Dirty little secrets of the MA

Hey if red machines make laundry more fun I'm all for it!!
can you tell I love italics? Yesterday I broke down and washed two bathroom floors. Well had to start because downstaris throw rugs were soaked with some seepage LOL. I HATE the way whenever I wash something, I get all these little strands of black doghair fuszz They stick to what I'm washing, stick to me, stick to my rag or sponge...so gross!!!!! And that is why I can't wash pfffllttt

Oh my gosh Holly, I love the colored appliances. I might have to choose the same color as yourself. I love it. You deserved to choose whatever you wanted because you have wiated a long time for the room to be completed.

Speaking of laundry room tours... ... when a person visits our home, you first step on to a screened front portch and then step in to my laundry room. I do have both a front and back door, but neither are as convenient as the side door is. The laundry room is decorated very nicely with mirrors and two shelves of Oriental glassware. There is also a tapestry that I have a collection of elephant pins on and that is enjoyable to look at too.

Sally, I know exactly what you are saying about long and drawn out answers to a simple question asked of a husband. Sorry Ric, close your eyes and ears now. After fifteen years of living with John, I should really know more about cars and rock laying than I do. Hate to admit that I can seem as enthralled with his dialogue as can be when in reality I am making a shopping list in my mind or off on some tropical isle. hahahaha I have a feeling that in my case at least, John has the same way of listening to what I have to say too.

I hope that you all are all having a good weekend. Take care and stay well.

Ruby

LOL, Gosh Ruby, Now we're really getting the dirty little secrets!!!

Ruby LOL, Ric and I work quite well together, but really we are most often doing different parts of the project. He hug the cabinets I painted them. Right now I'm cleaning the plants spraying them and watering them, when I get a group done he carries them upstairs. He has been house cleaning and baking between trips.

If the plants are large, they would be lighter to carry before you watered them, that is unless you are not set up to do watering easily up stairs. It takes me several hours split between two days to water and see to my house plants. John pointed out how much easier a hose is for watering that a watering can is. hahaha

Stormy, don't you dare repeat that to John at the next plant swap or I will be looking for something to get my revenge on you. I am sure I can find out some of your dirty little secrets too. Beware!!! LOL Just kidding of course. He already knows that I don't pay much attention a lot of the time. If I did, I am sure that I could do just about anything under a hood that needs doing. Hopefully I won't bang my head up as badly as he does while mechanicing. hahaha

I am getting ready to finish the last few sips of my coffee and then try to get in the holiday spirit. I have several gifts that need to be wrapped and then boxed to be sent through the mail next week. Time is getting close, you know.

Since becoming a member of Dave's I have become a favorite at the local Post Office. I had a personal invitation from them to order shipping boxes in several sizes. I just sent my respond card in this past week, so they may not get here before I need to ship the items I need to. I can hope they show up on Monday though. It would sure help to have them.

You folks all enjoy the rest of your day.

Ruby

You are right Ruby they are much lighter dry, That is what I did. I cleaned them removed dead leaves and cut them back and set them on the table. When I got several of them done Ric would carry them up and I would water and bug spray them upstairs. That was not quite how I wrote it earlier. Ric was laughing at my growing compost pile on the living room floor. That is the nice thing about my floors you really can't hurt them. It took all day neither Ric or I are 100% right now so we took a lot of breaks but it is all done. There are about 7 big plants plus the orchids left down stairs

OK Ruby, You've put the fear of God into me!! Mum's the word....He didn't hear it from me...

Ruby, you crack me up! I should at least have an honorary elec engineering degree, plus apprenticeships in piloting, auto mechanics and computer. I tell him he's lucky I'm so smart 8 ^)
and can follow this stuff (yeah right,
more like keep my eyes focused , 8 ^| )
Now once in a blue moon he may ask something about the yard that shows he listened , once.

But I think its a guy thing. Former boyfriend had me 'golfing'- Hook draw fade slice...chip putt wood iron (Reminds me I read some Hysterical Tiger jokes on the Jokes forum the other day.)

"Hysterical Tiger jokes" - I didn't read any of those but got a kick out of a couple of posts in the NE forum where they referred to him as Cheetah Woods!

Ruby, got a kick out of your comment about "long and drawn out answers to a simple question asked of a husband" :) Just be prepared, if you ever finally have the chance to meet Rick, I'm pretty sure he'd have John beat but don't tell him I said that! LOL

Sally, no "honorary" or real degrees here but I think of myself as having just barely enough knowledge in a few areas to be considered dangerous :)

gee rcn at least when your Rick talks about work its about plants, right?

All of you guys are the very best. RCN, if we ever do get to meet each other, you and I will leave the room and let the two guys talk to each other. John and I both accuse each other of not listening. He will very often tell me something that he says he has told me before, but I swear it is the first time I have heard it. Good thing we don't hold grudges for very long.

Ruby

Ruby, Holly and I do that too. I think we all do it to some degree. We may just be absorbed in something else and don't hear what is being said. LOL Ric

Thanks Ric. Yeah, it seems to be a universal problem with couples.

Ruby

eeewww--I've spent some time tonight trying to get the refrig water dispenser working, which is porobably has a frozen section in the tubing--so it entailed emptying the freezer, which meant cleaning, and then moving the fridge, oh boy what a mess underneath--and I couldn't go that far wihthout getting the panel off the back and vacc-ing off the condenser thingy that was loaded with dust, and wiping dustbunnies off the walls in the space.... well, when I can really SEE the dirt it can motivate me!

Glad you got motivated Sally. I'm still working on my summer/winter closet switch. How's that for behind the times????

Stormy, I still have tank tops and shorts in my dresser, so don't feel bad.

LOL, Chris, I just moved mine on Saturday. Now I'm working on the stuff in the closets.

I did manage to get the dinning room table cleared off to put on the Christmas table cloth and an arrangement....now I need to clear off some very small piles (mostly seed catalogs) to change the table cloth again. It just never ends.

No it doesn't!!

LOL, wish my summer clothes were still "in" the closet not piled on two chairs in my bedroom. I did pick up a new tote to pack them in and I have a friend coming over to look at one of those chairs. So I need to get working on them. Of course if I just put it off for another couple of months..........
Sally my fridge is in bad need of a cleaning both inside and out. Ric and I have been talking about putting down a cork floor in the kitchen so I guess sometime in the future it will be moved out of it's hole.

How refreshing! I'm glad to know I'm not alone with this "secret." My name is Grossmutti and I'm addicted to gardening. I used to feel horribly guilty about spending every living minute in the garden instead of doing the laundry, washing the dishes, making the beds, paying the bills, returning phone calls, etc. ad nauseum. Then I read what Buddha said about gardening, and it set me free--not free of the compulsion, mind you, but free of guilt.

Gardening, according to Buddha, is the highest form of human activity. The gardener's attention is completely absorbed in the present moment, mindful and attending the needs of other living things. To Buddha, you see, all flora and fauna (and minerals too) are sentient beings, whose life we're called to honor and nurture as fully as we do our own. In so doing, the gardener approaches Nirvana. I'm not a Buddhist, but after reading this, I thought I might become one.

Grossmutti, Throw that guilt away! It's counter productive. I'm all for cherishing living things, but draw the line at voles, earwigs, lily beetles, slugs and squirrels. I'd like to put them all in my washing machine with a nice mix of bleach and ammonia!! Buddah would be very unhappy with me. Sometime you'll have to ask me about my trip to the Dahli Llama's personal reading room in the Potala Palace in Tibet.

Stormyla, I'm intrigued. I'll ask you right now about your trip to the Potala Palace in Tibet. Please tell! By the way, I'd be careful about going back there, if I were you, after what you said about voles, squirrels, and other critters (I can't bring myself to repeat it).
Just kidding.

LOL Grossmutti, We use to have horses and a few other animals in the barn. It was not unusual for me to spend the day cleaning the stalls and never getting to the house. Given my choice I would rather clean the stalls. Well now that the holidays are over and before gardening weather starts I will be concentrating on dejunking. I have a couple of months to see how far I can get. I have two boxes of old mags & catalogs to get rid of and started a box of things that I don't want but will be useful to someone. Holly

Yes, I'm going to heave the seed catalogues today.

Grossmutti, It's too long a story. I'll tell it to you at the Frederick swap.

Too busy shoveling to clean--Yay
~~~
I have never had a cleaning routine- other than getting kitchen clean and keeping up with laundry. Other stuff is as needed (desperately). Oddly, I sometimes get in a minor cleaning tear in the evening--doing some quick spot-jobs , a sink here, a toilet scrub there...

Do you have routine to follow? Schedule for certain things like vaccuuming?

I have a gal who comes every other week and does all of the normal stuff. Of course I do some of that too, if it gets very bad before she comes. I do all of the other stuff like cleaning the heater grates, chandeliers, walls, ceilings,baseboard, blinds, and such. She cleans the outsides of things, never the insides. I do all of the laundry. She doesn't clean the bric a brac. I do big jobs like empty the china closet & wash everything. I also do the doors and windows, clean the ovens and fridge interiors.
She also doesn't clean the high up tops of anything like the fridge, tall cabinets, and shelves. For me, a lot of these jobs get done when it's time to change the decorations. I also tackle different jobs when I notice they need doing.

House cleaning is last on the list. I so often look at nice neat clean homes and think there is no reason for my house not to look like that........but
I did some of the bathroom today scrubbed the floor and toilet did the mirrors and then stopped. Still the sink and tub to do. Most of my cleaning is like that. When an area gets bad I do a bit here and there but just can't seem to bring myself to set up a regular cleaning schedule. Even now when mostly I'm just sitting around, just can't seem to get motivated. Shame on me. Holly

Haaa...ha.....
I seldom clean at all---THERE! My BIG secret! BUt--since no one else lives here--WHO CARES!
Another "blessing" is that I really do not see all the dust and dirt--as I have tri-focal lenses and, unless I get down on my hands and knees (OOOP! Can't do that either!) ...I do not see the dust and dirt at all.....

Mostly--my home is just heavy dust! I am not a dirty person--so it is just the superficial dirt that needs attending to--BUT--the DUST! OMG! It lives everywhere!

The only time I freak out is if someone is coming here to spend the night---OR--IF I am having a social get-together.
NOT doing any of those now for a long time....

SO! To live up to my favorite saying-----"If I don't mind--It does not matter!".....And--all is well!

:::o) Gita

LOL Gita, Yes that is one of the big problems here heavy dust. The coal stove isn't the cleanest heat, but that isn't the only issue. I went to show a friend one of my new pictures of the kids and couldn't believe how thick the dust was on the table. That table sits in a corner of the living room and only has pictures on it. Then I thought the last time I dusted it was about 2 weeks before Christmas. LOL

I try to go thru the house once a week for serious cleaning, ya know with the Pledge and all. Picking up after the kids and hubby is a chore in itself. I told hubby a couple of weeks ago I'm going on strike. We had made a deal when we first got married we were both working full time, I'd do all chores but the dishes(I HATE WASHING DISHES) I should have made a more even split but you know when you're just married you want to do everything for him...blah blah blah, or he was just neater and trying to show off.

When I became a stay at home mom I agreed to do all the housework, not a problem I'm home all day. BUT then we started this biz in '07 and besides taking care of my daughter I do ALL the paperwork, billing, invoicing, accounting, answer phones, from home but still. Sometimes I work at the desk 10 hrs a day. Well hubby didn't take back doing the dishes. How unfair is that? I asked him and he doesn't even get it, ya know...UGH drives me crazy!!!!

So now I figure I am going to do this..."work" my full time job till my son comes home, so that means not doing any house chores till 4pm and if I'm too tired to do anything at night, tough!!!

I've gotten more lax about certain things, like polishing the silver. Now, I wrap it up really good and don't ever display it anymore. If you run the fireplace a lot or smoke, the house gets much dirtier. Sally, those jobs above get done twice a year here and the windows, 3 or 4 times as one whole side of the house is glass. It looks terrible if it's really cruddy when the sun hits it.
I must be a really sloppy cook. I find that the fridges, microwave, convection and regular oven and stove need to be cleaned pretty frequently. I have started using those aluminum liners for the bottom of the oven. Hopefully, that will catch whatever boils over.

Dog hair in the corner of the stairs...ain't that the truth!

Jen, I think you need to have a discussion with your sweetie. They can be retrained. Every now and then I have to pitch a fit with DSO about not creating more messes for me or helping me with some of the chores. He gets mad, if when he's here, I spend all of my time doing chores, so I told him that if he helped me, I wouldn't have to. They do tend to take what you do for granted.

He and my 7 year old nephew blame it on each other when I find candy papers under the sofa cushions or on the floor. Last week my sister called and said the little guy said I stuffed the Tootsie Roll wrappers under her couch.!! LOL I don't even touch the things!!!

Another discussion? Nah, I'm just going on strike.

LOL Strikes can be very effective.

I'm hoping.

I would love to consistently have a clean house. I even made up a cleaning schedule with everything I could think of on it, but I just don't follow it. You should see it, room by room and color coded - so pretty. It took me longer to create the schedule than it probably would have been to actually clean the house!!! However, I always seem to find something else to do, and cleaning ends up being last on the list. If I'm home, my preference is to be outside, weather permitting (or not). Dog hair and dust are my biggest problems. Sally, I see it in the corners of the stairs, but I usually just leave it there - so, you're ahead of the game if you actually pick it up :-) Gita, you crack me up - great philosophy. Stormy, you seem to be the only one that keeps up with the dirty work - maybe you could throw the rest of us some pointers - you know, our own MA version of clean sweep, hee hee... Terri