mousme | Entries tagged with cleaning

My coworker brought Indian take-out to work last night, and I had a vindaloo that was super delicious but apparently had also gone ever so slightly off, so my plans today were thwarted by luckily mild food poisoning. I had originally been going to spend the day with my friends Dylan and Sarah, but instead I spent the morning with chamomile tea and toast.

Once I was feeling a little better I decided to make the most of a bad situation, and attended to the dogs' much-neglected nails. Pixie's nails are done, and Peggy is next on the list. Before I can do their nails I need to use the clippers on their paws, because their fur tends to grow quite long there and gets caught in the Dremel tool that I use on them, which no one enjoys. I also did a laser therapy session with Peggy for her hips, and did some physiotherapy with her. I've been slacking on that front and need to do better.

KK and I also moved all the furniture from the living room (well, all the stuff that CAN be moved, I should say) in order to run the Roomba, but the Roomba was mysteriously not charged up, so now we're waiting for it to charge on its docking station. Still, we're having a pretty decently productive day in spite of my digestive malaise. I decided to handle the Quaker Announcements a little early today so that I don't have to deal with it later tonight (and can thus go to bed early-ish if I so desire), and I'm taking the opportunity to write this quick update now as well for much the same reasons.

I don't have much to talk about aside from that right now. Politics continue to be a trash fire, and I may have ordered a bunch more seeds for the garden that I haven't started yet. I also ordered more compost worms earlier this week, so now I just have to wait for them to contact me and let me know when I can go pick them up.

So yeah. A very short update from me today. Maybe I'll have more to report tomorrow. Have a great day, friends!

Current Mood: sick

I love dinner parties, but good Lord, they are so much work! They'd probably be less work if my house wasn't an absolute disaster that looks like several tornadoes and a tsunami went through it.

KK and I had a really productive day, though. I got up early and got started on the roasted red pepper soup, then left KK napping on the sofa in order to take Peggy to the vet. The great news is that the vet says Peggy's bum has improved a lot since her last visit! The Gland-X finally appears to be taking effect, which is a relief for all of us. Having to take her to get her anal glands expressed every month is expensive for me and painful for her. So yay for Peggy doing better!

Next up on the list was advanced voting. I expected it to be a little bit of a hassle because I didn't get my voter registration card in the mail, but it turned out to be super easy. I only needed one piece of photo ID and to just sign a form with my name on it for their records, and that was it. I asked about the voter registration cards, and the very nice lady from Elections Ontario gave me the most long-suffering look and said "Yeah... this was a little rushed." Say less, dear Elections Ontario person, say less. Anyway, I have now cast my vote for the candidate I find least objectionable and the likeliest to perhaps win against either the Liberals or the Conservatives. I keep holding out hope that one day people will realize that they can vote for third parties outside the binary that has dominated our politics since forever, and maybe THEN we can finally change things up around here. I'm not holding out a TON of hope, but I am holding out some.

From the polling station we went to M&M Meats where I wanted to get some crème brûlée for dessert, only to discover that they've discontinued it completely, which is extremely sad. So we went to Délice Royale and picked up four pastries instead, and KK was kind enough to stop at the library so I could drop off a book that was due today.

The afternoon was a blur of cooking on my end and cleaning for both of us. KK put in a heroic effort and not only vacuumed the entire downstairs, she cleared the furniture out of the living room and programmed the new Roomba. It mapped the room, then vacuumed a couple of times, and then we set it to mop the floor. It did a very serviceable job, too. The tentative plan is to run it 2 to 3 times a week now to stay better on top of the cleaning. It's a bit of a hassle to move the furniture, but really it's just some chairs and the ottoman, so it's not too terrible. I cleaned the powder room just in case the guests needed it, and then we were off to the races! The dogs were DEEPLY unimpressed with the Roomba and spent the entire time chasing it, barking at it, and running away from it. It was very funny to watch them go. XD

The guests in question were my old boss and his boyfriend. They've been officially together for about a year, but I hadn't met the boyfriend yet, so I was pretty excited to get to know him. He is a delight, as it happens, and I think the dinner was a resounding success! The only thing I need to work on is my homemade mayonnaise--it was WAY too acidic, so clearly the recipe I used needs a fair bit of tweaking to make it taste better. We had a really good time chatting about their recent travels, catching up on what's going on at the RCMP (my old boss still works there but in a different department), and regaling the boyfriend about past work shenanigans. We went through a bottle of white wine, the guests made very appreciative noises about the food, and the evening wound down nicely over decaf coffee and pastries.

So, yes. I am calling it a resounding success, and I hope that I'll be able to have them over for dinner regularly.

And now it's time for me to go to bed. I handled the announcements for Quaker Meeting a little earlier, and tomorrow I've committed to First Day School at the Meeting House in the nursery room. I didn't think I was signing up for the nursery room, which is definitely not my preference, but needs must, I guess, and at least it precludes me having to come up with a curriculum, since the nursery room is mostly designed for free play.

I need to put gas in the car and also get to Meeting super early because with all the snow we've had I'm sure the parking situation is absolutely atrocious, so the earlier I get there the better. Meeting starts at 10:30, but I think I will try to aim to get there by 9:30, which means leaving around 9:00 or even a bit earlier to factor in the time at the gas pump.

All righty. Bedtime. Good night, folks!

Current Mood: chipper

I spent a very large chunk of today cleaning in anticipation of tomorrow's dinner guests, and I am (alas) not done yet. On the plus side, doing all of what I did today means there will be that much less to do tomorrow, which is shaping up to be a really busy day.

The professional organizer came by at 3pm, and I walked her through my "no place for anything and nothing in its place" house, and she didn't run screaming for the hills, which was nice. She's away for the month of March but I'm working all through then anyway, so it works out. She's back the first week of April, and I have booked a few sessions with her in that week to tackle the kitchen first. Hopefully I won't run out of money so that we can start on the garage and basement afterward. Fingers crossed!

The tentative plan for tomorrow is to get up (first step in any plan, really!), then clean the downstairs powder room and get started on the roasted red pepper soup so that it will just need to be reheated in the evening and I won't be scrambling trying to get everything cooked at the same time. Then I will prep the chicken (it requires several hours of marinating) and by then it will be time for errands. I have a vet appointment for Peggy at 9:45, and after that KK and I are planning to go vote early in our provincial election.

Incidentally, I am super annoyed at our government for A) calling this election at all, because it's a cheap political move and an obvious power grab, and B) for not sending my voter registration card in time for early voting for the first time in my 46 years on this planet. I don't think it's a conspiracy or anything, just the Ford government being its usual corrupt and inept self. ARGH. Luckily I can just go with two pieces of ID and it will be fine. The more I hear about voter suppression in the USA, the more grateful I am that Canada isn't nearly as bad in that regard. We are not perfect by any stretch, but we're also nowhere near in the same league.

With any luck advance voting will go quickly (it usually does, because there aren't huge queues as a rule), because after that we have three stops: one to pick up dessert, one to pick up a bottle of wine to go with dinner, and one last one at Canadian Tire so KK can buy some butane for her new butane torch. I am a little worried about using it for the first time right when we're having guests, but whatever. YOLO, as the youths say. Actually, I think the youths are no longer saying YOLO, that was a previous set of youths. I think the current youths would say something like DIFTP ("Do It For The Plot"), which is pretty hilarious. As a former writer, I approve.

When we get home I need to vacuum the living room, and then I plan to unleash KK on the living room with our new Roomba. It's not set up to do a deep-clean, which is why we have to vacuum first, but after that it should be able to do a second vacuuming pass and hopefully a couple of mopping passes before the guests arrive, thus sparing me from having to do it so that I can focus on cooking and setting the table.

If all goes well, I should have everything prepped and ready by the time the guests get here and not be *too* frazzled. That is the dream.

Speaking of dreams, it's time for bed. Good night!

Current Mood: calm

I know, we are all shocked, SHOCKED that I didn't get to the rest of the recycling this morning.

My alarm went off, and the only, all-consuming thought in my brain was "UGH."

I have, in the past, managed on occasion to get the recycling out by getting up earlier on recycling day. This hasn't been the case for the past few weeks, but it's not a 100% failure rate as a rule. I won't say the success rate is great, either.

I am struggling at work with getting my employee evaluations finished. I should probably try to drill down into my thought process about why I'm resisting it so much (although I got two of them almost completely done today). I know that I struggle with finding "original" wording when writing them, rather than just using the terms already supplied in the definitions of the competencies. Ultimately, I don't think anyone aside from me cares, but for some reason it feels lazy of me to not to use phrasing that I cam up with on my own. That being said, if it's blocking me from providing evaluations that my employees need, then I need to find a ladder and get over myself.

Also I think I dropped a couple of the plates I was trying to keep spinning, and now I will have to deal with the broken crockery. Bleh.

I am looking forward to my week off. I really want to make sure I am productive during that week, though, because Friday and Saturday is when the professional organizers are coming, and I want to make sure that we're not distracted by the rest of the house being a fucking disaster zone. I want to maximise the amount of time they have there so we're not "wasting" it on decluttering silly things that are easy for me to get rid of.

One of my employees mentioned she's a member of a "buy nothing" Facebook group and that's how she got rid of a bunch of stuff. Since I've been sitting on a big pile of stuff to donate with nowhere to actually donate it (thanks, COVID 19), this sounds like the perfect opportunity for me to give all of that away and clear some space in my home. I am pretty psyched, although I haven't yet received official approval to join the group. My experience with these things tells me it will likely take at least a day, if not more, before I get approved.

I have a therapy appointment this coming Friday, so I think I'll ask to focus on strategies to make my week off as "successful" as possible. We shall see.

Current Mood: determined

I know, we are all shocked, SHOCKED that I didn't get to the rest of the recycling this morning.

My alarm went off, and the only, all-consuming thought in my brain was "UGH."

Also I think I dropped a couple of the plates I was trying to keep spinning, and now I will have to deal with the broken crockery. Bleh.

I have a therapy appointment this coming Friday, so I think I'll ask to focus on strategies to make my week off as "successful" as possible. We shall see.

Current Mood: determined

I don't know why I constantly overestimate my level of energy to get things done. I am an eternal optimist, I guess. Anyway, I got a fair bit done this week. I got 95% of my errands done (I forgot a couple of things, because I was silly and didn't make a proper list), I got a tree which I will decorate probably tomorrow evening, I had my therapy appointment and got my blood tests done this morning. All in all, it wasn't too bad.

( Very, VERY boring daily stuff under the cut. )

Current Mood: optimistic
Crossposts: https://mousme.livejournal.com/1233090.html

I forgot to set my alarm the day before yesterday, so I only woke up at 7:00 because Bean was actually quite quiet when he got up (apparently at 5:30!). Since I'd gotten a late start to the day I tried to make up for lost time. Bean had already had breakfast, and he and

pdaughter were slowly getting ready to go to class, so I emptied the dishwasher, started loading it up again, killed a bunch of ants (if they don't want to die, they can just refrain from coming in my house), and got dressed.

I had a pretty productive day, even if I do say so myself. ( Full day behind the cut. )

Current Mood: lazy

I am looking at the coming week, and it's making my head spin a little.

Work is making me stay late tomorrow for a 5pm mandatory meeting. I am unreasonably annoyed by this, because even if they are paying me overtime (double time for the first time in my life!), that time is mine and why couldn't they at least schedule it in the morning so as not to mess up my whole day? D:

That means that I won't be home until probably 9:30 or even 10pm, and that annoys me too. For one, I really like being home before Bean's bedtime so I can see him before he has to rush off to daycare the next morning. For another, the temperature is meant to go up tomorrow, and I wanted to get out there and shovel the snow off the back balcony before it freezes again. At 10pm I'm pretty sure it will be too late, though I intend to get out there and try, at the very least.

Tuesday morning I'm bringing in the car to be repaired. I don't know if I mentioned the minor fender-bender in which I was involved on December 4th, but the short version is that I'm getting the bumper replaced on my vehicle. Yay! Ish. The appointment is for just before 8am, so that means I have to be up early (well, for variable definitions of early: compared to waking up at 4am for work, this feels like sleeping in!) in order to get there on time.

The rest of Tuesday will be taken up with errands and grocery shopping and ingredient preparation for a cooking day on Wednesday, and in the evening I'm meeting up with the Capricornucopia boys to talk scripts and get this year's show on the road. That means another late-ish night, and likely another night of not being there for Bean's bedtime, which sucks but can't be helped. Capricornucopia is once a year, and that time of year is necessarily busier as a result. Besides, it's always so much fun when it all comes together that it's well worth it.

Wednesday is the big cooking day that

pdaughter and I have planned for the month. Last year we had a few very successful cooking days, using the menus from Once A Month Meals, formerly known as Once A Month Mom. The idea is to do enough freezer cooking to last an entire month. It's no longer free, alas, but we signed up for a month and are busily downloading as many of the menus and recipes as we can, and Wednesday will be our first trial run with us both living in the same house. Beforehand it was always a little complicated because we had to work out transportation and Bean-wrangling, among other things. Wednesday, though, Bean will be at daycare most of the day, so we'll be able to get a lot done without worrying that he's swinging from the chandeliers somewhere. ;) Or, more accurately, coming into the kitchen to try to "help," which more often than not includes shoving his hands between the produce I'm chopping and the extremely sharp knife I'm wielding. /o\

Then Thursday it'll be time to do my weekly cleaning of the kitchen and bathroom, do some laundry, then turn around and head back to Ottawa. Busy-busy-busy.

Current Mood: busy

pdaughter spent most of the day in the basement renovating the giant Barbie house she has as a surprise Christmas present for Bean. It looks glorious, but she had to twist herself into pretzels for a lot of it, and I think she's paying for it now. When it's all done there will likely be pictures. Stay tuned!

I have been working away on the Soopar Seekrit Prodgikt.

pdaughter is being a fantastically understanding girlfriend and is making a point of not looking whenever I sneak off to work on it for a while.

I spent most of today with Bean. We wrapped presents. Mostly it involved him putting scotch tape on everything except the presents (himself, the floor, the sofa, the dog on one notable occasion), wandering off between every piece of tape we applied, unravelling three entire spools of ribbon, opening the fridge and pulling out a bunch of stuff before I could get there to stop him, crawling under the dining room table, and generally being very distracted/not focussed on the task at hand. Apparently he was much better when he and his mother wrapped presents together last week.

I did manage to get some knitting done. It went a lot like this: knit 1 row, chase after Bean; knit 1 row, put on a DVD for Bean; knit 1 row, chase after Bean; knit 1 row, put on a different DVD for Bean; knit 1 row, chase after Bean; knit 1 row, get Bean a snack; knit 1 row, rescue Bean's snack from the dog; etc. I'm kind of impressed at the progress I made in light of that. ;)

I didn't get any of the chores done today that I wanted, except for the dishes. I never got around to getting outside to shovel, so that will have to be done first thing tomorrow. I'm heading to Ottawa for two days, then driving back just so I can be here Christmas morning before returning to my job in the afternoon. It's going to be a long, tiring week.

At least I got a fair bit done while I was home. Not as much as I would have liked, but the bathroom and kitchen both got deep-cleaned (including behind the stove), all the presents are wrapped, and things are generally in order. Next week, when I'm back from work, I'm going to turn my attention to the bedroom and putting all my books in order. After that, in the New Year, I will make a point of organising all the disorganised crap I have in the basement.

Okay. Back to my knitting. Wish me luck!

I'm once again tidying before the cleaning lady comes. I am almost done, and thus taking a quick break. I don't know how I managed this, but she seems to come almost exclusively when I'm on night shift, thus depriving me of sleep. It's a feat, I tell you. I still have dishes to do and clothes to put away (yay, laundry!), but otherwise I'm in good shape.

This night shift was quieter and more relaxing than the previous. The on-loan guy actually stopped talking for a few hours, thanks be to every god in the sky.

In other news, I have not been in a very good mood lately. The best I can muster is "nice," or "not belligerent," or "not using the supervisor as a piñata." I've started fantasizing about running away to Iqaluit, or about going off and starting a B&B in the country, neither of which is a really good idea. The fantasies are there only because I'm really, really, really overworked and overtired, and the thought of five more night shifts in a row is making me depressed.

Five more nights, and then I'm off. That's the payoff. I can survive five nights, right? Right?

Current Mood: busy

If there is one, I should be lighting a candle. Or at least, thinking about lighting a candle and then deciding to do it later. ;)

I got only one thing done today. Okay, no, more than one. But not nearly as many of the things as I wanted to get done.

I did go and get seed starting soil, and I shoveled the front and the back, which were in sore need of it. The front wasn't so bad, because I've been mostly keeping it clear, but there was another heavy snowfall since the last time I cleared a path to the shed out back, so that took some work. I'm hoping that by tomorrow the temperature will melt more of the remaining snow.

I'm a little frustrated with myself and my lack of progress here. I really want to start organizing the place properly, and I lack the time, money and energy to do any of it. I have a vague idea in mind, and it involves lots of various kinds of shelving. It's all going to have to wait until I'm back from Halifax, and the shed-organizing I want to do will have to wait until all the snow melts. There is no way I am lugging disassembled shelving through the snow and assembling it out there in the cold. There are limits to what I'm willing to do in the name of organization.

In the meantime, I've been keeping a vague eye out for some of that wire shelving that can be used to organize closets, but I haven't seen any. I'm hoping to find some later on.

That being said, I didn't get any cleaning or tidying done. The day is young, I know, but I'm tired and I don't feel like doing the rest.

I'm going to finish watching Star Wars instead. In a fit of pique because the FLVS didn't have the last two discs of BSG, I rented the trilogy instead. Maybe after that I'll be more motivated.

Current Mood: not motivated at all

There was a scheduling fluke at work, and it turns out that I have today off. Bonus!

I've done a load of laundry, cleaned the cat pans, washed the dishes, organized the counters in the kitchen, put away some books, all before the cleaning lady got here. Yes, I am one of those people who cleans before the cleaning lady comes. In my defense, I pay her to clean what's under the clutter, not the clutter itself. If I do prep work, then she gets to do the actual scrubbing, which saves me both time and exasperation (have I mentioned lately how much I hate washing floors?).

Bizarrely, if I were going to work today, I'd still be on time if I left now.

I am going to run errands. Sadly, it's also snowing, and they're saying that we should expect about 30cm of snow by this afternoon. Bleh. Still, I have to go pay off my credit card, so that I can then use it to buy plane tickets. Isn't that exciting? I'm excited. :)

Speaking of vacation and time off, I have unofficially received word that I will be allowed to take time off during WorldCon. Everyone all together now: WOOHOO! Now my nefarious plans for hosting a million people will be a lot less complicated. I am also going to have a post-con barbecue in the garden on Sunday afternoon, once all the hoopla is over. Details on that will be made public as they become available. :)

*does a Happy WorldCon Attendance Boogie*

Tonight is Hump Night at Hurley's, which is all to the good. I am looking forward to seeing friends, having alcohol, and eating pub food. Good times.

Current Mood: chipper

Thanks to the job and to my unexpected sick day, I have totally lost track of the passage of time.

I remember having a pretty intense dream just before awakening, but right now can't remember what it was about. It involved magic and spywork and something about those spiralling fire escapes we have in Montreal, I think.

The cats are confused, but were very happy to have me home all weekend.

I wrote a lot, but had started a new document, and my computer did the let's-randomly-reboot thing, and I lost ALL of it. That'll teach me not to save as I go. *sigh* I need a new computer, but new purchases are on hold until I move. Gnarr.

Work is pretty much as I left it. Right now it's the calm before the storm, I suspect: early mornings are usually pretty calm, and then things go insane starting at 09:00 all the way to 19:00. I'm glad I won't be here past 14:30. Also, the a/c appears to be malfunctioning or switched off: I'm really too warm, and the air isn't circulating at all. I may go in search of a fan soon.

:::ETA::: Done. I was way too uncomfortable.

The packing and cleaning were a wash yesterday and Sunday. I'm going to start again tonight. Yeesh. I refuse to freak out about this just yet. I got a grace period, anyway, since the person who was supposed to see the place tomorrow has (unfortunately) made different arrangements for her accommodations. Back to the drawing board to find a responsible tenant to take my place.

Otherwise, I'm feeling much better. Sleep is still a bit screwed up, but it should all be back to normal by tomorrow. I blame this on hubris: I was just patting myself on the back last week for not having had insomnia in a really long time.

I didn't take the bike into work today. I'm still a little wobbly, and I didn't quite trust myself in traffic and still overtired. Better a live and undertrained Phnee than a fit but dead Phnee, right? Right. Look at me, being all sensible and stuff. Shithead is telling me that I'm a slacker with no follow-through, but Shithead is an idiot and needs to shut up.

I've been reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver (she of The Poisonwood Bible fame), and thoroughly enjoying it. She is a Like-Minded Individual who moved to Appalachia with her husband and two daughters to live off the land. The book is a memoir of their first year making a go of it on their own, and is both funny, touching, and informative. She's really done her homework on the industry of agriculture in the U.S.A., and tries not to be too dogmatic in her writing. She is finely nuanced in her thoughts on tobacco culture, for instance, having grown up among tobacco farmers who depend upon their crops for their continued survival. I don't have too much time to go into it here, but I may give this its own entry eventually. I'm taking my time reading it, to give myself time to reflect on what it says. While she didn't quite start from scratch (the homestead was already in part-time use), she does make having a garden and livestock sound feasible. She even makes her own cheese.

Okay. Back to work.

Current Mood: busy

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Page generated May. 22nd, 2025 04:29 pm

Corner of Bourbon & Division

Her Words of Wisdom Scratched Into The Door

Entries tagged with cleaning

Delicious mistakes were made

I love dinner parties

Clean All the Things!

In which no one is surprised

In which no one is surprised

The Best-Laid Plans

They need to make sleep in pill form

Action-packed week ahead!

Long day was long

Extra-special kind of tired

Is there a god of apathy?

It's snowing

What day is it?