Dondy154

Since I made an entry for this goal earlier today I swept my room and the easily accessible parts of the library (My bedroom opens into our upstairs parlour which is where we store many of our books so we refer to it as the library), shook out and swept the cats sleeping blanket, shook and then swept my own rug, put away the last batch of laundry, found a source for the sheet music to play Douce Dame Jolie (no, not related to cleaning at all.) This feels like the maintenance work is good, not barely adequate.

Following all that I hung up the bodhrans -the one on the right should go over about six inches to make it look balanced, and tried a way of blocking the light in the crack between the fireplace and my cupboard – My cupboard is really a cheap wardrobe, so what I did was just shove a bunch of stuff along the pole towards the fireplace so that the rickety old thing leaned in that direction -which, I think will have blocked the crack!

Now I am feeling happily productive. And I’m not even up late!

12. DONE!!! Hang up the bodhrans

15. DONE!!! Block the crack between the fireplace and my wardrobe

So what I have left is:

1. Pack up the model ship and the other things that are meant to go to the Sally Anne and take them. (I brought a bag upstairs that I can take them in but it was too heavy to carry it in, and besides now there is an old TV to go too, so I will have to take a taxi…)

5. Find a place to put all the books that are stacked in the library. (Will probably have to build a new bookcase and find a place to put it. We have a few planks, maybe even enough planks, so might just need minimal hardware. It could probably go in the gaming room since the books are my dh’s home printed books.)

6. Put away all the books in dd18’s room. (These are mostly paperbacks and books we’ve had for a long time that have places where they can go.)

8. Set up a memory corner for my old desk and bureau, books and toys and pictures.

9. Find a good place to hang my aprons and hang them.

10. Put up some hooks on the wall in the kitchen to hang the broom and dustpan and brushes and cleaning equipment.

11. Sort the pantry

14. Call the plumber and get the leaky sewer pipe and the busted shut off valve replaced.

8 out of fifteen are left. I am almost half way through my list!

I have an expedition planned to go to town and get a few things, notably fabric and grommets to build some stays and a plecostomus for my baby daddy’s birthday present but also the brackets that would make building a bookcase for my dd18 much easier.

I am also going to call the plumber again and just mention that it smells like rotten eggs when I run the washer and drain it into a bucket, (spin cycle only after I have wrung everything out because the clothes I wash in the bathtub are still too wet to put into the dryer) which I kinda think could mean we have sewer gas coming into the house, which is Not A Good Thing but which might be enough to get him actually over here this week. Anyway, I can hope.

I think one reason I am generally a happy little idiot is because my standards are so appallingly low. Having to wash the clothes in the bathtub doesn’t make me unhappy because I think of people in the Georgian era (Colonial era, for Americans) who had only a wooden washtub or something and I feel tremendously lucky to have a nice cast iron bathtub and running water and a drain anywhere in the house at all. My new method of washing laundry means I only have to carry one fifteen litre bucket up a single flight of stairs and empty it. No hardship at all!

This weekend I cooked up pork and beans in the slow cooker, and made a huge spaghetti -three packages of spaghettini went into it – and I did three batches of laundry, which is not a simple nor a swift task, given that it is being done in the bathtub. I also ran the dishwasher twice and emptied it. But I haven’t done much real cleaning. I would like to do more, sweeping at least.

I’ve thought of a last goal for my list of fifteen – plug the gap between the chimney and the cupboard where light comes into my room. I am not sure what to plug it with. A folded blanket should probably work, but then of course I have something that collects dust.

I got some hardware for putting up the brooms and mops and dustpan stuff. I did the cat pans. I swept the bathroom. My bed has been made… but nothing I can call real satisfying progress. I cleaned up after both my cooking sessions, and all of the family cooking so the kitchen is not bad.

My babydaddy asked me what projects I wanted to get to this weekend and when I told him he went and emptied our rain barrel so it wouldn’t freeze and brought me up a plank to go behind the hardware. So I can take satisfaction in knowing that he contributed too.

I may not have made a bunch of progress but I am not letting things go to rack and ruin either.

I’ve wandered off to Australia to see what it is like here compared to Canada. The answer is pretty similar. They are both part of the British Empire and the British influence is pronounced. I’m in the town of Adelaide, and enjoying the spaciousness. Old cities don’t have wide streets like this. They have narrow windy streets that were laid down by a wandering cow,

It’s hard to describe but there seems to be a difference between public and private spaces compared to what I know in my own time. For example, you see how the vehicles are all parked in the middle of the street. People are much more territorial somehow. People sweep the street in front of their own house, and people are much more apt to issue orders to other people. The culture is changing. That’s what makes it so much of an adventure.