4AM Painty Shenanigans

[Subt. "Insomnia:  Harnessing Your Inner Crazyperson"]  

Soooo cleaning up - and fixing up - my nascent art studio is on my list, but it hasn't been very high on my list of late.  So much else to do!  All at once!  How is it ever going to get done?!  ACK!!!.

Well, apparently, sleeplessness will do the trick.  I've had chronic and recurrent insomnia all my life.  Most of the time it comes and goes, in 2-3 week cycles;  it's been absent for a couple of months now (in fact, lately, I can't seem to do anything but sleep), and I had just about forgotten about it...until last night, when, at 2am, I realized I'd been lying in bed for a really long time, not sleeping, and it was starting to piss me off.  That's really, really bad for insomnia. I'd much rather be awake for no reason and up and around, than lying in bed getting angrier and more stressed about how dead I'm going to be at work the next day, you know?

So I got up and walked into the art studio, to this:

Yeah.  I may have been using the giant work table in here to cut out costumes.  I may also have been throwing fabric at the trash can without looking.  ....yes, there's a trash can under there.

 The rest of the corner is a bit...pile-y...but not too bad.  I reeeeeally need to spend a few HOURS in here organizing my craft shit.   The tarp that's normally under that easel?  Got peed on by a dog.  #%%#@!$

So last night at 2am, I cleaned all that junk up, put my toys away, emptied the trash, , put the tarp back down (I washed it the other day).

BIG DEAL.  Lemmetellya something about me:  I really, really hate seeing "before and after" when all a person does is clean their room.  You're supposed to clean it!  You don't get bloggy bonus points for undoing a hellacious mess!!

But I told you all of that, so that I can show you this:

1.  Not only is the room clean and organized and ready to be actually decorated and stuff...

2.  While 2am saw me cleaning and shuffling, 4am saw me painting a new picture!!  I'M SO EXCITED YOU GUYS WOW.

The rainy-tree thing in the  second picture was from like two months ago.  I like leaving my latest painting up on the easel until [whatever happens].   This new one's going in my front hall with the two from the art class last month;  but for now, it's decorating my easel.

I can't WAIT to get started working on this room.  It needs to start with gutting the closet and painting, hanging new shelves, and re-organizing the entire room, which will be a full weekend's worth of work at least.   After that the painting space is going to get seriously souped up.  I also want to build a new easel.  I adore this one, and it's great for sitting, but I generally prefer to stand to paint, and it's nowhere near tall enough for that.

I just haven't decided if I want to paint the walls or leave them white.

"Lotus Fire"

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Holy crap, it worked!

In the midst of a housecleaning binge today, while doing the Knick Knack Rodeo I'd been telling myself I was going to do for the past two months, I decided it was time to clean out all my incense pots.  (I burn a lot of incense).  I use beach sand in them, and after a while, the sand gets full of ash, sticks, and bits of incense that didn't get burned - also dust, dead leaves from houseplants, dog hair, and all sorts of random stuff (even fingernail clippings, back when I was married.  *is giving the ex that look*).  Every so often I sieve all the sand to remove the bits and shake off the dust and ash, and re-fill the pots.

This time I decided to do something about the nasty appearance of this little brass pot:

It's not much, and it only cost me like a buck at the thrift store, but it makes a great little incense burner pot.  I cleaned it up and polished it when I brought it home, but it didn't really get all that shiny or anything, because what do I know about polishing brass, you know?  

I thought to myself, "Well, it says on Pinterest..."  (which is how blogs like Pintester and Pinstrosity are born, lol).  

I poked around the kitchen and laundry room briefly.  Baking soda: check.  Peroxide: check.  Lemon juice: no.  Scrubbing toothbrush: check.   Okay then. Plain ol' peroxide and baking soda it is, then.  (I wasn't sure what to expect, here.  I'd tried the same mixture on my pots and pans, and while it worked extremely well, it was also slow as crap.  After soaking one pan for like eight hours it was mostly clean. Ugh). 

Holy crap you guys!  I scrubbed for a second or three with the toothbrush before I realized I didn't even have to scrub.  Places where the mixture was dripping around the side of the pot were just as shiny and gold as places I'd scrubbed, so I just used the toothbrush to smear the baking soda/peroxide mixture around the outside and inside, let it sit for a few seconds, and rinsed it off, then dried the pot.  

THAT WAS AMAZING.  

And, you know, yeah, it could be cleaner than this.  I have stuff to do, though. 

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More Cleaning Binge

I've been on a bit of a cleaning kick lately, and with things suddenly breaking around the house, I have also developed a newfound comittment to home maintenance and preventative maintenance, LOL.  So, because it's me, I've made some lists:


Done  (last weekend, and the weekend before):

• BIG kitchen cleaning (countertops scrubbed and bleached, canisters and appliances wiped and/or dusted, fridge cleaned out and cleaned)
• BIG vacuuming (includes moving furniture not normally moved for spot-vacuuming, and vacuuming a/c registers and return vents)
• BIG whole-house dusting with my handy-dandy new Swiffer 360 Extender (which is the absolute BOMB, and I'd never have tried it if Kress' mom hadn't bought one for us for no reason) - cabinet and door frames, baseboards, ceilings and corners, art and picture frames, knick-knacks, ceiling fans, light fixtures
• BIG bathroom cleaning  - counters, cabinet doors, cabinet interior (organization), tub and shower walls and fixtures, light fixture, doors and baseboards
• BIG laundry - curtains, rugs, comforters, and bed pillows

Yet To Do: 

• bleach and re-seal tile grout in all tiled areas of the house (2 bathrooms, kitchen and dining room, fireplace hearth, front entry)
• replace burnt-out light bulbs
• clean and repaint the baseboards in the dining room (chewed by puppies a year ago and never fixed)
• replace all the floor T-moldings in between the rooms and around the fireplace - most of them pop loose several times a year, and some are broken.  All of them need to be replaced with a better solution.
• Wash & scrub all the exterior windows, and clean the insides
• Clean all the blinds - if I take them down and hose them off on the back patio, I can spray-paint the last one in the living room while I'm at it.  
• Prime&  re-paint all the baseboards and doors in the house, starting with the guest bathroom (they're all yellowed with age;  since I painted the guest bath white and gray last Fall, it shows the worst in there)
• Repair or replace the shower/tub diverter in the master bath tub faucet.  Or replace the entire faucet. Whatever. 
• New garbage disposal! 
• Gutters for the back of the house!  

Omg, there's so much more I don't even want to keep typing.  UGH. 

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CLEAN! ALL! THE! THINzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Remember all that junk I said I was going to do, in my last two posts?  Yeah, I didn't do any of it over the weekend.  I was going to, but   NAP ATTACK.

I did manage to get a lot of heavy cleaning done over the weekend, even if I didn't get around to starting any projects.  Vacuuming, mopping, steam-cleaning the tile in the bathrooms and kitchen, cleaning the bejeezus out of the entire kitchen, nuking both bathrooms - I even washed the windows in my car.

It's been raining here, it seems, for like three weeks straight.  I love rain - it doesn't seem gloomy or depressing to me like some people say it is - but it sure does make me sluggish and sleepy, and not remotely motivated to get anything done but eat pie and watch The West Wing (trufax - this is what I did last night).

Actually, I DID get something done Saturday night:  I shuffled some tables and dressers and shelves and things around in the bedroom and in my closet, which resulted in "new" nightstands for the bedroom, and "new" shelving in my closet.  I'm not any happier with the closet than I was before - in fact, I actually like it less, but that's just more incentive to get off my ass and get myself a dresser from Craigslist to use in my closet, finally.  I DO love the nightstand situation, though...and so do the cats.

Sweet Pea chillin' on the new nightstand

Real pics later this week.  :)



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Spring Cleaning?

I keep seeing these pop up on blogs this week, so I thought I'd do my own slightly-snarkier and personalized version.  Not to give YOU advice, just to mutter to myself "out loud" (as it were) and in public.

1.  Wash the dog.   I have three 50lb dogs.  YOU wash them if you want them clean.

Actually, Raven's on my to-do list for the back half of this month:  he's a hair farm, and I'm *done* trying to keep this dog clipped myself.  He's up for his shots, so as soon as he's got them all up-to-date, he's going to the store for a professional cut, I don't care how much I have to pay for it.  I'm sick of pulling burrs and dreadlocks out of this dog's fur.

2.  Clean the windows.  I DO actually "do windows", and usually I do it this time of year.  I didn't last year, though...or the year before.  Whoops.  They're a bit manky.  Someone gave me a really nifty car washing brush tool once that hooks up with the end of a garden hose - you can put soap or liquid wax into it if you want to, and the handle extends to like six feet.  Really nifty tool.  Do I wash my car, like, ever?  Nope.  But it's awesome on windows!

3.  Cobweb patrol!  Yeah, I admit it:  my house is crawling with cobs.

*ba-dump-CSH!* 

And I DO run the long-handled duster around the ceiling and doorways more than once a year, but MAN that crap builds up, with all the hairy animals that bring dust and other junk in from the backyard all day long.

4.  Deal with built-up piles of clutter.  Also something I actually do more than once a year - otherwise I'd live in a dumpster.  But I did just recently tidy up and re-organize the laundry room that I spent all that time and effort to sort-of re-model two years ago. (Yeesh, has it been that long?)

I'm also in the middle of cleaning up and re-organizing the garage, and dealing with half-finished projects out there.  The next step (a new wall o' shelves) is going to be a doozy, though. Stay tuned.

not my actual house,
thank goodness

5.  Wipe up built-up fingerprints on wall switches, hallway corners, and around doorknobs.

Yeah, it's probably time to do that, actually.  Just because most of my walls are painted gray doesn't mean that manky crap doesn't show.  Bleh.








Also on my Spring Cleaning list:

• take down all the draperies in the house and run them all through the washer.  I do this about twice a year, actually, for my allergies.  I don't use curtains I can't put into the washing machine for exactly this reason. 
• fireplace cleanup - already done, actually. 
• Bleach and re-seal the grout in the tiled areas of the house.  I used to do this every Spring, but I haven't in about three years.  It needs it, though.  

And some maintenance items that need to be dealt with soon, or else: 

• the deadbolt on the nifty new storm door I installed a few weeks ago is suddenly not working, for some reason.  I needed to take the cylinder out and take it to the hardware store to have it re-keyed anyway;  I'll have them look at it while I'm there.  
• Another door issue: the "temporary" gate I put up over a hallway door to keep the dogs out of "Catland" (where the food, water, and litterboxes live) has now been in place for nearly FOUR YEARS.  And it's falling apart, of course, because it was never meant to last this long or put up with the abuse it's gotten over the years.  It's time to get off my ass and put the real solution that I've always meant to get around to, into place.  
• Two years ago, I scrubbed, patched, and re-painted all of the baseboard trim in the entire house...except for the dining room.  Sigh.  
• Oh, and the guest bathroom, too, and the paint on the trim in there is yellowed and chipped.  It needs to be re-done, especially since I re-painted the room not long ago, which just made the old trim look even worse than it did. 

And the garden...oh, don't even get me started. 

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