Keeping busy, part 2.

As I mentioned in Tuesday’s blog, I’m by myself this week while my wife and son are away on vacation.  I spoke of my week-long battle plan to clean the house while they’re gone, as well as my progress so far.  Since this is all I’ve been doing this week I have little else to write about, so let’s review where I’ve been and what I have left to do:

SATURDAY- Pulled weeds, planted new flowers, sprayed my lawn with weed-killer.

SUNDAY- Cleared away our failed attempt at a compost pile.

MONDAY- Cleaned the spare room so it’s no longer a storage room.

TUESDAY- Cleaned the kitchen and reorganized the cabinets.

WEDNESDAY- Yesterday’s project was to scrub the bathroom spotless.  We have one bathroom in our small house, and this bathroom is tiny.  I didn’t think this would take very long.  I was wrong.  Scrubbing a bathroom clean, truly clean, is a formidable task no matter what size the room is.  It was satisfying to put my wife’s unused cosmetics into a box and tuck it aside for her to go through when she comes home.  It’s amazing how much cabinet space became available!  Still, after spending my morning on my hands and knees scrubbing the sink and behind the toilet (bleugh), I had enough cleaning for the day and turned my attention to Star Power-related work.

THURSDAY- Today’s project is to clean the living room.  This is going to be an easy one.  We spend 90% of our time in this room, and it’s the room our toddler plays in the most, so we keep it relatively clean for him.  The biggest challenges are going to be going through his many toys and determining which ones can be donated and reorganizing the furniture to make better use of the space.  Our house is small, so we don’t have many options when it comes to our furniture, but I think I can come up with something.  If this goes well, my second plan of attack is to finally put our many pictures and collected artwork into frames and, after two years of living here, finally start decorating our walls.

FRIDAY- Tomorrow is the last day of my week-long solitude and the day I tackle the biggest cleaning project: the basement.  This is going to be my biggest challenge.  It’s a basement.  A big one.  We’ve turned it into our dumping ground for stuff “we’ll get to later.”  I have declared that Friday is “later” and I’m going to clean the crap out of that basement.  I plan to fill a dumpster bag full of things the previous owners of this house left for us “to get to later,” as well as the many things we thought we ought to save for either practical or sentimental reasons.  Like I’ve said numerous times already, our house is small so space is at a premium here.  There’s no room for stacks of nostalgia or random things that may come in handy somewhere down the line.  When we first looked at this house, we marveled at how spacious the basement was.  I plan to make it feel that way again on Friday, but it’s not going to be easy.  Wish me luck.

SATURDAY- My wife and son return from their vacation in upstate New York.  I hope they like what they see.