Tag: Cleaning

Bah Humbug Day

It’s New Year’s Day. Is everyone having a nice holiday today? I hope so.

This is the day that we celebrate the new year by getting rid of all of the xmas decorations. It is the time for me to embrace my inner scrooge or my inner grinch and put an end to the season and put the house back to normal. Insert the sound of my sigh of relief here.

My initial plan was to wait for Harry to get out of bed at some point in the early afternoon and then Jen and Harry and I could just crank our way through all of the decorations together. It would take no time at all. Then when I finished my morning routine I decided to bring a couple of the boxes we store the decorations in upstairs with me and I’d pick off a few things on my own. Next thing I knew the tree was gone. Jen went from room to room and pulled most of the rest of the stuff out and stacked it on the dining room table. I took a break for some water and some meds and some real estate shopping TV show episodes and then brought a few more boxes upstairs and… next thing we knew, everything was gone. The house has been 100% de-xmased. 

It is glorious.

I still need to move some furniture around in the living room, move a bunch of empty amazon shipping boxes to the cellar, put a new cat tree together, and then help Jen cook a super fancy dinner. That is a long to-do list, but it is fine because the decorations are done.

Again… glorious, said the grinchy scrooge. 

What Comes Next

I was really hoping that Covid would be behind me by today. Nope. I’m still dealing with it. I do feel a lot better though. I feel well enough that I can start thinking of what comes next.

I haven’t exercised in over a week. I haven’t closed my calorie ring on the activity app once in over a week. Do I start tomorrow? I am planning to work a full day so maybe I should skip the exercising in the morning for a few more days. I don’t want to wear myself out before the work day even starts. That’s not ideal, but it is safe.

What about music? There are six days left in the 50 songs in 90 days challenge. There is no way I will finish 50 songs, but I could get myself a whole lot closer than I am. I was looking at my Trello board and I think I could get into the low 40s without killing myself. Do I want to record some guitar parts in the morning? I could probably manage that. I don’t want to do a car vocals until I test negative. I know I wouldn’t run into any human creatures, but why risk it? I will stay home until I test negative and then after that I will mask up if I do anything out of the house. That also means no photography fun outside of the house for at least a few more days.

As for tonight, my water goal is done, my vitamins are done, my protein goal is… almost done. Five grams or so still to go. I can get that easily. I am a bit full now but in 30 minutes or so I’ll be ready to finish that off. I am hoping I will catch the new episode of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon tonight before I go to sleep. If I can sneak in a little more Doctor Who before I sleep that would be nice too. I think I’ve blown through more than three seasons (or was it four?) during my quarantine. So very much Who.

Next weekend the plan is to clean the house from top to bottom. I want the house to be covid-residue free before we invite anyone over. Safety first, right? After that I want to push to travel again. Maybe just a road trip, or possibly an overnight somewhere. I don’t want us to lose our covid nerve. We’ve fallen off the horse and I want to make sure we get back on as soon as possible. Does that make sense? We locked down so hard that feeling up to leaving the house took a lot of effort. Then to have us catch the plague for the first time during a vacation? I don’t want us to be afraid to travel again. I want us to go somewhere as soon as possible. It’s Fall now, so maybe in a few weeks it will be time for leaf peeping. Maybe an overnight to Manhattan would be a good destination too. I also want us to rebook our long weekend in Disney World. The trip that went bust on us was an experiment to see if it was worth it to fly all the way there for a 3-4 day visit. The answer to that question is still up in the air and we definitely have to do the research. The question is, when? Maybe around Christmas? We’ll have to look into the options.

So there are a few things I am thinking about for the near future. The real question is, do I set my alarm clock for 5:00am tomorrow, or 6:00am. I won’t have an answer until I actually lay down to sleep. Until then…

I’ve Ruined Their Lives

Cats…

I just cleaned the living room, including sweeping and mopping the floor. The cats are so confused right now. They are utterly devastated. Miserable beyond words. I have literally ruined their tiny little lives.

Just wait until I vacuum the little area rug in front of the couch. Woah boy are they going to lose their shit.

Sorry, ladies.

There could be another reason for their misery. I’m listening to a Deep Purple live record and Glenn Hughes keeps screeching the way he used to on stage and they may just be mad about that. I can’t tell, but I am pretty sure it’s the sweeping and the mopping at the core of their displeasure.

Random Thoughts on a Random Friday Morning

It’s Friday morning again, thank goodness. 8.5 hours of work day left until the weekend. My team at work is at half strength today (and Monday too) so I am a little nervous about what might happen today. I’m sure we won’t get slammed with urgent, critical issues or anything. It’s going to be a nice quiet day (he said while knocking on wood and crossing his fingers and all of that kind of stuff he doesn’t even remotely believe in).

I’ve been having a bit of a physical issue when I wake up in the morning. It’s happened at least four times now, including yesterday and today, and I am not sure what to make of it. When I wake up and get out of bed, the base of my left thumb is ever so slightly numb. It lasts for a good chunk of the morning. By lunch time or so it’s passed. It’s not a problem. It doesn’t limit me at all. It’s just there and I am not sure what it could mean, or what could be causing it. I don’t think I sleep on my hand in any funny way or anything. I’m sure it is nothing, but maybe I’ll try to see what position my left hand is in every time I wake up. Maybe there’s a pattern.

Speaking of annoying little health things, my right ear was completely blocked up when I woke up today. I slept on my right side for most of the night last night so that’s probably why. It was partially cleared within a few minutes of getting up and walking around, but it’s not 100% open yet and it’s been three hours. Maybe it’s time to invest in some ear wax softening stuff. Uh, I hate having blocked up ears.

What other random thoughts can I spew out at the universe today? Hamburgers. Yeah, that burger I had for lunch yesterday was so good. It was like a lunch time treat or something. If the weather is okay today I might do it again.

Speaking of weather, we rented a dumpster to help me clean up about a year and a half’s worth of junk that has accumulated in the cellar (mostly) and in the kids’ rooms. It is being delivered today and picked up on Monday morning. We chose this weekend because the weather forecast wasn’t bad. Now though, the forecast is showing thunderstorms over the weekend. I just checked the AccuWeather site and it says to expect storms in the afternoon both Saturday and Sunday. I guess that means I should plan on morning cleaning and afternoon music then? Something like that at least. Our dumpster delivery window opened over three hours ago and still no word. How long before I start stressing about the possibility of them not coming today?

I just got a spam email from Nextdoor on my work email account. Insert a hearty sigh of frustration here.

Okay, I am punched into work now. My exercise is done for the day (no running, just yogging) and breakfast is done and everything is set for a good start to Friday. Except music. I didn’t do any pre-work music today. Maybe after work I’ll sneak a little in. It’s time to start the day. I’ve got some stuff to get through today. Wish me luck.

Smoke

We made blackened fish in a cast iron skillet last night. It was excellent.

Cleaning the skillet requires rubbing it down with vegetable oil and then burning it off. That didn’t go quite as excellent. Especially when I had all of the windows open at 10:30pm when it was 48 degrees out, and that was before the smoke alarms went off.

Insult to injury, 15 minutes after the smoke cleared and the alarms were silent, one of the smoke alarms started giving that dying battery chirp. Perfect timing, ass munch.

278/365
278/365

At least the skillet is clean and ready for the next meal.

Cleaning Day

My scrambled eggs seriously angered my stomach this morning. It’s been an hour and I still feel far from right.

I’m trying to clean the kitchen right now while also trying to ignore the stomach anger. Why won’t the chrome on the stove stop streaking? WTF?

I’ve been listening to metric tonnes of Genesis lately and I just decided that I will listen to The Lamb all the way through while cleaning. The whole double LP in one sitting. Think I can pull it off?

Change of Plans

Today was supposed to be a trip up to Vermont to visit the kids. Lunch with one and a swapping of warm clothes for summer clothes for the other. Alas it was not to be… yet. Next week. An ear infection and a stomach bug have derailed the plans for today, but we’ve already rescheduled for next week.

Instead, Jen and I took a crack at the mess that is Bellana’s room. When the cellar was flooded the first time we started storing stuff in her room. When the cellar flooded the second time we continued to use her room for storage. We didn’t do it a lot, but we did pile up some stuff. We spent a good chunk of our Saturday morning getting rid of crap we don’t need and finding new homes for the stuff we might need in the future. The cellar, specifically.

My back is killing me from going up and down the stairs. That’s okay. I’m at my desk in the bedroom with the window open enjoying what is probably the last moments of decent weather. I hate fall. The leaves are starting to fall. Bite me, mother nature.

Oh well.

Baseball at 4:00, hockey at 7:00, guitar at?