manic housecleaning

Yesterday I enjoyed my day off from work by working like a manic beaver preparing a den for winter.

As I was making my morning coffee, I decided that I was finally disgusted enough with the Venetian blinds over the kitchen sink that I would, at long last, take them down and get them pristinely clean. Kitchen grease, smoke, little food splashes, sink splashes, and of course dust had made them look pretty bad after our 10 month habitation of this house.

Now the kitchen blinds look great, and the rest of the house's window blinds look awful by comparison. No food splashes, of course, but plenty of dust.

After cleaning the kitchen window, I kept going. I took the broom and swept the house, porch and deck. I even swept the outside of the house - the window frames, walls and foundation - to get rid of the spiderwebs and all the debris that was clinging to them.

Then I put on surgical gloves and dropped to my knees in the bathroom, cleaning every square inch of the outside of the commode by hand.

And I continued like that, with a quick break for a run to the store, into the evening. At midnight I made fudge, but was finally too tired to eat it and went to bed at about 2 A.M.

This morning I got up and sat around for a while, but then started moving furniture and sweeping more. I retrieved the floor mop from the cellar and am on my way to getting that bit done. The air handler's filter was overdue for replacement, so I changed that and took advantage of the situation by throughly sweeping and mopping that corner before putting the entertainment center back.

Tonight I go back to work. In the morning I have some business in town, and then have to go clean my mum-in-law's gutters. That's an easy job; it only takes a little while, and I get to be alone, for a little while, on the roof of a house overlooking a cow pasture and mountains.