot Truck Trades magazines, 15 or so videos of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where's the other 40? Those are mine! And 2 life size posters of Mick Jagger . OK, I knew about Mick. What, no over due library books? Thrilling.
Under the bed was just pure evil. Two 6 inch wheels off of something, heck if I know, Dan's bathrobe, 4 paperbacks of Goosebumps, one insulated purple glove, mine, about a dozen electric cords, somebody's boxers shorts, not mine, a Jeff Gordon Nascar model, a Happy Birthday mug, a slipper, a ruler, duck tape, and miscellaneous socks. Mind you, this stuff was not under there a month ago. It just showed up all by itself. That's right. Things in my house are magical and just seem to land shoved under my bed. So I kept on going and I moved the bed, shoved the dressers out of the way, washed base boards, dusted, painted the trim, polished, washed windows and curtains and bedding, flipped the mattress, got out our pretty fall comforter with matching sheets and throw pillows, added a new fall silk arrangement under a nice lace doily on the night stand, and our bedroom looked nice and cozy just inviting us to curl up with a good book. You name it, it's done in there. I scrubbed every inch of that room from dawn til dark till I was unconsciencous. I could not wait to get to bed. I got two big garbage bags of junk out of that room.
Then I stayed up till 2:00 am or so cleaning out the oven and when I finally went to bed, there was the hus sprawled out, and one very big German Shepherd bag doggy laying across my side of the bed. I was ready to scream. I kicked her off and flopped into bed smelling dog smell on my nice clean bedding. I enjoyed that. Then I was thinking how happy I am with myself at all I accomplished, until the next morning when I woke up and could barely move, I kid you not. I hobbled out to the barn all stiff and sore like I got hit by a bus, and after a muscle relaxer kicked in, I was up back to fall cleaning after barn chores.
Somehow I got diverted from cleaning the kitchen into cleaning my little office space/mud room/pantry where they keep me back here instead of doing the kitchen. But who'd a thunk it would take me all day and all night to clean and organize back here? That opened up a can of worms. Yes, after cleaning all of my shelves off back here, washing windows and curtains, appliances, washing wood work and painting the back door, cleaning the pantry cabinets and sorting out all the food, cake mixes here, soups and pasta over there, why so many beans and no Beano in the house, and why do I have 5 things of mustard I do not know. I continued sorting through files and folders, and drawers of the file cabinets and throwing out tons of broken crayons, dried up markers, and junk in general, more bags of garbage filling up by the minute. I just want to know why anyone would need 8 staple guns.
Do any of them work?
Things wouldn't be that stupid if I didn't have to keep dropping what I am doing to go do other things; horses to feed, stalls to clean for instance. Then they went two days without a really good brushing and no treats, (call Animal Cops), so I had to drop things in here and tend to that, followed by an unscheduled trip to the feed store, so I lost half a day doing that stuff.
Back on track in the house, I then decided I just HAD to move the computer from over there, to over here, from the right, to the left of the desk. I cannot stand computer wires all jumbled up and so I went one by one, measuring every single one out perfectly and putting a rubber band on each cord so nothing is hanging, and they are not showing, taped up neatly underneath the desk. A very stupid pain in the rear move. In doing so, I had to move the printer too, then the modem, then the back up battery box, then the speakers because the cords not wouldn't reach where I moved the computer. This took hours. Then I got it all moved finally and adjusted just so, and after about an hour of looking at it, I decided I didn’t like it so I had to move it all back. Now my printer won't work. It’s a combo thing with a fax and scanner and it keeps telling me "it's offline." Of course it is. So another couple of hours on that trading cords back and forth, those dumb, stupid cords. Even the Hus cannot figure out why it won't work now. "What did you do?" Well gee if I knew what I did, it would work DUH! My claws were starting to show. All this just to have a nice fall pumpkinny display in the house.
During all this marathon of cleaning, I neglected to wash clothes for days on end so nobody has any. I don't care. Yes I do, so I started one load and forgot about it lying wet in the washer for a couple of days. Dan went out to start ripping apart the back of the garage and cleaning up that perpetual neverending eyesore and burning old wood and hauling more junk to the dump. Well, in doing so, he hit a wasp nest and was getting stung all over the place and when he jumped backwards from the wasp next, he managed to step on a board and run a spike nail all the way up in his foot. Yup it is stuck way up in there a good two inches. A really nice hole there. I hear him cussing up a storm out there so I'm off lickety split to see what on earth is wrong with him. As I spring into action to see what the love child is swearing about, I ran through the yard barefoot and stepped in fresh dog crap. I was so happy about that. I'm still running and kinda hopping and trying to wipe the sh*t off my foot in the grass as I sprint like a darn fool. Yes I flattened out a brand new big pile, yummy. This is more than yummy. This is what I live for. So off to the doctor we go, not because of the foot with the dog crap, but because of the foot with the nail run up his foot and multiple wasp stings covering his body. The nail chipped a bone and the foot was turning black. Two shots later and an RX for pain and antibiotics, we come back home and the love child is in bed in agony. I can't stand it so I keep checking on him like every 5 seconds demanding to take his vitals which he says is driving him nuts. He really wants to rest, but I keep peeking in the door and he catches me every time, "Quit looking at me!" OK, what a grouch! I won't look at you no more. Geesh. How about I just take a pulse? "Go away!" OK! I'm gone. What a grouch.
I refer to this old farm house eat in kitchen as the abomination of all time, but its important, not just because its where I prepare meals, but the 22 year old cheap rickety kitchen table is where everyone winds up visiting and chatting over some ice tea, sandwiches and cookies. Everyone that comes here eats. I make them.
We couldn't afford to go with an addition on the house yet and probably never, which would have given me a decent size kitchen, mud room and sun room around the back. So instead I settled for new cabinets. So I thought anyhow, until we got quotes for new kitchen cabinets and even with our contractor's discount, it's another no go at this time since business is pretty slow for us. So the next best thing was to re-finish the old ones by ourselves. I'm not spoiled; I'll take that. Let's go with working with what we have as we always have. But let’s face it, my cabinets are white and for a dirty woman who works in horse manure and steps barefoot in dog-do, and men that work in oil and grease and grime, white was never a good choice. So we decided to sand them down and re-finish them. Brilliant? No. Disastrous.
With Dan now disabled, we roped in one of the step sons to join us, the one with half a brain, which is so much better than the other one with no brain.. He's elated to come and spend his days off working for the mini Munster house. Its so funny because he still gets car sick driving up here and shows up here all green. Poor city boy. Fun for me because I love to torment him about it. Being the wicked step-mother has its perks.
Then, out came off all the cabinet doors to be sanded outside and then everything from my cabinets had to go somewhere……and they did, everywhere. Pots and pans on my table, under my table, on my couch, end tables, piano, plates and dishes and stuff scattered about anywhere we could find a place. What a complete mess.
And then came the sanding on the inside. OMG save me. And with the sanding came the choking and the coughing and the pure stink of it all, not to mention the dust everywhere all over everything and everyone including the dogs. I knew this was going to happen because we do sanding floors for a living but I just didn't think this was going to happen so much over re-finishing stupid cabinets. I thought this was a two day job but no such luck. We are on day 4 with this insanity and I'm still cleaning my brains out. This is the land of sawdust.
I finally had to put the birds on the front porch and kick the dogs outside to their horror before they died of something. Now mind you we covered up a lot of stuff with sheets but the sanding was just too much and now I have to wash every single kitchen item. Can you imagine that? Countless numbers of dishes, glassware, pots, pans, bowls, not to mention the junk in the two junk drawers in the kitchen. I just continued to fill up garbage bags with a lot of this stuff. Its not like I'm a cub scout leader anymore. Who needs 7 cookie sheets and a dozen or so mixing bowls? And then the dust flew back here on my very clean computer desk and all over my shelves! Feel my joy. Its at times like this that only a dirty joke will help, but Dan who I could always count on for a good one was off in lala land so I remained ticked off.
Determined to wash some horses, once again I drop what I am doing and managed to get in a few quicky 10 minute baths with no frills. That helped me feel better but I can’t seem to get that feeling of dog crap on my foot out of my mind. Meanwhile, I have not been able to cook because the kitchen is under siege. We have run out of food and I can’t go grocery shopping because there is no place I can put anything now but I did manage to serve everyone a round of jello instant pudding cups to eat with plastic forks. So we have been living on fast food, pizzas, and sandwiches for five fun filled days. But hey! We have a clean bedroom, with dog stink on the bed, and office/mudroom/pantry so far! Works for me.
Sawdust was everywhere in every nook and cranny including my cleavage and ears. I get done washing every single pot, pan, fork, knife, spoon, utensil that thing we own and did loads of laundry with just 3 more to go by 2:00 or 3:00 am that night. Boy do we have a pile of trash. So figuring the kitchen will take about another two days before I can start on the living room, its looking like it will be another week before we ever get those fall decorations set out and I'm getting a really bad attitude and I have way too much trash! I’m beginning to feel that I just might squash the first pumpkin that I see.
I have three little books going into print and darn if I didn't get the phone call from he** telling me I have to re-do parts of each one. I screwed up again. So I get to drop what I am doing yet again and go tend to that. Lost another couple of days, but not to worry, I will get this house done eventually I assure the Hus. Oh, what day is it now? It's time to run "Foot-nail boy" back down to the Dr. for a foot check. Limping and growling, "Foot-nail boy" doesn't want to participate, (they better not touch my foot or I'll %^&**&). "Yea yea yea I know, just get in the truck and stop being a brat." So here we are, sitting in the waiting room for a good 3 stupid hours all to have a 2 second appointment to hear, "It's healing just fine, and change the bandage." Right. Let's see that was 50 miles round trip, about $25. in gas, 3 hours of waiting for 2 seconds. Ok. I'm supposed to be a grown up so no comments on that.
Over the weekend we made good headway. Cabinets all finished and stuff is all squeaky clean and put back in them. Hurray! I hate the color by the way that I chose. It looked very familiar. Then I got it! There is a relationship between that color wood and the color dog sh** that was on my foot. Teriffic. Now that I stand back and look at it, those stupid cabinets looked better white the way they were, but I don't dare say a word or I'd get strangled. They are also the color of dirt so it might work after all. I got the mud room and kitchen floor washed by around 1:00 am.
I really wanted to see the fall decorations so last night I went to the loft, drug them down, and put them on the porch where they now await. I didn’t realize that I was down to only three boxes so this of course is cause for great concern; and probably will require a nature walk and a trip to the craft store.
All I have left to do now is wash the living room walls down and trim, and windows, curtains and furniture, and I'll finally be ready to decorate. That's if there is anything left of me.
Wish me luck!
Love,
Lily
I seem to remember saying I wanted my fall cleaning done extra super good because I just cannot bring out my fall decorations if everything is not scrubbed clean from top to bottom around here. What a dummy. This huge cleaning fetish of mine has worn me into a frazzle. I do this overhaul spring and fall thank heavens, but it never ceases to amaze me how much stuff accumulates in a few short months and how we manage to be so dirty!!! I remain, Lily Munster.
First day the bedroom: I began over hauling our bedroom and that meant taking every thing out of the closet, which I knew was going to be frightening. How does this stuff get in there and who does this? Nobody knows and when I ask, nobody did it. Amazing. Besides our clothing, I simply cannot imagine why my closet is home to a bird cage, a broken television, 6 packages of flea collars, why? a cat bed, huh? What cat? Four thousand issues of Hot Truck Trades magazines, 15 or so videos of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where's the other 40? Those are mine! And 2 life size posters of Mick Jagger . OK, I knew about Mick. What, no over due library books? Thrilling.
Under the bed was just pure evil. Two 6 inch wheels off of something, heck if I know, Dan's bathrobe, 4 paperbacks of Goosebumps, one insulated purple glove, mine, about a dozen electric cords, somebody's boxers shorts, not mine, a Jeff Gordon Nascar model, a Happy Birthday mug, a slipper, a ruler, duck tape, and miscellaneous socks. Mind you, this stuff was not under there a month ago. It just showed up all by itself. That's right. Things in my house are magical and just seem to land shoved under my bed. So I kept on going and I moved the bed, shoved the dressers out of the way, washed base boards, dusted, painted the trim, polished, washed windows and curtains and bedding, flipped the mattress, got out our pretty fall comforter with matching sheets and throw pillows, added a new fall silk arrangement under a nice lace doily on the night stand, and our bedroom looked nice and cozy just inviting us to curl up with a good book. You name it, it's done in there. I scrubbed every inch of that room from dawn til dark till I was unconsciencous. I could not wait to get to bed. I got two big garbage bags of junk out of that room.
Then I stayed up till 2:00 am or so cleaning out the oven and when I finally went to bed, there was the hus sprawled out, and one very big German Shepherd bag doggy laying across my side of the bed. I was ready to scream. I kicked her off and flopped into bed smelling dog smell on my nice clean bedding. I enjoyed that. Then I was thinking how happy I am with myself at all I accomplished, until the next morning when I woke up and could barely move, I kid you not. I hobbled out to the barn all stiff and sore like I got hit by a bus, and after a muscle relaxer kicked in, I was up back to fall cleaning after barn chores.
Somehow I got diverted from cleaning the kitchen into cleaning my little office space/mud room/pantry where they keep me back here instead of doing the kitchen. But who'd a thunk it would take me all day and all night to clean and organize back here? That opened up a can of worms. Yes, after cleaning all of my shelves off back here, washing windows and curtains, appliances, washing wood work and painting the back door, cleaning the pantry cabinets and sorting out all the food, cake mixes here, soups and pasta over there, why so many beans and no Beano in the house, and why do I have 5 things of mustard I do not know. I continued sorting through files and folders, and drawers of the file cabinets and throwing out tons of broken crayons, dried up markers, and junk in general, more bags of garbage filling up by the minute. I just want to know why anyone would need 8 staple guns.
Do any of them work?
Things wouldn't be that stupid if I didn't have to keep dropping what I am doing to go do other things; horses to feed, stalls to clean for instance. Then they went two days without a really good brushing and no treats, (call Animal Cops), so I had to drop things in here and tend to that, followed by an unscheduled trip to the feed store, so I lost half a day doing that stuff.
Back on track in the house, I then decided I just HAD to move the computer from over there, to over here, from the right, to the left of the desk. I cannot stand computer wires all jumbled up and so I went one by one, measuring every single one out perfectly and putting a rubber band on each cord so nothing is hanging, and they are not showing, taped up neatly underneath the desk. A very stupid pain in the rear move. In doing so, I had to move the printer too, then the modem, then the back up battery box, then the speakers because the cords not wouldn't reach where I moved the computer. This took hours. Then I got it all moved finally and adjusted just so, and after about an hour of looking at it, I decided I didn’t like it so I had to move it all back. Now my printer won't work. It’s a combo thing with a fax and scanner and it keeps telling me "it's offline." Of course it is. So another couple of hours on that trading cords back and forth, those dumb, stupid cords. Even the Hus cannot figure out why it won't work now. "What did you do?" Well gee if I knew what I did, it would work DUH! My claws were starting to show. All this just to have a nice fall pumpkinny display in the house.
During all this marathon of cleaning, I neglected to wash clothes for days on end so nobody has any. I don't care. Yes I do, so I started one load and forgot about it lying wet in the washer for a couple of days. Dan went out to start ripping apart the back of the garage and cleaning up that perpetual neverending eyesore and burning old wood and hauling more junk to the dump. Well, in doing so, he hit a wasp nest and was getting stung all over the place and when he jumped backwards from the wasp next, he managed to step on a board and run a spike nail all the way up in his foot. Yup it is stuck way up in there a good two inches. A really nice hole there. I hear him cussing up a storm out there so I'm off lickety split to see what on earth is wrong with him. As I spring into action to see what the love child is swearing about, I ran through the yard barefoot and stepped in fresh dog crap. I was so happy about that. I'm still running and kinda hopping and trying to wipe the sh*t off my foot in the grass as I sprint like a darn fool. Yes I flattened out a brand new big pile, yummy. This is more than yummy. This is what I live for. So off to the doctor we go, not because of the foot with the dog crap, but because of the foot with the nail run up his foot and multiple wasp stings covering his body. The nail chipped a bone and the foot was turning black. Two shots later and an RX for pain and antibiotics, we come back home and the love child is in bed in agony. I can't stand it so I keep checking on him like every 5 seconds demanding to take his vitals which he says is driving him nuts. He really wants to rest, but I keep peeking in the door and he catches me every time, "Quit looking at me!" OK, what a grouch! I won't look at you no more. Geesh. How about I just take a pulse? "Go away!" OK! I'm gone. What a grouch.
I refer to this old farm house eat in kitchen as the abomination of all time, but its important, not just because its where I prepare meals, but the 22 year old cheap rickety kitchen table is where everyone winds up visiting and chatting over some ice tea, sandwiches and cookies. Everyone that comes here eats. I make them.
We couldn't afford to go with an addition on the house yet and probably never, which would have given me a decent size kitchen, mud room and sun room around the back. So instead I settled for new cabinets. So I thought anyhow, until we got quotes for new kitchen cabinets and even with our contractor's discount, it's another no go at this time since business is pretty slow for us. So the next best thing was to re-finish the old ones by ourselves. I'm not spoiled; I'll take that. Let's go with working with what we have as we always have. But let’s face it, my cabinets are white and for a dirty woman who works in horse manure and steps barefoot in dog-do, and men that work in oil and grease and grime, white was never a good choice. So we decided to sand them down and re-finish them. Brilliant? No. Disastrous.
With Dan now disabled, we roped in one of the step sons to join us, the one with half a brain, which is so much better than the other one with no brain.. He's elated to come and spend his days off working for the mini Munster house. Its so funny because he still gets car sick driving up here and shows up here all green. Poor city boy. Fun for me because I love to torment him about it. Being the wicked step-mother has its perks.
Then, out came off all the cabinet doors to be sanded outside and then everything from my cabinets had to go somewhere……and they did, everywhere. Pots and pans on my table, under my table, on my couch, end tables, piano, plates and dishes and stuff scattered about anywhere we could find a place. What a complete mess.
And then came the sanding on the inside. OMG save me. And with the sanding came the choking and the coughing and the pure stink of it all, not to mention the dust everywhere all over everything and everyone including the dogs. I knew this was going to happen because we do sanding floors for a living but I just didn't think this was going to happen so much over re-finishing stupid cabinets. I thought this was a two day job but no such luck. We are on day 4 with this insanity and I'm still cleaning my brains out. This is the land of sawdust.
I finally had to put the birds on the front porch and kick the dogs outside to their horror before they died of something. Now mind you we covered up a lot of stuff with sheets but the sanding was just too much and now I have to wash every single kitchen item. Can you imagine that? Countless numbers of dishes, glassware, pots, pans, bowls, not to mention the junk in the two junk drawers in the kitchen. I just continued to fill up garbage bags with a lot of this stuff. Its not like I'm a cub scout leader anymore. Who needs 7 cookie sheets and a dozen or so mixing bowls? And then the dust flew back here on my very clean computer desk and all over my shelves! Feel my joy. Its at times like this that only a dirty joke will help, but Dan who I could always count on for a good one was off in lala land so I remained ticked off.
Determined to wash some horses, once again I drop what I am doing and managed to get in a few quicky 10 minute baths with no frills. That helped me feel better but I can’t seem to get that feeling of dog crap on my foot out of my mind. Meanwhile, I have not been able to cook because the kitchen is under siege. We have run out of food and I can’t go grocery shopping because there is no place I can put anything now but I did manage to serve everyone a round of jello instant pudding cups to eat with plastic forks. So we have been living on fast food, pizzas, and sandwiches for five fun filled days. But hey! We have a clean bedroom, with dog stink on the bed, and office/mudroom/pantry so far! Works for me.
Sawdust was everywhere in every nook and cranny including my cleavage and ears. I get done washing every single pot, pan, fork, knife, spoon, utensil that thing we own and did loads of laundry with just 3 more to go by 2:00 or 3:00 am that night. Boy do we have a pile of trash. So figuring the kitchen will take about another two days before I can start on the living room, its looking like it will be another week before we ever get those fall decorations set out and I'm getting a really bad attitude and I have way too much trash! I’m beginning to feel that I just might squash the first pumpkin that I see.
I have three little books going into print and darn if I didn't get the phone call from he** telling me I have to re-do parts of each one. I screwed up again. So I get to drop what I am doing yet again and go tend to that. Lost another couple of days, but not to worry, I will get this house done eventually I assure the Hus. Oh, what day is it now? It's time to run "Foot-nail boy" back down to the Dr. for a foot check. Limping and growling, "Foot-nail boy" doesn't want to participate, (they better not touch my foot or I'll %^&**&). "Yea yea yea I know, just get in the truck and stop being a brat." So here we are, sitting in the waiting room for a good 3 stupid hours all to have a 2 second appointment to hear, "It's healing just fine, and change the bandage." Right. Let's see that was 50 miles round trip, about $25. in gas, 3 hours of waiting for 2 seconds. Ok. I'm supposed to be a grown up so no comments on that.
Over the weekend we made good headway. Cabinets all finished and stuff is all squeaky clean and put back in them. Hurray! I hate the color by the way that I chose. It looked very familiar. Then I got it! There is a relationship between that color wood and the color dog sh** that was on my foot. Teriffic. Now that I stand back and look at it, those stupid cabinets looked better white the way they were, but I don't dare say a word or I'd get strangled. They are also the color of dirt so it might work after all. I got the mud room and kitchen floor washed by around 1:00 am.
I really wanted to see the fall decorations so last night I went to the loft, drug them down, and put them on the porch where they now await. I didn’t realize that I was down to only three boxes so this of course is cause for great concern; and probably will require a nature walk and a trip to the craft store.
All I have left to do now is wash the living room walls down and trim, and windows, curtains and furniture, and I'll finally be ready to decorate. That's if there is anything left of me.
Wish me luck!
Love,
Lily
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OH!
