Tag: Cleaning

Cardboard

We’ve had a weird year. Last fall I rented a dumpster and cleaned out the garage. It stayed clean until about Christmas and then the cardboard started accumulating. My wife bought some new computer monitors and build a new window box from scratch. More cardboard boxes. Where do they go? They go in the garage, of course. Piled up high. Then we did some of that amazon.com thing where you order dry goods in bulk and schedule deliveries? Do you have any idea how many cardboard boxes that requires?

There were so many boxes dumped into the garage that you couldn’t fit people. I had a path from the house to the front garage door, and another path to the back garage door. That was it. I couldn’t fit anything else in there.

Until today.

Today I started cleaning. I still have more to do, but all of that cardboard is gone. GONE, I TELL YOU! One more morning’s work and it will be as clean as it gets. We still won’t have room for a car, but the garage will be as cleaned out as possible.

Hallelujah!

Cellar Reclamation Project Phase Whatever Number it’s On

The cellar cleanup recommenced today. So far we’ve got one full trash barrel, one very small, very dead garter snake that looked like it had been there for years, and the spider population has been reduced by six.

Progress!

Huge Accomplishment

When the day began yesterday morning the kids’ bedrooms were the two messiest places in the known universe. It was pretty awful. The word came down from on high (aka, Mom) that the rooms would be cleaned on Saturday. It turned out that the task was even bigger than we’d realized and the job wasn’t finished until today.

Now that the job is complete though… There are no bedrooms in this or any other universe that belong to humans of either 10 or 12 years old that are in better shape than my step kids’ rooms. The word immaculate comes to mind. Perfect is accurate. They did such a fantastic job you can’t even believe it. It’s like, woah! Those are two clean rooms!

Weird Noises

The kitchen, dining room, and bathroom have all been cleaned. All that’s left to do is the kids’ rooms. Those are just as terrifyingly messy as one would imagine rooms belonging to a 10 year old boy and 12 year old girl would be. In other words, they are complete disaster areas. We’ll get to those next weekend when the kids are actually here. Other than that, everything we needed to clean this weekend has been cleaned.

I’m not sure where it call came from, but I took out nine bags of trash this weekend. NINE! I have no idea how that happened. I just know that I want to apologize to the Methuen Waste Management crew responsible for our neighborhood in advance. It’s nothing personal, guys. It’s just business. I mean that in the least ironic way possible.

There is one more on going issue for today. Simply put, what the hell is that sound that the washing machine is making? We actually had a little bit of a washing machine flood yesterday, but I have no clue what happened. I went upstairs and everything was fine, I went back downstairs and there was a puddle around the machine. I have since run the machine a bunch of times, including one time where I sat and watched it run from start to finish, and nothing happened. I am going to assume for now that I just overloaded the machine (I didn’t) and it caused an overflow. Now, however, the machine is in the wash cycle and it is making a weird, high pitched humming sound. I have no idea what’s causing it, I just know that the wet vac is ready to go in case of emergency.

Wish us luck!

Cleaning the house

I just watched five deer run through the woods. Where were the other two, or three? Deer sociology is a mystery to me.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah.

We are giving the house a full on post-Christmas cleaning this weekend. We got to two rooms yesterday and the improvement is gigantic. We can walk from one end of the living room to the other without having to jump over anything (except maybe the cat). Today’s goal is the kitchen, dining room, and bathroom. Unfortunately after two straight days of shoveling, and a full day of cleaning, my back hurts more then it has ever hurt before. It might be a tough day.

Tomorrow we try getting back on the New Year’s Resolution/weight loss bandwagon. I know I’m yo-yoing like mad here, but you have to start somewhere, right?

Cleaning Again

Two weeks ago I scoured the bathroom, kitchen, dining room, and living room. Today Jen and I are ripping our bedroom a new one. We started with the closets, then the dressers, and so far we’ve taken out three bags of trash and eight (8!!) bags of clothes for good will or the salvation army or whatever.

We’ve only been here for three years!

The next big project is the cellar, but I can’t even imagine how I’m going to pull that off. That’s going to be a multi-weekend job.

The really amazing thing about all of this is that the kitchen, bathroom, dining room, and living room have stayed clean for two weeks. Wonders ne’er cease!

WOOHOO!

It’s Miller Time

The goal for yesterday was to clean the hell out of the bathroom. We went to Home Depot and stocked up heavy duty cleaning supplies. Tons of them. Oodles of them. I then spent the next 3-4 hours scouring the bathroom like it’s never been scoured before. At least not since we moved in. Success.

Today’s plans were slightly more ambitions. I was to give the same treatment to the kitchen, the dining room, the living room, the mud room, and our bedroom. About five hours into the torture it was decided that I could scrap our bedroom from the plans. I was thankful. Shortly after that we had a huge thunderstorm and one section of the basement flooded a little bit. So I removed the bedroom from the plan and repalced it with some quality wetvac time. By around 6:30 or so I had everything done, even throwing in a load of laundry.

The house looks better than it has in a long time. I’m tired and sore and ready to eat a quick dinner and then go to bed. Jen and I will watch a little tube and just relax fora little bit. She even lit a couple of candles in the living room. It’s very nice.

10 mintues after I finshed for the day the cat barfed in the living room on the newly cleaned hardwood floor. Oh, thanks Patches. I appreciate having to clean it again. That’s swell of you. Jen placed the two candles on the mantle over the fireplace so that the cat couldn’t get to them. We just looked over and there was Patches, climing the bookcase, not three feet from a candle. We have never, ever, seen her climb the bookcase before. I think our kitty is pissed off at us for shaking up her world today.

Tough shit, cat. Deal with it. The house is clean.