Scrubby Scrubbington

I'm at it again. The other day I made my kitchen gleam (starting with the kitchen sink à la Fly Lady!) Even the floor is shiny. It's so nice to walk across the floor and feel its clean smoothness, without bits of castaway food or sand/gravel here and there. You could have done the "white sock" test to ensure I swept, mopped, mopped and hand-waxed that sucker.

I cleared off the top of the fridge, including moving the microwave from its lofty perch up there to my teensy weensy countertop. I have even less counter space now but the microwave is much more easily accessible now. I took apart my stovetop and used various cleaners to scrub the elements and the drip pans and chrome ring thingies. I rearranged some cupboards and chucked out mismatched plastic containers.

I moved some seldom-used appliances to the basement and made room for my pots and pans, which have been residing in the oven for ages. It sucks every time I need to use the oven because I've had to empty it first and put all the pots and pans somewhere else so I can cook something! Seriously, I have a good-sized kitchen, but with very minimal cupboard space so this is quite a big deal!

I ran the dishwasher a couple times, including a few unusual, hard-to-clean items such as the garbage can lid and the bathroom garbage can. This massive project took me most of the day, and I had a sore back to show for it later. The bathroom was the next project and I made it shine too. Mirrors, fixtures, tub, toilet, etc. Emptied all the little shelves and filled them with rolls of toilet paper.

I eradicated the leftover graveyard that was our fridge, as per the photo I enclosed that day. Ol' Mr. Spaghetti is a goner, along with his friends Mr. Coleslaw and his three kids, and various brownish salad items that started to turn to liquid. I took out the crispers and cleaned them in my (already) clean bathtub. It was worth dirtying the tub for. Now the fridge looks so empty!

This is a page I did for the DNTS contest at Peppermint Creative.
We had to scrap something from the point of view of an inanimate object in our home. Mr. Spaghetti had already been mentioned in two of my scrap pages, so I figured he was a good candidate for this one too.

When Chris came home I informed him he was cooking supper. He did a McDonald's run and we ate at the newly repositioned dining room table. It's kind of midway between the kitchen and dining room now, making the dining room look almost like a spare room, because it is empty!

I was tired and sore by this time though I still puttered around a little. I had only begun to tackle the living room (starting with the top of the TV stand) when I finally surrendered. Whew!

Yesterday I was kind of still hungover from the fumes of Thursday's cleaning frenzy, and felt very tired. I didn't do much of anything, basically just tried to keep the things that I cleaned staying clean. Last night we went to Mom and Dad's to watch movies; I rented "Year of the Dog" with Molly Shannon...it was removed shortly after it started. Next we tried out "Perfect Stranger" with Halle Berry and Bruce Willis. Much better. And I'm particularly glad we finally watched it because it was the second time I'd rented it. I was impressed with the twists in it; and that Halle Berry didn't annoy me in this one.

We came home and Cooper was asleep but Carter was still going strong. We had taken a super-long nap so he still had his second wind. I tried to do some scrapping but I chatted a bit with Jill and Vicky and went to sleep.

This morning the boys got up as usual and dragged me from a sweet slumber. We had a fun morning; I even actually let the boys play with play dough in my clean kitchen for awhile. I felt like it was Friday again (a result of being off all week!) and then Chris came home at noon. Oh yeah, it's Saturday! Chris took both boys outside and I did a full-on attack of the living room. I wanted to move the couches and vacuum (well not really) but I did. I unleashed some major dust demons (no, those were NOT bunnies) and the more furniture I moved the deeper the cleaning got.

I moved my computer completely out of the living room for cleaning purposes. I moved the other computer desk and that was another make-work project in itself. I found so much crap and dust behind it. Chris peeked in the window and saw all the furniture askew and wanted to run away from home. I emptied all the shelves on the computer desk and there were piles of photo albums, CDs and cases, paper packages, software boxes, and much much more. Yikes. When I went to move the computer desk back into place (with everything still on it) the base started to come apart. Crap.

Next I emptied the whole desk, computer and all. Wires EVERYWHERE. I got everything cleaned and found many extra cords and wires and cables. I finally put everything back with some modification to the desk (took the monitor stand off it) and put the CPU up on the desk instead of underneath. It looks so tidy now. Then I figured the monitor looked funny so I switched it with my computer. Now I have the 20" monitor! Yay! I'm still not sure what to do with all the crap that was on the shelves but for now I'm resting and looking at my nice big monitor. heehee. Things are looking much better but there is still much more to do. And the more I clean upstairs, the more crap that ends up in the basement. So eventually I'll have to go down and empty things down there. In the meantime, it's out of sight and out of mind.

At some point in the living room upheaval, the kids came in and Chris took off to go fishing. Unfortunately I had to turn down my 80s music I had cranked, but fortunately Cooper curled up on the living room floor in a ray of sunshine and fell asleep. Unfortunately I couldn't do more vacuuming for the duration of the nap, but fortunately I got a lot more done than I would have if he were awake and I had to constantly chase him! I could really use a shower. My hair is really gross and I have no makeup on. As soon as these kids go to sleep I'm going to give myself a makeover!