Housework begone!

If you have a Siamese cat, this would be great for dusting high shelves. You could get a wet version for kitty kitchen counter surfers, too!

 

Comparison of different childhoods

New Yorker article on “Why Are American Kids So Spoilt?”

Read this article this morning – oy vey. What an eye-opener!

Somewhat relieved that I make Miss 6-y-o, my DD, do chores. It’s expected that she can get herself dressed and that she can pack her schoolbag (granted, with a little nudging some mornings). She feeds the kitten and I clean the kitty litter. Those sorts of things. If she sat back and expected me to pander to every requirement, I would go nuts pretty quickly and doing everything for her would do her no service whatsoever. I want her to grow into a resilient, reliable, thoughtful adult.

 

Decluttering – still!

I’m horrified to see how much stuff I’ve put in the garbage bin already, and the trash pack is full a week and a half before collection. Of course, there is a fair amount of garden waste in the trash pack.

The back shed is calling me. There are approximately 10 boxes of doom waiting in there for me to fight spiders and pull out ‘treasures’. I did find some very old fanzines that I will keep, and EVEN MORE books. Seriously, how many books does a person really, really need? I figure if I haven’t needed those books which DH put in the shed, then they can go.

I have boxes of books to donate to the Lifeline Book Fair. There are 4 garbage bags of clothes and knick-knacks and kitchen goods to go to a local charity shop. Anything that is not of saleable quality has gone into the rubbish.

I am very grateful for my mother-in-law’s help. She is helping letting people in for cleaning etc as part of the house preparation. This is wearing me out more than I thought it would. I was rather worried this morning, feeling a pain where my gastric band is, and wondering if I had lifted a box that was too heavy. Here’s hoping it’s not serious.

 

Moving house – nervous

Looking at an April settlement date for the new place. This means getting off my butt and finishing off all the darn things I have to do to this house in the suburbs. Had one interview with a real estate agent earlier this week. Another one today. Will make a decision tomorrow about which one I’ll take on.

I’ve contacted my solicitor re conveyancing. Left a message with a house cleaner and a carpet cleaner. Family coming next weekend to assist with painting which means I have to sugar soap the walls and do some sanding back before then. Just as well I have no social life.

 

Decluttering the back shed

Back home after a weekend away and I’ve started my holidays – just a short week.

Of course, the way to celebrate bright winter sunshine is to put on a coat and old shoes and enter the dark cave of stinkiness, um, the back shed, in order to get through more darn boxes of who knows what.

Well, there was a reward for my persistence. I found a vase that I’d been looking for (never unwrapped after we moved here in 2002) and a Staffordshire cat which was given to me as a birthday present by my employers in London in 1992. I’d been looking for that cat. No wonder I couldn’t find it – the box was clearly marked “Vases”. Memo to self: put better labels on boxes when we move next year. *Detailed* labels.

I also found balsa wood tulips (for the person who never remembers to put water in vases), and a copy of The Kama Sutra for Cats by Burton Silver. The tulips can go to the charity shop, ditto the glass bowls and paperback books from another box. If I’m serious about removing the clutter from this house and sheds, I’ve got to be ruthless about unwanted, unneeded possessions.

 

Dashing past

Things are hectic here. Two loads of washing done after coming home from work. One load in the clothes dryer (school clothes I should have done on the weekend but completely forgot). DD has been washed, dressed in pyjamas, fed, read to, done spelling with and lots of kisses.

I have about 2000 words to write by Thursday on fanfic, not to mention several articles I have to speed read.

There’s a pile of washing up, thanks to the dishwasher that decided to cark it a couple of weeks ago. My study is piled high with boxes because I did a half-arsed tidy up of the family room.

I have 3 pairs of tracky daks to hem for DD (who are these gigantic children they were made for?) and also have to wash, dry and hem two pairs of jeans for me. I have to mend a pair of black pants for work – darn seams coming apart after one wear. Pathetic standard of finishing.

Somewhere in that I have to find time to do my rehab exercises, try to calm my mind and spirit before going to bed (ADD means meditation is rarely successful) and then the mad day starts again.

Love!

 

Imagine my study

only substitute a plain PC for cool tech, a small child for Star Trek staff, and bloody boxes for tribbles! That’s right. I cleared up one room … and the darn junk did not miraculously disappear into a portal. It went into my study.

see more Lol Celebs

 

To honour myself

I ironed pillowcases today. No biggie for many people. After all, why else would manufacturers make pillowcases that crumple like fine notepaper? But you should know that I am not keen on ironing either for myself or for others. I can’t remember the last time I ironed pillowcases.

The only person I did that for was me, and I am slowly remembering that while I honour my guests when they visit, I don’t probably honour myself sometimes. To show myself the same respect. So today’s big efforts were (1) iron pillowcases so that I have something nice to look forward to the next time I change the bed linen, (2) iron the supposedly-non-iron work shirts so I look more professional, (3) scrub the toilets rather than just cleaning them, (4) cook brownies which deserves a paragraph of its own, and (5) have homestyle linguine tricolore con pesto for dinner.

Now, family members would point out that having pasta on its own for an evening meal doesn’t count – after all, it’s a primo, not a secondo, but honestly, I went to the effort of making sure the pesto was carefully blended with some of the water from cooking the pasta, and stirred con moto. Delicious, and DD even ate it. (Hope she likes the leftovers for lunch tomorrow.)

I have to admit that this effort doesn’t come easily to me on a work day when my energy levels have been sapped well before 5 pm and my pain levels are ramping up rapidly. Today was a public holiday and I had spent my 60 minutes decluttering earlier that day while DD had some play time. We also planted some snapdragons which are in my top 10 list of favourite flowers, watered the pot plants on the patio and all the roses, willing the fertiliser to break down into the soil and decrease the lingering pong, and tipped lots of vegie peelings into the compost heap. The rubbish bin is nearly full and there are lots of old papers that have gone into the recycling bin.

 

So that’s where it went

That’s the feeling of the past weekend.

With help, I have gone through one of the garden sheds. The trash pack and the rubbish bin are now full and there are bags beside the trash pack. Way to go! I was horrified to see what was sitting on the shelves of the shed. Paint tins that dated back maybe 8 years. An oil can that had rusted out on the bottom. And, oh horrors, a redback spider that DD pointed out to me. Thank goodness she doesn’t like spiders and didn’t touch it.

One shed up the back is meant to be a children’s play house. It was used by DH to store some of his weather-proof things. Those have been taken away by his fellow hobbyists. Now there appear to be some aluminium shelving struts and so on there. I will phone the recycling company to see if they will take it for recycling. No sense in wasting metal. Besides, that will save me some space in the trash pack.

The lawn looks very neat. The gardener came on Friday and did an excellent job mowing the lawn and trimming the edges. When the strong wind abates, I think I’ll go out wearing protective gear and use glyphosphate on the leafy weeds that refuse to get a clue. Some are very resistant to my skills with a daisy weeder. We also have an invasion of sticky weed, blasted stuff. It’s in all the corners of the garden so I guess that the winter rains and wind and sweet spring sunshine have been exactly what that weed wanted.

There are two white irises blooming now. The blue ones are being shy. The tulips have shown foliage but no blooms. We have lots of star flowers and some brilliant daffodils. One lavender bush is in full bloom and it won’t be long before I can harvest it.

 

Decluttering

How on earth am I still doing this? Seriously, I’m going mad.

I have moved various boxes into the study now, have cleaned out two more, and yet the house still looks like crap. The now-spare-room (which was formerly a study) has a bed (made up beautifully, thank you very much), a bedside table with a lamp, three bookcases which can stay there, and, 17 small or medium boxes to be sorted out.

Now, I’ve heard of these wonderful, strong men and women who say “If I haven’t used anything in this box for a year, then I will throw the entire box out”. I say to those people “Can you say, hand on heart, that there are no papers in those boxes which may compromise your identity security?”

The reason I am being rather more particular than I was perhaps 10 years ago is that this exercise has shown me that DH, lovely and adorable as he was, was also quite capable of doing a quick clean-up when visitors came and that clean-up involved picking up things like my bank statements and credit card invoices and more. I’ve found things from 1998 (before we moved to this house), and things from 18 months ago. While I am eager to find the floor underneath the mess, I’m also keen to avoid making unnecessary work for myself, including having to make trips to the bank and so on.

The filing cabinet is being used more. I’m working out which categories I need for each suspension file and I am trying, depression allowing, to read my mail every day and file it as soon as I have read it.