no time for contemplation
July 01, 2013

I haven't been posting, but it isn't from lack of activity, and it isn't because I'm slacking. I've just been so incredibly busy lately. I seem to be on one of my periodic kicks where I rail against living in a filthy house and spend all my time cleaning.

I have spent a LOT of time cleaning, lately. And I am not even CLOSE to being caught up.

A large part of it is trying to finally get the the construction mess behind us. Don't get me wrong, there would be plenty of neglect and grunge to catch up with even if we hadn't remodeled the bathroom, but that damned dust got in everywhere. I couldn't just run the vac, swiffer the furniture, and call it done--this is the kind of cleaning where you have to shampoo the carpets. Where you wash curtains and windows. Where you have to take everything out of the china cabinet, hand-wash it, hand-dry it, clean the empty cabinet itself, and then put everything back. (And then you have to do the same thing to the curio cabinet full of art glass in the other corner!)

Fortunately, I had Nephew to help with some of it. I took my usual week of vacation in mid-June, and I paid him to dust ceilings, clean the fans, run the rug shampooer, and to help take another whack at our ongoing basement project. He was happy to make some money for his trip to New Mexico, I was happy to get help with the heavy stuff and the tall stuff--it worked out well.

Although K-Town is one seriously filthy city, and it is a constant battle against disgusting black oily dust, I am at least happy that I live where I can easily get commercial cleaning supplies. Between Menard's, GFS, and D.W. Davies in Racine (a commercial cleaning supplies company with a retail outlet), I can get the kind of tools and supplies that really work. I was able to pick up a very nice lambswool duster at Davies for under ten bucks, which is a huge help for me to be able to clean stuff over my head. And there is nothing like getting cleaners that work twice as well, last twice as long, and cost half as much, either.

I pretty much spent my whole "vacation" working--in addition to all the cleaning, I also made a big batch of triple-berry jam that came out fabulous, with 9+ jars yield, every jar pulled a set and a seal, and it tastes uber-yummy. And I got estimates for the mirror work in the bathroom, I got the hub bearings fixed on the Taurus, did lots of laundry, and generally crossed stuff off my to-do list.

Once we had our mirror estimates, Spouse ordered the mirrors and are finally ready. (we need to go pick them up tomorrow.) The plan for the Fourth is to take down the old glass & finish painting the cabinet. It will need a day or so to dry before we can mount the new mirrors and attach the new doorknobs, but once that is done...the bathroom is completely, entirely, totally DONE.

It lookes pretty perfectly perfect now--when Miss Hypercritical herself came over for her special Aunt & Uncle day (more on that in the next paragraph), she spontaneously exclaimed that she felt like she was in a beach house. My heart swelled with satisfaction, I can tell you. She proclaimed it an overall success, and was super-happy that we got it done. Not as happy as me, though!