Cleaning Up Between Books

Today is November 1st.  To those of you who NaNo, I salute you!

I often join in the frenzy, but this year I’m waiting on revision notes from my CPs and taking the time to dig out on multiple fronts.  I’ve been catching up on things I put off (down to just ONE assignment left to grade), and generally digging out of the pig sty my house often becomes during the last quarter of a book.  After work yesterday I finally had to brave the blustery, gusty winds of the cold front blowing in (it was a very atmospheric opening for something) to hose out the kitchen garbage can with soap and water, as something had spilled and gone nasty.  And since that was out, I got around to steam mopping the kitchen, after hubby vacuumed it.  We aren’t gonna talk about the state of the floors by my baseboards.  Started on all the bathrooms and got everything there clean except for the counters.  I still want to do a good move-everything-off-the-counter clean (kitchen and bath) and clean out the fridge.  And hubby will be vacuuming the rest of the house after we both do a general pick up of all the random crap we’ve left lying around on every horizontal surface.  We’re having people over later, so that’s a good kick in the pants to get that finished.  I’m even contemplating taking advantage of the cold weather and going outside to do some weeding and cleaning up of our flower beds, which are secretly a Sleestak habitat.  The cold means I can actually wear long everything and not die of heat stroke or welt up at the mere brush of everything green.

I hate that things get to this state, but I do kind of like the clean up.  The simple domestic is a sort of…moving meditation for me, in this case.  It lets me clear up my space and metaphorically clear up my brain, sweeping out the last book in preparation for the new.  I’ve got another Wishful-based Meet Cute (Piper and Myles) I’ll be starting on in the next day or two to keep my brain in town until I’m finished with revisions.  After those are done, I’ve got a palette cleansing project in the works.  And maybe a fun little contest to go along with it for those of you who care to take a guess about what it is.  The only thing I’ll say right now is that it’s unconnected to anything I’ve done before and should be hella fun.

There are other things that need doing around the house, other projects that we always put off until colder weather–like organizing our garage.  Because our last move wound up being in kind of a hurry, some things just got tossed in boxes not according to my OCD specifications.  The tools, garden, and garage stuff was one of the areas to suffer.  Plus once we got here, hubby’s dad gave him all kinds of workshop stuff he’d been holding until we had room for it.  So…yeah, in May we’ll have been here 3 years.  It is SO FAR past time to deal with all of this.

And then there are more fun kinds of projects I’d like to do.  I really want to us Rustoleum Cabinet Transformations on my master bathroom cabinets.  They’re currently just boring white stock cabinets.  I want to use the espresso, which will go really nicely with the sort of sand colored countertops in there.  It’s a weekend project…sometime.  I have a hard time getting to those because a) hubby reverts to his night owl instincts on his days off, meaning he’s asleep until 10 or 11 most weekends and then takes an hour or two to ingest enough coffee to become functional and b) I’m loathe to give up the 2-5k of words I usually get written on the weekends.  The bathroom is a pretty small project, so I might save that for Christmas break–something I can do while he’s at work.  Just throw on an audiobook and go to town.

I also need to start picking up some Christmas novellas or short novels to get in the mood, as it were.  I’m supposed to help my mom deck out her house for some something she’s hosting.  Normally I am all about Christmas and decorating but I’m feeling kind of Scroogy this year.  I think part of it is that Halloween has literally JUST PASSED and there’s been Christmas stuff in the stores for a month already.  And it was 80 last week.  It doesn’t feel like it’s TIME YET!  But I’m finally starting my Christmas shopping.  I’d like to have that done by the end of this month, so that all I have left is holiday baking of gifts to do in December.  And also to sort out what kind of holiday treats I can make for our house that are GF/DF since 99% of what’s going to be available at parties and such will be…neither of those things.  But hey, maybe I’ll make it through the holiday without gaining that 5 pounds I usually gain.

One thought on “Cleaning Up Between Books

  1. You’re making me tired just reading all the stuff you need to do. LOL. I probably have a list as long, but I’m scared to actually write it all down.

    I felt like Halloween just passed me by, and I did nothing to celebrate it except watch a couple of movies. I don’t want that to happen for Christmas. If I could get my shopping done early, I could really enjoy the holiday.

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