(Pic taken by Nance)
I totally did the housewife thing this weekend. I had decided that instead of half-assedly cleaning the house on Friday and then half-assedly making attempts (but never quite following through) on doing more cleaning through the week, I’d start (starting this week!) cleaning the entire house on Saturday, then I could occasionally run the vacuum during the week and not feel guilty about not doing any real cleaning.
I got up Saturday morning (slept in ’til 7, slacker that I am), wasted some time in front of the computer, then started cleaning. I cleaned the downstairs bathroom, I cleaned the upstairs bathroom, I cleaned the back bathroom.
Then I took a break.
I finished cleaning the back bathroom, then I cleaned up the kitchen – put dishes away, put dirty dishes in the dishwasher, wiped down the counters – and hung out some laundry. I changed the sheets on my bed, even flipped my mattress for the first time since I got it, changed the sheets on Fred’s bed, and then stripped the guest bedroom bed and remade it with just the comforter. I hung out more laundry, started more laundry washing.
Then took a break.
I dusted the downstairs, then the upstairs, I put some of the clothes laying on Fred’s dresser away (note to my husband: “Put these clothes away for me?” does not translate to “Pile these clothes on top of the dresser for me?”).
I took a break to make breakfast for Fred and myself (he likes egg sandwiches, I like plain old scrambled eggs) and surf the web a little.
I vacuumed the entire house, top to bottom, front to back. Then I took my trusty Swiffer, and I put a cleaning rag over the end of it, and I used my trusty cleaning spray, and I cleaned all the hardwood floors in the house.
Then took a break, waiting for the floors to dry.
(flickr)
More laundry hanging-out, more laundry putting-in. I finally took a shower around 1:00, and then took the recycling to the recycling center, and stopped at the grocery store for blackberries and lemon juice. I got home close to 2:00, had lunch and did some more web surfing.
Then I took my iPod and a pile of black-eyed peas to the front porch and listened to Keith and the Girl while shelling black-eyed peas. After about an hour of shelling black-eyed peas, I always get antsy and hostile, and I ended up doing it for an hour and a half before I was down to the bottom of the first (!) bucket, and when I came inside to make dinner, I was more than a little hostile.
We had dinner – leftover quiche and salad – and I spent some time with the kittens, then we settled down to watch TV, and I began shelling the rest of the black-eyed peas, about two buckets’ worth.
GRRRR.
We started watching TV around 6:30, and I didn’t get those goddamn things done until after 9:30. I don’t even want to think about how many dried black-eyed peas are sitting under the couch right now, because those fuckers can go FLYING. Fred was snoozing on his end of the couch waiting for it to be time to go to bed, when I finally finished the goddamn things.
“You know,” I said, casting a pointed look at the clock on the wall. “If SOMEONE had helped me do these goddamn things, I would have been done an hour and a half ago.”
“I knew you wanted to do them all yourself,” he said.
“WRONG. Fucker.”
Sunday morning when I woke up, my fingertips were hurting – especially my thumbs – and even this morning they hurt if I try to use them for anything. Obviously what I need to do is not do ANYTHING today that will require the use of my hands at all so that they might heal.
Sunday I slept in ’til 8 (SLACKER), then started laundry and puttered around the house. I vacuumed the house, bagged and froze the black-eyed peas, spent some time with the kittens, cleaned litter boxes, answered email, balanced the checkbook. You know, the usual exciting stuff.
It was a pretty good weekend – fairly relaxing, and the only thing I really hated was the shelling of the blackeyed peas. It’s the last bunch of blackeyed peas I’ll have to shell ’til next year, thankyajeezus. Fred pulled up the black-eyed peas and the okra this weekend, so all we’ve got growing right now are a million jalapeno, habanero, and green bell peppers, some eggplant, and in a few months we should start having turnip, collard, and mustard greens.
The best part is that I can totally slack this afternoon, catch up on my TV-watching, and I don’t have to feel guilty about all the cleaning I’m NOT doing.
I might vacuum the house first, though.
(flickr)
These freakin’ spiders are everywhere these days, especially around the doors. I wonder if they sense the approaching cold weather and think they’ll be able to sneak inside where it’s warm? (flickr)
(Picture taken by Nance.)
When Nance and Rick were visiting, I impressed them with my mad wasp-killin’ skillz. Wasps are bugs that scare me a bit, because I’ve never been stung by one, and I don’t want to start now, thanks. We haven’t gotten the infestation of wasps that we had last year, but it’s still early. It’s supposed to get quite cold at night later this week, and I think we might start having an issue. My concern is that one of the cats might end up stung – years ago when she was little, Miz Poo had a bad reaction to (we think) a wasp or bee sting, and I’d rather not repeat that particular trip to the vet, thank you.
Is it just me, or does this totally look like a picture you’d see advertising a new series? “In a world where kittens use the litterbox and then don’t cover up what they left behind, one small task force led by a kitten on the edge has taken it upon themselves to enforce the cover-it-up law. Join them every week as they follow leads bringing them to the deepest, darkest, stinkiest, most crime-ridden areas of the country. Litter Enforcers! Coming soon, to KittenTV.”
Jesikat hangs out in here most of the time when I’m in the room. If the spirit moves her, she might come out and play, but she makes sure there’s plenty of room between me and her. I love how her eyes are the exact color of her orange fur.
Rhian up close.
Spooky up close.
Peyton up close.
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Snoozin’ Boogs.