I've been cleaning!

*does a happy dance* I'm so proud of myself!

Okay, as you can see by the washing corner in the bottom picture, I'm not a clean freak. And from the previous posts you can see that I do an average of one chore per day. This is despite being at home with nothing to do.

Yes, I have lots of things I could be doing, and no particular duties. What I end up doing: playing Insaniquarium and reading the Internets.

In fact, Smith is the tidy one in this household. He hardly puts things down out of place (except that his end-of-the-day clothes pile is next to his computer chair. I can cope with that.) If anyone does chores in this house, it's usually because Smith noticed they needed doing, and it's usually Smith that ends up doing them. Or he'll set aside a weekend and we'll do them together. Sometimes he'll say 'Can you do the washing today?' before he goes to work and that'll be what I do that day. But today...

Today, I set myself more than one chore to do. The dishwasher needed doing again as there were no clean bowls, and Smith mentioned that he'd like the washing done. I know that the floor needs vacuuming, but I hate it, so I said to him (apropos of nothing) 'I don't want to vacuum.' He agreed to do it (sometime) and I said I'd tidy the floor so he could (sometime). Also, as Smith was sorting through the clean clothes pile looking for socks, I said to him on a whim, 'Today I'm going to tidy up that pile.' (It was in front of the wardrobe in the third picture, and took up nearly all the floor space you can see there.)

Well, I didn't really have a timeframe for that, other than 'today' for the washing, dishwashing and the clean clothes pile. And I didn't start out in a housework mood, either. We went for our walk, which was lovely. I told Smith one of last night's dreams along the way, and he talked about Dark Angel. After our shower, I just felt like going back to bed. So Smith helped me towel my hair, and I hopped back into bed.

I lay there for a little while, before thinking 'Now that I've exercised and not eaten, if I sleep now it'll be tough to get out of bed later.' So I hopped back over and got a peach, and a book (I've been looking for a particular quote. Still haven't found it) and snuggled back into bed.

After I'd finished the peach, I started reading for a little while, looking for that quote. Then Smith left for work at about 8.30, and I figured, okay, I'd eaten, had my goodbye kiss, I could sleep now.

Lay there a little while longer, and then thought, hmm. I'll just put the washing on, and then I can sleep. Got out of bed to put the washing in the machine.

And as I was sorting the washing pile, I thought to myself, this wasn't so hard. And I realised that my body wasn't actually tired. My mind was, though. Perfect time to do something mindless, like housework!

And then ... while sorting the washing ... I saw a mosquito. In my bedroom. I hate mosquitoes with a passion, they are one of the few living things I can't tolerate. I get a huge (2-3cm) reaction to a mosquito bite within five minutes, although it will gradually die down if I put cold water/soap on it. And they always bite me, not Smith. (Either that, or he just doesn't notice.) So if I see a mosquito in my room, I will hunt it down and kill it.

This one went and hid in my bookshelf. (They like to hide on wooden surfaces, sometimes in plain sight if forced to land.) When I moved the books it flew out, just within reach. I smacked at it inexpertly, and hit it with one of my hands (the other didn't connect in the right place). I think it fell down somewhere, stunned. But I don't know where! I moved some things about on the floor (there was a little bit of visible floor) but it wasn't enough, I didn't find it. That was when I decided that today, I would tidy the whole room. I opened the window, let the natural light in, and after I'd put the washing machine on, I set to work on the clean clothes pile.

I think it was while I was doing that, that I noticed how dusty the plastic horizontal blinds were. (Or maybe I noticed it while I was in bed reading, before I closed the curtains to sleep. Anyway.) Now, normally I don't dust. It would, in fact, be more accurate to say that I 'grime' - that is, I only remove dust with a wet cloth, when it is in quantities that would count as 'grime'. But ... I'm allergic to the house dust mite. Having a blocked nose used to wake me up 16 times an hour at night (or something. I don't know what the number actually means.) We now have hypo-allergenic pillows, pillow protectors, a new vacuum cleaner and two nose sprays, and I sleep much better.

Anyway, while I was picking up dusty clothes with the window open, and sneezing, I was thinking, 'The breeze is nice, but the dust from the blinds is blowing all over my bed.' And when I went and looked ... it was grime. It's amazing how much dust two humans can generate, and that window doesn't even get street pollution grime because it's mostly closed.

Luckily, I had a set of bed-sheets that needed washing, so I slung them under the window to protect the bed and the floor, and set to work with my wet sponge. Note to self: sheets, ready to be washed, make good dust-protectors when cleaning. After a little while I had to make a face-mask out of a tea towel to protect my nose, too, but I got the job done. Boy, were they yucky. There was now less dust in my bedroom!

Of course, I still had to clean the floor, so I'd done it in exactly the wrong order, even if you're supposed to clean top-to-bottom. But, as you can see in my photos, I succeeded! I didn't even have to hide stuff in other rooms - most of it stayed in the bedroom. There was one set of clean sheets that went out into our storage cupboard, but apart from some other little bits of rubbish, that was about it.

Eventually it became a game of 'what can I clean up so that I can take a photo to show Smith'. (I'm going to teach my kids that game.) And now the bedroom floor is clean, and ready for vacuuming! All in all, it took less than two hours. I was done by 10.30; since then I've hunted for the camera, taken photos, worked out how to transfer them to the computer, put the dishwasher on and written this blog. 12.30 and I've achieved all I wanted to, today. No, it's not a lot. It's a lot more than this time last week, though.

My mind also gradually woke up as I was doing the mindless stuff, but now that I've written all this hopefully I'll be able to take a rest. Off to find something for lunch, and then sleep, I think.

I never did find that silly mosquito, though.