Monday, October 08, 2007

Scrub-Fest '07: The Closing Ceremonies

My guilt-fueled cleaning frenzied continued today after a brief detour into the Land Of Sleeping In Because It Is A Holiday And I Can. I was a little shocked to find the numbers of the clock to be situated at 9:30 when the eyeballs creaked open this morning. I'm not normally a late-sleeper. Guess that my weekend of grime busting took more out of me than I thought. But, with today being the last day of the three day weekend, I knew that I must forge ahead.

Having left off with my labors in the bathroom, this is where I picked up again today. I marched in, armed with my home-brewed cleaning concoctions, and there I stayed. In the cleaning sense, that is. I actually tended to clean during commercial breaks since the Sci-Fi Channel decided to gift me with a full day marathon of "Tru Calling" today. This is one of those shows that I would have really liked had I remembered to watch it while it was on for reals. Now it is cancelled and I can only view it when some cable channel takes pity on me for my forgetful ways. Still...I was able to brighten and shine many a surface in the Sheepie Powder Room in between episodes. Its half-buffed condition from yesterday was something of an affront and I really needed to finish the process of scrubbing down to the original layers of tile and such.

I had my reservations with regard to some of the natural and less toxic recipes I'd gathered in order that I might take on this task. But, I have to admit, they worked rather well. I was especially taken with the borax and lemon juice paste...would you believe that my hollow core bathroom door is actually white? I had no idea! I thought it was more of a dingy gray! The things you learn when you take a minute to wipe something down. I'm just gobsmacked!

Now, before you start the process of nominating me for some sort of award for my commitment to greener cleaning methods, you should know that an entire forest is going to have to be decimated tomorrow in order to replace the paper towel supply. I went through a rather disturbing amount of them. But, baby steps are still steps forward, right?

Throughout this process, the Big, Fluffy Kitty remained hidden from sight. Having been fooled into random attacks of grooming for the past two days, she finally managed to put two and two together. I was able to coax her out with some kitty treats in the later hours of the afternoon and with the promise that I was far too exhausted from all the scrubbing to engage in another brushing session. The mats in her coat are going to have to wait for a bit longer. We are very, very tired now.

In my non-disinfecting moments, I knit away on the Invisibility Shawl. I have now decided that the occurrence of extra or missing stitches is happening frequently enough that I can say they are repeating with regularity. Granted, these are happening with far less frequency than they once were, but enough so that I can call them, "repeats." And what is a regularly occurring thingie, but a pattern, right? Hence, I am following a pattern. That is what knitting is all about. I am now an expert lace knitter. I am using laceweight yarn and a pattern (of sorts) is happening. There. I've mastered the whole thing.

La-la-la-la-i-can't-hear-you-don't-care-what-you-have-to-say-about-faulty-logic-i-can't-hear-you-LA-LA-LA-LA!!!!!!!!!!!!

I kind of miss being able to blame my psychosis on the fumes from commercial cleaning products. Maybe I need to rethink this whole "Clean Green" thing...

SA

12 comments:

Lorraine said...

Doncha' just love marathons! It tickles me pink when my favorite show is shown for a whole day.

Clever use of commercial breaks, I must say. Must remember that tip.

sheep#100 said...

Yes a pattern is a recurrence. But aren't you supposed to intend to make the recurrence happen?

Yarnhog said...

I just paint over the mess. If you can't see it, it's not there, right?

Donna Lee said...

I think that's called making lemonade out of lemons. I will absolutely back up your use of the word pattern in this context.

Anonymous said...

Did you use a certain proportion of borax to lemon juice? It sounds like a great cleaning potion. :)

Teri S. said...

Instead of calling it a pattern, I prefer to think of it as incorporating random design elements. And what difference does it make if you are pleased with the outcome?

Regarding the green cleaning solutions, my favorite for glass is vinegar and lemon juice. It works somewhat well on counters. But I think the borax and lemon paste would work much better.

Anonymous said...

I am also over-extended in the paper towel dept. I mean how does one cook and keep kitties and a clean house without these marvels? I do try to get more miles per square though and natch, recycled variety helps a bit.

Only you could make cleaning hilarious Sheep, keep it coming....

Mia said...

and i thought i was the only one who sang the "lalala" song *grin*

Anonymous said...

It IS a pattern, perhaps not the intended pattern, but a pattern none the less.

I waited all day for you to come clean my house; what happened?

Anonymous said...

I hope you've come to your senses now. No more cleaning!! You're making us feel guilty like maybe we should clean or something.
Karen
http://nothingbutknit.blog-city.com/

knitseashore said...

Your cleaning is so inspirational...white doors might be under the gray grungy doors the previous owner of this house left us? Who knew?? Must investigate.

Hope you got lots of knitting and TV watching done in your breaks!

Knitting Linguist said...

I thought I was the only one with that attitudes toward lace knitting -- I love not being alone in my delusions! Wasn't it EZ who said that nothing in knitting is wrong if you make it part of what you're doing? (Except splitting the yarn on stitches -- she was big on avoiding that.)(oops)