I was very proud of myself for starting and I got all the upper cabinets clean and shiny. It took 2 hours and I was tired from getting up and down the step-stool, so I planned to start the lower cupboards the next day.
You may have noticed that it is a week later, since I began my plan. The lower kitchen cabinets remain neglected as I write this. Why this sudden halt? A combination of things happened. The first one was my lack of sleep and feeling fatigued. The second was the fact that spring was over – a winter storm warning loomed up and things got chilly and rainy. I don’t know about anyone else, but when gloomy cold weather is going on the spring feeling leaves me. I expect it to return when later this week things warm up again.
Next week I will have to do something labor intensive to keep me sane while I wait for Memorial weekend to come, so spring cleaning will be that thing. I hope.
I am excited this year to get into the Spring Cleaning! Why? Because when I am 3-weeks from my 2nd vaccine, I will have family visit. I don’t know about you, but after no guests for over a year, my guest rooms do not have any room for anything else, especially guests.
The left one is a sewing and craft storage room, that must be organized to make more sense to me – that one will take a a lot of time.
The Room on the Left
The room on the right is completely covered with empty boxes. I save the good sturdy boxes in case I need to send packages. Okay, so I have hoarder tendencies. Another thing to blame on the ‘lobotomy.’
The Room on the Right
I will spend this afternoon preparing for the domestic chores that need doing and plan one thing to spring clean. The “one thing” is not a complete room or big job like cleaning the carpet. An in-depth cleaning of a room means, ceiling to floor, so that room gets broken up into a whole week, with something done each day. I know this is the most efficient way to do it. I have yet to actually do this, but I know it makes the most sense.
Seriously. I am going to do my best to keep this plan, unlike last spring (I did nothing when the COVID lockdown happened), and the year before, I attempted to do the kitchen in one day and after that fiasco, I never resumed spring cleaning the other rooms. To me, Spring Cleaning is the cleaning that is not done on a normal basis. When I was a young, single mom, I could take apart my kitchen, scrub, and put it back together – on my own time. I did not have to use the kitchen if I did not want to. My apartment was in a large town, so I had plenty of options for take-out. No complaints from my daughter either. What four year old doesn’t like junk food?
But I digress. The Kitchen is the room with the most need. Bruce did his part by vacuuming on top of the cabinets, (a.k.a. knocking the dust bunnies up there down to where I can reach them.) It will take me all day to wash the solid oak cupboards and drawer faces with warm Murphy’s Oil Soap & water – to get the dust build up off there and nourish the wood. I (and they also) will feel so much better.
I will let you know if I have success implementing my theory…
A constant joy and pain in the butt. Like a child.
Toys and tufts of fur cover our beige carpet, makes me think of the Tasmanian Devil in the Loony-Toons cartoons. He traveled in a whirlwind, leaving debris and damage behind. He was always my favorite character. In fact, I am starting to think that he has secretly moved in here. I cannot keep up with the clutter that is my home, so I have given up and just move it out of my way as I go.
She was so cute as a puppy! Her BMD coloring made it look like she had a mask over her eyes, making her face look like a bandit. She bit people, especially me. I would cry – not because it hurt so bad, but it hurt my feelings. How could my sweet baby bite me? We eventually came to an understanding, that I was the boss of her. This took a lot of training with a professional trainer, but I finally caught on.
Should have named her Bandit!
Ziva, now portrays a mature and dignified canine. She still loves people and will get all whiny and wiggly when she sees someone she knows, but once she is within petting distance she will sit down (with her behind anchoring their feet) and allow them to pet her. This is a genetic trait for BMD’s by the way.
The I’m at home with just my people Ziva, behaves much differently. She snoozes around the house, in the most uncomfortable looking positions.
L – fell asleep waiting for dinnerR – wherever Chloe sits, there’s Ziva
In the past year, one of her puppy phases returned – Wild Ziva. Around 5:00 pm, a seriously urgent spurt of energy causes her to run full bore in circles around our family room, suddenly stopping in a crouched position to challenge me to play. If I’m busy making dinner, she will attack her toy box and grab one, wrestle with it, then fling it up and away from her. If I accept the challenge, she watches me like a hawk as I retrieve one of her toys and toss it to her. Her reaction? She sits still and lets it hit her. No attempt to catch it or even acknowledge it. She studies me like I am being ridiculous. She knows this is not the reaction I’m looking for. She is teasing me.
Why do I keep doing it? Because every now and then, when the stars are aligned just right, or something, she will play. There are no witnesses to this, so of course hubby does not believe it happened. But she and I know. It goes like this: I toss her one of her stuffed animals and to my surprise, she jumps up and snatches it out of the air. Then she throws it directly at me. If I miss, the game is over. If I catch it and toss it back, she does it again. This excites me to no end because BMD’s do not catch, fetch or interact like other dogs. We do not know why this is. Maybe in Switzerland where BMD’s originate from, they know.
I figured out the other day why playing with her is so heart rendering for me. It is because she does not like to play like dogs do. But every once in a while she will play with me – because I like to. I can see it in her eyes that she loves me.
Jodi Lea's Place 