One very clean house

Take a procrastinating woman, a cranky baby, an interesting phone call from an old friend (Hi, David!!), dinner eaten at the computer, a very thoughtful online chat with a new friend (Hi, Amanda!), and a late bedtime for said cranky baby, and what do you get?

An extremely clean house in just under three hours.

Go me.

Bathroom is spotless, all carpeted floors are vacuumed, all tile floors are mopped, kitchen counters are clean, dishwasher is emptied, bedroom is straightened, house is dusted.

Amazing what one can accomplish when one puts it off long enough.

The whole plan was to spend Wednesday cleaning. That didn’t happen. I watched tv and caught up on cross-stitching instead. (For those who may be interested, this is my current project.) Then it was cleaning on Thursday. That didn’t happen either.

See, I had mentioned how awesomely my stylist does my hair to my friend C, and since she is military too, she decided to try her out. My stylist works at the beauty parlor on base, so you need a military ID to see her. I had thought of something to do to my hair (which is top-secret until Kurt cannot access a computer… it’s a surprise!), and C thought it would be great if we met at the beauty parlor and had our hair done together. That way, C could watch Grace while I had my hair done, and while C had hers down, I would take care of her.

It actually worked out quite well. But my stylist underestimated how much hair C has, so her cut took much longer than anticipated. And I needed things at the Exchange and the commissary, so we didn’t get home until almost 7pm.

I had left the house at 11am for Cabin Fever this morning. No wonder Grace was cranky!!

Have I ever mentioned my curling iron phobia? No?? Obviously I have a big sister, you all know that. And big sisters being big sisters, she always wanted to play with my hair. No big deal; I was her guinea pig. Well, one time she was doing my hair, and completely without intent or malice, she accidentally got the curling iron too close to my forehead and burnt it.

Ever since then, I have a hard time when someone wants to use a curling iron on my bangs. I can use them myself without fear, but it’s all I can do to sit still when something that hot approaches me. This afternoon my stylist used a flat iron on my bangs. I very nearly jumped out of my skin multiple times. Only once did I actually jerk my head, although it took all I had in me not to do it over and over again. Fortunately my bangs were done quickly, but my goodness. My skin was crawling the entire time.

*shudders*

Actually I’m rather glad I left everything for the last minute, as much as I wanted to chat with Amanda. It made tonight go by so very quickly, and now I’m pretty tired from all the work that I’ve done.

Oh, and I almost broke my washer tonight!! It wouldn’t have been a big deal if I had; Kurt’s coming home later today! That’s the time to have things break — the day your husband returns from a deployment. It sucks when something breaks the first week he’s gone.

Or when you’ve just gotten back from dropping your husband off at the airport so he can fly to Bahrain to meet the ship, and you’re standing in your garage getting something (it’s our storage area) doing the potty dance, when you realize you shut the door back to the house and it is locked. And it’s midnight, so you don’t particularly want to exit the garage by the big door to go knock on your friend’s door so she can loan you her key to your house.

Fortunately, Kurt had hidden a key to the house in the garage for just such an emergency. But it took me about fifteen minutes of coming up with various scenarios of breaking into my own house before I realized it.

Back to the washer: So I thought it would be a great idea to wash my comforter to have it smelling all nice and fresh when Kurt turns back the covers tonight. (I keep forgetting it’s past midnight, so I want to write “tomorrow night” when it’s actually tonight! Who came up with midnight being the start of the day anyhow?? Shouldn’t dawn be the beginning of the day???)

Just a word of caution: If you feel the need to wash your comforter and it’s a big puffy one, resist the urge and instead spray some Febreze on the damn thing. Else you might break your washer.

As I was puttering around the bedroom, trying to put it into some semblance of order, I started to smell something funny. I thought maybe an iron was burning something, but I didn’t have an iron plugged in. Then I realized it was coming from the laundry nook! And there was water cascading out from under the washer!!!! ACK!!!

So I stopped the washer, removed the big ginormous puffy comforter, and shoved it into the dryer. I also did one test load of laundry (just the wet towels I used to clean up the mess) about an hour later, and there was no more water runoff! No more stinky smell either.

I’m pretty sure the hoses need to be replaced. We’ve owned the washer and dryer for six years (bought with my college graduation money), and the hoses have never been replaced, to my knowledge.

Another thing to put on Kurt’s honey-do list for this weekend! Fix the lawnmower, mow the knee-high weeds, replace washer hoses… HUG THE WIFE!! Oh, and he can hug Gracie too.

And just for your amusement and edification, I give you this photo:

I am still trying to fathom the woman’s thoughts when she saw that empty parking space and decided to violate nearly every single law regarding driving and parking in the book. (Click the photo for more info and to read Catie’s very appropriate comment.) Thank God I take my camera everywhere I go.