And one thing led to another…

I am joining my family for a few days in the mountains soon and needed to pack my suitcase. Said suitcase lives on a luggage rack in my bedroom and as I to and fro, sometimes only needing a night’s affairs, sometimes 2 and very seldom more, things end up in it instead of getting put away. The suitcase is never empty and of course each trip being slightly different, there can be many mundane items, none of which are needed for the upcoming trip.  Such was the case this time, I will not have the occasion to need my swimsuit or bonnet so took them downstairs to rejoin the “swim sack” in the front closet.

 

Talk about opening up a can of worms: that led to emptying out the closet as the swim sack was in the far corner, which in turn led to the discovery of a sack full of stuff for the car, along with many other collected sacks, both paper and plastic. That meant sorting those, half to join the plastic bags in the cellar, half to be given to the local mini grocer who can use them for customers.

 

The later thus needed to go in the car…

Open trunk, see mess, decided that it too needs sorting, well that led to not only sorting, but having to vacuum, which in turn meant that the windows were too dirty. You get the picture.

 

Fortunately at about that point, with the suitcase emptied and ready to re-pack, with the hall cupboard clean, the car as well, my younger son needed a lift to the bus stop (I had proposed it in the interests of his not having to take two hours to get to his point of departure) and I was able to stop. Such a productive morning happens rarely, but then such is life that one thing leads to another and if one is lucky many more. Making progress.

 

I wish that this last were true!
 

Holidays and Sundays =

Clean out the refrigerator or freezer days!

Not quite sure why it is, but I never seem to actually plan cleaning out either the fridge or the freezer: I just have breakfast at home, then all of a sudden think “bing” “light bulb”, “oh, I could clean the fridge/freezer”.

There seems to be no rhyme nor reason, but maybe there doesn’t need to be one.

Today (the only people in the world who have this holiday: “Jeune Genevois” are those of us living in the canton of Geneva: an official “fasting” day is enjoyed by the rest of the Swiss on another Monday in September, but we have it the first Thurs. after the first Sunday of September) I can legally (oh the things we need to justify our holidays or taking time off from the “normal” daily activities, but that’s another blog) not do my usual so clean the refrigerator it was.

Things are now, not only clean, but also neat, tidy and labeled (have I taken it a step too far?) so I’ll probably reward myself with a walk up to a junk fast-food joint (no names shall cross my lips).

But first I had perhaps better go get dressed: yep that seems to be part of the pattern as I can’t remember ever cleaning the refrigerator on purpose or after I have gotten dressed for the day: somehow it is always linked with Sunday or a holiday and follows having breakfast at home (those of you who know my daily patterns will also realize that refrigerators and freezers obviously don’t get cleaned often in my house!).

Thank goodness for Holidays and Sundays, without which the funny, fuzzy things inhabiting my refrigerator would be even more unidentifiable!

Before - although I had already cleaned one shelf before I thought to take the picture.

some of the condiment assortment

After: clean, labelled, neat.

Those “to dos”

and trivia.

As I wrote the last paragraph of yesterday’s blog, I had the fleeting thought: oh no, this has set me up for now "having" to do something to report as to whether or not I actually did or didn’t “do” Ah the way we require too much of ourselves.

What it did was free me from working on anything smacking of book keeping, tax reporting, assembling of documents for administrative items. Instead I headed towards the attic and re-shuffled some of those famous cupboards. Out with all the old pieces and bits of curtains, sheets and cloth that I had left in the one cupboard for insulation: in with the leftover pillows and linens from my housemates daughter. Insulation effect the same and I freed up a cupboard to use for some of the other items hanging around as a result of my son’s return home (o.k. he didn’t – he left for South America subletting his flat – so it’s just the “stuff”) and my having disposed of a bed in same said attic.

6 sacks of cloth for the container in the village, too bad these "clever bags" didn't actually do the work!

I face the week and Monday with a small feeling of accomplishment, freeing me to attack all that paper work.

But before: a few bits of “trivia” to entertain you should you too find yourself in need of knowledge that has nothing to do with anything needing accomplishing today or this week:

From my Trivia Calendar: "What is a young frog called when it grows out of its tadpole stage but has not yet reached adulthood?"  "A froglet" …wouldn’t it be fun to apply the same to our children: no more teenagers, but rather “childrenlets” or “adultlets”.

From an old Maxine calendar: “Considering the hectic pace of life these days, it’s amazing how many people still find time to annoy me.”

"Never confuse motion with action". -Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)

The medicine cabinet And waiting for the washer.

About twice a year when my housemate returns to her “nest”, cleaning off her shelf in the medicine cabinet, and I happen to be in town for a longer period, I can no longer ignore the dirt and dust gathered on all the shelves, which in turns niggles me until I finally do something about it… or the cleaning lady does (we have the bad habit of not closing the medicine cabinet as it allows one to do one’s hair every so much easily!)

This, like cleaning kitchen cabinets, happens to be something that I do on a lazy Sunday morning. This past one was no exception and after an hour of emptying, sorting, tossing, cleaning, I am now the proud possessor of a clean medicine cabinet – for at least the week or 10 days before the dust again starts to accumulate.

Being in the bathroom, one notices the towels and washcloths, which reminded me of the total lack of the possibility of washing said items – since 10 days!

Due to my machine’s breaking down late on a Friday night I couldn’t call until Monday then that was the week that my supplier was getting together their stand for the our autumn fair and could it wait until Monday the 11^th. As I have sufficient (o.k. too many) clothes, I said yes – so promised to be home to receive the new machine all day.  They came mid-afternoon and I am in the process of catching up on that pile of laundry.

PCS

It seems to me that some days ago – I am currently living my life instead of just blogging it – I mentioned PCS would follow WPS the next day: well if the activities did, the recounting of them didn’t!

PCS = Plumbing Cleaning and Sorting

The first involved looking for a wrench (a specific one, which seems to have disappeared into that wide world known as sons), then not finding said item, buying a new one.

Then it was turn off the water mains, which led to showing my housemate where they were and how to turn them off, just in case it were ever necessary (she’s only shared my house part-time for 8 years now, but it’s never too late to learn the essentials).

Finally I could get down to business, i.e. taking apart the water faucet up in the attic to see why the hot water was not coming in properly: couldn’t find anything, but did learn that if one turned it on full force – and only towards the hot – that it actually was plenty warm for a bath – now to communicate that to all visitors.

Cleaning, kind of didn’t get very far: does one shelf and one drawer in the kitchen count?

Sorting, more or less the same as cleaning although I have a great system. When I feel like I am drowning in paper and “things”, I get out a piece of white paper and write on it several columns: 20 pieces of paper to be thrown out; 10 pieces of paper to be filed; 5 objects to sort, toss or put away; a twenty-minute walk; 5 documents, newspaper articles, etc. to be scanned.  If I do that every day for a week it actually does make a difference and sometimes I even do more than the required.

Do I still need to have a real plumber look at the bathtub? Do I still have a ton of things to clean and sort? Yes, but just writing about them may motivate me to do them…

Then again, tomorrow is another day so think I'll go take that walk instead!

Swans on Lac Leman