summer drudgery
June 18, 2018, 8:05 P.M.

I spent my time off from the office working like a stevedore. I did a lot of heavy cleaning jobs that were even heavier for not having been done in a while.

I cleaned out and scrubbed out the fridge. I cleaned out the pantry. I cleaned the bathroom wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling. I moved that running joke of a stack of "new" kitchen flooring from my dining room to the basement. (That shit has been sitting there, in the way, exactly as I knew it would when he put it there on October 30th 2015, and I HAD HAD ENOUGH.) I vacuumed, dusted, scrubbed, shampooed the carpets, and even disassembled the vacuum cleaner and gave THAT a cleaning from the ground up.

I washed every speck of dirty bedding in the house (both man's and beast's), then packed away the winter blankets and made the beds up fresh. I ran the washing machine pretty much nonstop, doing clothes and towels and cleaning rags and bedding and rugs, and finished by running a cleaning cycle on the washer itself.

I took our accumulation of cardboard to the recycling center, and took the dog to the vet twice for his laser treatments (his paw is finally looking like it might heal up, after all).

I mowed grass, cut weeds, blew the sidewalks & driveway off, sprayed for weeds, sprayed for bugs, cleared all the rubbish and old brush out of the back corner of the yard and raked out the dirtpile, so the concrete guy has a clear field.

I helped Spouse get the pool up and running (It is not ready for swimming yet, but we've got a start.)

I made dinner nearly every night, baked a cake from scratch, and made lemon sorbet from scratch.

I took delivery of our new living room chairs. (Ohh, NICE.)

I washed the car.

I WAS F**KING BUSY.

I did manage to read a couple of books, shave my legs, and dye my hair, but that was about the extent of the self-care I squeezed in.