59. Guest Room

My mother-in-law is coming tonight. She's staying, which she usually doesn't do, mostly (I think) due to our cats. But I need to leave the house at 7 tomorrow for canoe training and water rescue certification, so it makes sense for her to come tonight and just start the day in the morning. This meant I actually had to clean the guest room, which is my Dorian Gray Memorial Room, frankly. It falls apart so the rest of the house can appear clean. These days it has been covered in my dining room--all the stuff from the walls, the cabinet, and so on. Plus it is also my sewing/craft room and therefore creeps towards chaos at every moment.

To top that all, the cats love this room. They love sleeping on the bed and leaving giant mats of fur. The older two are fond of barfing on the rug. So I had to dig the place out, change the sheets and blankets, and vacuum the heck out of it.

But now it is done. Still cluttered and definitely my sewing area, but the bed is clean and made, the two dressers (Leo's and a blanket chest) are tidy, the table with my sewing is explainable instead of shameful.

Time for the rest of the house to promptly fall apart.

56. Dishwasher

So I broke down.

I think it was the moldy water in the bottom of our current dishwasher. Realizing we had to get rid of it, and then deal with a big hole in the kitchen. A hole I could fill with...what?

With money, for the most part. The floor underneath is subfloor, so whatever I did I would have to cover that. Trash? A cabinet to hide trash? Just plain cabinets of some kind? None of them sounded right. Or cheap, frankly.

A dishwasher isn't cheap either, especially not the way we decided to go. But I envisioned 6 months from now still trying to find cabinets that matched or at least blended in with the ones we had (which I have painted, of course). Dealing with the cabinet under the sink and its dark spookiness. Handling it all.

I looked at my dining room and decided life was hard enough for the house, for me, for us. Plus...I will admit that while handwashing dishes feels both noble and satisfying, I am the only person doing it. Jake will load and unload a dishwasher. But he never, ever, ever, ever washes a dish by hand. Never. Neh-vah. No way, no how. He doesn't even see the dishes when they're waiting in the sink. So I could see into the future. I go back to work and...

So we bought a dishwasher. It gets delivered, and installed, and the old one hauled away, tomorrow. It is stainless steel on the inside and the outside and I think we will be very happy together.

39. One Month

It's been just over a month without a dishwasher.

The guy at Best Buy, where Jake went to look at features, not to buy, told him I wouldn't make it 2 weeks.

Yeah, it's kind of a bummer to get up from dinner and head over to the sink to wash dishes. But I used to load the dishwasher anyway so I'm not sure if it's that much more time for an average meal.

Lisa posted over on her blog that on a weekend day, her family regularly does 3-5 loads in a dishwasher, which made my mouth drop open. I guess if my pans were dishwasher-safe, or if I put plastic in the dishwasher, maybe it would add up, but never that much. That's more than a good sized dinner party over here, actually.

I'm thinking that besides the rare party or get-together that uses plates, I'm simply not going to miss it. Too many times I unloaded the dishes and then found myself rewashing something. Too many times. And when I find a dish that I've handwashed that isn't all the way clean, I simply put it back into the soapy water. I used to get kind of ticked off at the machine that wasn't doing its job.

So I'm not going back. I warned Jake that when I go back to work, I might be changing my mind (life will, in general, get more expensive when I go back to work). But we'll see how it goes.

Right now my only irritation is with the space it takes up. I keep thinking if there would be something I'd want more in that space, and what keeps coming to mind is a pull-out drawer for trash to keep it away instead of in a can over by the fridge. Hmm.

17. Broken Dishes, Broken Dishwasher

In the past three days I've broken a bowl and a glass. Unrelated to washing them--I was picking the glass up to put away, and taking the bowl out of the cabinet. Crash onto the floor. The glass was no big thing, but I like my bowls with cat faces. Ah well.

Less emotional investment in the dishwasher. It is older and it no longer sprays water. It sort of steams the dishes now. Which doesn't work, by the way. I was distressed the morning I found the still-dirty dishes sort of smeared around and grimy. It took a lot of work to clean them, and the dishes in the sink waiting for their turn in the dishwasher.

But since then, things are clean in my kitchen. I wash dishes after breakfast. I wash dishes, tiny bits, throughout the day. I put dishes away while doing other tasks in the kitchen. And then I wash dishes while I cook dinner and after we eat. The kitchen is tidy before bed and the day starts well.

Why do I want a dishwasher, again?

I'm sure I'm using more water this way, but maybe not. It's an older dishwasher and not an Energy Star appliance. I know I'm not using as much electricity, though, even with the hot water I use. The soap is cheaper, too. And my kitchen is clean.

I hate to be the one to say this but I think I might say it. I already always did my good wine glasses by hand, and all of my pots and pans, being anodized aluminum, never ever go in the dishwasher. My Revereware sometimes did (don't tell my aunt Gracemarie) but pyrex dishes rarely came out clean so I did them by hand most times. Same with the crock pot, which I use at least weekly. Bento boxes are done by hand because they're plastic. Same with anything plastic I put in my fridge to store leftovers or pesto, etc.

The dishwasher essentially became a place to store dirty dishes until later. Silverware, every day glasses, plates, and bowls. Which, of course, ARE THE EASIEST THINGS TO HANDWASH.

I think I'll eventually replace the dishwasher. Looks like about $600-$900 for a really good one. And I'll use it for dinner parties and events like that. Right?

Hmm.

9. Spring Cleaning

I have elderly cats. More than that, I have annoying cats. For 14 years, we had no problems that were not quickly solved. No cat pee. Nope. Nada.

The past year this has changed for the worse. I blame Hickory, our black cat. I think she's taking advantage of the situation (Bleys is getting older, we figured he was the culprit--but in the end, I think it's her).

I spend a lot of time cleaning cat pee. We got rid of the living room rug, my very favorite rug, because I simply couldn't get one area clean enough that they stopped being interested. It was hopeless. Now we have two annoying cheap rugs in the living room but OF COURSE they're not peeing on them. Not that I'm complaining.

But they're turning into Bad Cats--leave a jacket on the ground? Fair game. Sophia leaves open some knitting in a box? Boom.

It's time to haul it all out and start again. I can see the advantage to my parents' moving schedule. I've lived here 13 years and it shows.

More to come. Scrub a dub.

8. I need a good mop

I have a beautiful kitchen floor. It is marmoleum, which is Forbo's reworking of the old-style linoleum. Many people use the word "linoleum" and mean any sort of sheet flooring, mostly vinyl products. But linoleum is a specific thing. It isn't vinyl. It is actually biodegradable. It is made of linseed oil and wood pulp, for the most part. When we replaced our kitchen floor, it was an excavation project--went through two layers of peel and stick vinyl (the very worst kitchen floor imaginable), a layer of plywood, a glued-down vinyl, another layer of underlayment of some kind, and below that, the original actual linoleum floor, this time sheet linoleum with a felt back, no worries about asbestos, a really pretty vintage mustard yellow and green checkerboard. I loved it, but my house had been a boarding house and badly abused--and this floor suffered greatly. So we used the original linoleum as the underlayment for the new click-together linoleum and I LOVE IT.

I love the feel under my feet, a bit of spring, so so smooth. We did a staggered chevron-esque pattern in a corn yellow and a nice subdued orange. The only problems I've ever had with it involve scratching on the yellow--but I have buffed them out with steel wool and then made sure my chairs had felt pads on the bottoms. No big thing. I have the refinishing fluid, too, under my sink, which I will eventually use to improve the shine on those buffed areas, but overall, this floor is my favorite thing.

I need a good mop. I had a sponge mop but hated it. Got a string mop but it was over-engineered and twisted against itself and that may be an improvement but I never felt like it was all it could be. Then I picked up a string mop without the new-fangledness...cheaply, and it worked fine until it got upended in the kitchen closet/bathroom and the cats decided it was close enough to the litter box to stand in as one in a pinch.

I got home from Florida and washed the floor on my hands and knees. It was very gratifying, and very clean afterward. Very. Maybe the cleanest it has ever been. But yeah. Don't want to do that too often. I was mopping the floor about 4 times a week, but I haven't washed it by hand in a week. It needs it, and so I'm gathering my rags up to go do it again here at naptime today, even though it's the spring thaw and the immediate result will be footprints from the backyard making me crazy. I need a good mop. Astrid suggested Home Depot for the industrial mop and bucket, which would be perfect...except I would then need a place to store the wringer bucket. Hmm. Any ideas?

3. Put Up or Shut Up

That was the runner up title for this blog. Either do something or stop talking about it. But there's a pun there, because canning is sometimes referred to as "putting up for the winter." In the end, I quilt more than I put up jam and pickles, and so "ease in fullness" was the title. More on that another time.

But this is my "Put Up or Shut Up" Quilt. I made it for my sister Colleen this past Christmas. Only two photos here, neither of them really that good, alas (December was a busy time). A long time ago I purchased, on a whim, a kit to make a jar quilt. The shtick was using novelty printed fabric of foods, cutting them into a general jar-like shape, putting a little rectangle on top for the lid, and putting these blocks all in rows like they were on a shelf. I found the idea cutesy and endearing, but it aged in my unfinished objects pile (UFOs).

My sister Colleen, my youngest sibling, lives in Columbia, Missouri with her boyfriend Tim. They play bike polo and get tattoos. She works at a library and he works at a local TV station. They live in a little house I've actually never seen but heard described. I'm thinking probably a lot like me and Mike when we were starting out, when "shabby chic" would have been stretching the definition.

But unlike many of her generation (we are of different generations, seriously, I'm firmly in Gen X and she's whatever you want to call the people who come after that), she sews and cooks and cans. I taught her canning, both she and Tim, one summer afternoon with jalapeno jelly. She has the beginnings of a garden and it's all so quirky and anti-traditional and I love the idea.

So this quilt says "Put up or shut up" along one side; the jars of random food (whole watermelons, for instance, and in one case, a pair of garden gnomes) in the middle, and the other side has a few vignettes from housekeeping: a woman ironing, a woman cooking, a woman taking a bath. The border is clothesline fabric with a variety of unmentionables hanging on the line. The back? pictures of vintage patterns.I barely quilted it, since this year was about the snuggly quilt (except Bevin's, but more on that later). I wanted these quilts to get carried to the couch and napped under, not hung on a wall and never touched. Not prize winners. Just fun stuff. But each jar on the quilt says something, mostly writing out the word "Kerr" or "Ball." But some, like the watermelon jar, say other things, like "WTF?" or just a question mark. Because the kit really stretched the idea of what one might possibly can. Whole radishes. Onions. Grapes still in bunches. Hence, I added the gnomes. I would put gnomes in a jar. Especially those two sly ones.

1. Hobbies & Chores

Some of what I do around the house is in the category of chore: mopping the kitchen, vacuuming, folding laundry, doing dishes. But some is in the category of hobby: sewing, quilting, cooking, knitting, photography. Some items fall into both groups, like organizing and rehabbing tasks (painting is more of a hobby, but being the second man on a job that Jake is in charge of is definitely a chore--and yes, I'm using the same pseudonyms on this blog that I have in the past).

Today is the first full day we are home after our vacation to Florida. It is a day of chore.

1. Mop the kitchen floor. My mop is defunct, so this task was completed on my hands and knees with rags and a sink full of hot soapy water. I love my kitchen floor and do not mind this task, but I would hardly call it a hobby. Mental note: buy a new mop.

2. Laundry. Laundry is always a chore at my house because the washing machine and dryer are in the basement; one line is in the basement and one (not this season of course) is in the yard. The ironing board and iron and all those supplies are on the second floor. Laundry gets folded in the library (second floor with the computer) or on one of the beds. And laundry gets put away on the first, second, and third floors. It is an exhausting neverending task. The only household chore I truly despise. Truly.

3. Figure out what to cook for dinner. While cooking is a hobby I enjoy, we currently have no food in the house, having emptied it out pre-vacation. So today's dinner will be pantry-based. That's fine, although my pantry isn't as stocked as it will be this time next year (it's one of this year's goals). I think I can create a spaghetti & red sauce with mushrooms. And a peach cobbler made of frozen peaches from the CSA. Maybe a carrot slaw? Hmm.

4. Tidy. Tidy tidy tidy. Wander through the house picking things up and putting them away.

5. Mail sorting. Ugh. The phone table in my front hall? Not my best attempt at feng shui, let me tell you. Right now it's a random pile of important tax papers, an overdue sewer bill (my sewer bill is always overdue), school things, netflix envelopes, and who know what else. That's my next task, actually. Heading down there now while Billy naps on my bed under a corduroy blanket I made several years ago (hobby). No time for that today. Perhaps tomorrow.