Psychotomy

Kiir and DK went to visit her family. Left Saturday morning. K and I have 10 days to ourselves.

Of course, the last two times they went, I was supposed to clean. The first time I did about 60-90 minutes of cleaning a night, then kindof got swept into Bioshock … Kiir was unimpressed with my complete lack of cleaning.

The second time we had started playing EQ2 again. And I spent the WHOLE time playing EQ2. I got like 5 levels or something. But I did ZERO cleaning. Oops. Kiir was less than unimpressed. She was downright pissed. Because I’d said I’d clean, and then I didn’t.

So the house has been kindof sitting in it’s own filth for months. And since DK started in with the blueberries, raspberries, blackberries … sure, he eats other things, but they don’t stain NEAR as bad. And those stains have been ground into the carpet for months. Because he kindof drops berries here and there, then someone steps on them, and then it just keeps setting. And the living room has been full of toys. And we still can’t use the basement because it’s still full of crappagio.

SO! The Great Purge ™ of 2008

I started by trimming the yard (not really functional as part of cleaning the house, but it needed it). Then moved up the stuff to the attic. The end table from the living room (DK has taken to using it like uneven bars and leveraging himself over the top and then trying to flip before landing headfirst ….). The ottoman (which had already been removed from the living room so we had SOMEWHERE for walking). The spare bookshelf from the basement. And the one from DK’s room (we screwed down two in his room, but we decided the third one was a little too crowded). K’s twin bed (It was in K’s room, then we broke down that bed, and then it was in DK’s room, until we got DK’s new bed (interesting fact: it went in K’s room where the old bed came out ; lol)). All of that went up to the attic. Attic is kindof getting full-ish. It’s <50% but it’s awkward and annoying now, and I can’t really USE the whole thing because it’s mostly just the insulation and no boarding for walking on ; I can manage in the first half, but moving things past that requires more forethought than I put in initially)

So, that was done by around noon yesterday. Took out a box of books to the library in the afternoon. Took a rack and a broken shelf unit to the dump, along with a few other things.

Picked up all the bits from the living room, organized DK’s toys. Blocks. Wooden toys. Plastic toys. Crappagio. Then tossered the crappagio bin ;) All in all, about 1 trashbag full of things from the living room.

Then brought boxes up from the basement to organize, so I could watch some TV while I worked. Consolidated 6 boxes into 2 keep. Filled another bin with trash. Then went through the shred bin. Filled ANOTHER box with the envelopes :o And anothe trash bag (for recyc) with shred. WHEE

Brough up the box of harddrives to check out, which was kidnof a PITA since the power plug on HDDs is just a nuisance to keep taking off. Out of ~30 HDDs, found ~10 that were dead (no response, or disturbed clicking noises :o) Found another 5 that looked like they had stuff I might want to keep (files from my computer in college that I’m not sure I’ve ever recovered to any current machine) and kiir’s last computer. Set them aside.

This morning I went to the basement to work, filled up ANOTHER trashbag with junk. Filled ANOTHER recyc bin with “stuffage”, mostly game manuals and boxes and the like. Have enough stuff for another box of stuff to take to the dump (they have a fabric recyc program, and I have torn sheets .. we kept them initially because they were REALLY NICE sheets … but they don’t make the cut in the Great Purge). Tossered all the audio tapes I found. Because I don’t even have anythign that can PLAY audio tapes anymore. And they’ve been collecting dust downstairs for 5+ years … I don’t think we’re in a hurry to find them. Collected together all the CCGs. Haven’t decided how to deal with them yet. Part of me says rubbish bin. Part of me wants to sell them because they have to have SOME value. So right now they’re on the fence. Purge rules say rubbish. Logical sense suggests retention for IMMEDIATE sale. Of course, a bunch of them are Kiir’s, so I won’t make that decision without her input, so they’ll survive the purge on that basis if nothing else.

Broke out the carpet shampooer, and started on the living room … and it did nothing. Went out, got a brush, broke out the shampoo sprayer for the good vac, then scrubbed it in like supposed to. After some experimentation I managed to get it to loosen up the bigger chunks. Tried the shampooer again, no luck. Broke out the carpet shampoo attachment for the Kirby vac (figured out HTF to use it), and went with that. Did a good job in the living room, didn’t seem to be foaming in the dining room, not sure what happened. But everything seemed to get tolerably cleaned. Cleared out the upstairs hall and took the vac and the shampooer up and did that hall. Not sure how good that worked, might try the kirby attachments again tomorrow, up there now. OTOH, I’m out of shampoo for both systems, so I’m also going to have to think about just faking it with the shampooer (not willing to do that with the big expensive vac , since the formula they have is “dry foam” and I’m thinking “regular soap” might not be a reasonable substitution)

Shoulder’s been killing me all day, though, so I took the evening off and played CoV and managed to get the olympics on my mac. WHEE! day 2, 50 mile hike!

Posted in: DK, general, house by attriel /