Then by the time dinner was ready, we were all going to clean after dinner.

Then after bath, b/c kitty really enjoyed the chocolate pancakes :o

At which point we encountered the first bizarre definition of cleaning.  Kitty was hungry and tired, so he wanted to nurse and nap.  So Kiir went to nurse him while I took the other two to clean.  This is fairly standard.  ”We need to clean” generally translates to “You need to clean while Kitty nurses or naps on me”.

Get downstairs, and (issue the second) DK is asking when his Nonnie is coming to visit.  Apparently we really don’t make a big deal of CLEANING unless someone’s coming to visit.  He didn’t quite understand why we were cleaning if she wasn’t visiting.

Then he wanted to wait for mommy before cleaning, because she said we needed to clean so where is she!  I don’t know if he wanted her to help too or wanted her to see him so he got credit.  Either way, he was stalling :o

Issue the third?  Pi doesn’t really help.  And she was tired.

Eventually they were playing throw the pillow and play the drums while I cleaned some to finish the areas we had worked on.  Living room is at least “picked up”, if not actually “clean.”

This weekend “we are going to clean the kitchen!”  Fairly sure I don’t WANT the kids helping, and not sure it’s quite roomy enough for all of us anyway, so I imagine that will be “I’ll watch the kids while you clean the kitchen” :)

Initially I discovered the floor was wet, and I assumed the drain tub clogged and overflowed.  So I took my hanger-snake and dredged it some, but not near enough to have caused that kind of overflow.  So I threw drain cleaner down it, even though that almost never helps.  Then I turned the washer back on to drain some more and it was draining GREAT.  Problem solved.

Then last night I went to carpet-shampoo-er dry out the carpets, and I threw in a load of laundry while I worked, figuring I have a bunch of stuff that needs washing, even more after it flooded the stuff that was there. (it was dirty before, but now it was REALLY dirty, plus all the towels I tried to mop it up with initially)

After an hour and a half, kiir comes to see how I’m doing, and I’m noticing that things aren’t getting much better and I decide to break off for the night, because I swear it WAS getting better earlier.  So I go to swap the laundry before going up, and uh … there’s 1.5″ of water standing in the laundry area … and the clothes in the washer are really wet …, wtf?

So I partially refill the machine so I can run it on spin to see whats leaking.  And as I look in, I can see the water level … uh … going down … while it’s off … wait just a damned minute!

So today I stayed home and vac’d up the floor and carpets (carpet is starting to smell at this point, going to need to do some real shampooing once I get it tolerably dry)

Pulled it out, and the back, where all the hoses connect, is perfectly dry and still has all the dust that 9 years in the house has given it.  So it’s leaking from the inside out the bottom.  GREAAAAT.

We have an appt with a place to come out and take a look this weekend, give us an estimate at least.  Because decent washing machines?  are apparently in the 700-1000$ range!

It turns out the last 3 days have sucked. I have no energy, no drive. My get up and go got up and went when I had to drop Kiir at the airport (wasn’t even allowed to go in with them :/)

Sunday was the wedding, and DK with all the jumping left my arms exhausted. Monday when I got home I pulled vines from the yard. Did some general cleanup in the living room, reorganized the video drawer so its a lot of vids DK can watch instead of front loaded with Law and Order :)

Need to clean out the car today, of all the bits DK has left overs. Need to finish vacuuming and steaming. But I’ve been so damned drained, even the 10 minute process of vacuuming daunts me :/

I think I need to look at my meds, too. Because this? this is ridiculous.

Then early Sunday, Kiir, DK, and PI all left for atlanta. So there’s only me and K-line at home now. which is great, I can do various things that are hard when dealing with everyone. Hit the gym yesterday, ran the first oven through clean cycle, watched some TV and worked my way through about 8 boxes of stuff trying to sort and classify it. 3 boxes into the attic, two boxes trashed, and three still left to process. not bad.

The other major feature of this week is that, with no one else here, I can catch up on my sleep. In fact, my MIL and my wife were both very clear on two subjects:

1. I’m expected to clean this week
2. I am not to complain about being tired because she’s taking BOTH kids and so I can sleep all I want and dammit I better

Which is annoying. Because it’s not like I was planning on an 8-day bender or anything. I ALWAYS clean when she’s gone, and I ALWAYS try to catch up my sleep so I can handle DK (and now PI) more when she gets back tired.

Of course, the problem is that I’m so used to having someone else in the house (kiir since 99) and I’m used to sleeping in DK’s bed with him for hte last 6-9 months (and before that, he was in the bed with me and kiir) … I have trouble sleeping when it’s just me.

Don’t get me wrong, I catch up my sleep in the first two or htree nights when I’m trashed from exhaustion, but after that … I ended up watching TV and cleaning until 3am one time because that was when I was finally tired enough to contemplate laying in bed.

Well, apparently, it’s getting worse. I was exhausted yesterday. Falling asleep at my desk today, frankly. But I ended up going to bed at nearly midnight, which is when I USUALLY go to bed with DK already, so no bonus sleep. And even then I spent 45 minutes tossing in bed before I finally drifted out :/

At least I’m getting some cleaning done?

Well, technically, apparently he curled up with Mommy while PI was snuggled up, and took a nap for about half an hour. At 9 in the morning.

And apparently that partially counted. Because he was still up at 9. I took him upstairs once I decided he was obviously tired. He lay down, chanted nonononononono while curled up on the comforter … and passed out :o Tired.

Then he woke up about 10:30 (?) screaming and could only be soothed down by mommy. Then PI was screaming and we gave her a bath, hoping the warm water would help her stuffed up sinuses.

I went to bed about midnight afte doing a few other things (diaper laundry) and chatting with Kiir. Then about 2, more nightmares, more mommy. We swapped beds and I went to sleep in the bed with PI while Kiir went to sleep with DK.

Then about 3:30 or 4, PI started getting hungry, but I let Kiir get some more sleep and dozed with PI suckling my finger. Kiir came back over about 4:30, 5ish I took PI and went to lay down with DK. The PI got fussy and stuffy and screamy.

So I got up to take her back to Kiir, and DK almost woke up. So I just took PI downstairs and we hung out for a few hours until I left for work about 7:15 …

DK skipped his nap again today. He’s already in bed. I’m hoping to skip the nightmares part :(

• 13-15 bags of trash (13 bags, and then a handful of other things that didn’t fit in bags reasonably)
• 5 bags of recyclables
• 5 big collections of cardboard boxes
• 1 car full of electronics bits to the recyc
• 8 empty drano bottles, since the “household hazardous waste recycling” was open

So, not bad. Final analysis when kiir got home was that it was “decent”.

Eight bags of trash out on Wednesday. 4 bags of recyc sunday night.

Today I went to the dump again. Took three big boxes of electronics (including most of those harddrives from last week). An old desk chair. The Sun boxes & monitor that I’ve had since like 03 and never touched more than moving it from one storage region to another.

In the last week I’ve cleaned the living room to its core. And then cluttered it up again with bits from other cleaning. I cleaned the bedroom mostly and vac’d it. The basement is largely cleared. The kitchen is partially done.

Kitchen & Hallways are the priority for tomorrow. So tired of cleaning. Kiir told me to take the evening off. But I’m not sure it’s gonna be ‘done’ before they get back :/

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!

Living Room: Picked up ALL of DK’s toys and put them in the ‘storage’ bins we have on teh shelves. I think we need to go further and look through the bins, decide which toys to keep out and box up the rest for storage or donation or something. Because he has 6 or 7 1′ cubes filled with toys. And I’m not saying we should keep the three he plays with most or anything. Maybe we just need to rotate them out more often, I dunno. But some of them have been in the cabinets for months, which seems like either a waste or a shame. Vacuumed the carpet and mopped the hardwood, too, during naptime

Laundry: Did a load of diaper-related things. A day’s worth of diapers and then the rest of the load full of diapers wipes and burp cloths that were scattered around the floor gathering dust and food and such. Decided to just wash them and thus get them back in the circulation properly. Also did a load of towels, one of sheets, one of DK’s clothes, 4 of ours, and have another load of sheets to do when I strip the guest bed. Ran out of time, so leaving that for next week, since it’s just one load now. Plus the two sets of new sheets we have, but since one of those goes to DK’s new full bed, which we haven’t bought yet, I figure I’ve got time. And I don’t think we need our new flannel sheetset JUST yet.

K’s Room: Broke down the daybed in the room. I’ve tried to leave K’s room alone, so it wasn’t being taken over by the baby too, but …. First off, K spends most of his time in the living room, with the gate closed. So he doesn’t even get out to eat and drink whenever he chooses like he used to. Then upstairs there’s a gate on his door, to keep DK out of the room, since I didn’t sanitize it for a baby. I’m positive K can go over the gate if he chose. At least into the room. Not sure about out, since there’s only a couple feet between the door and the opposing wall, he might not be comfortable with out, but in he CAN do. He simply doesn’t. So he hasn’t used his room much in a year and a half, and not at all for 4-6 months now. So I suppose starting to change it over isn’t that big a problem to him, but it feels wrong to me :/

DK’s Room: Went through the dresser and boxed up all the heavier winterweight clothes. Also packed away most of his jackets. The number of times he’s going to need a sweat shirt or a wool coat in summer in MD … limited :o

Our Room: Cleaned out all the junk under the bed. Put away the two baskets of laundry from a couple weeks ago (Just in time to reuse the baskets for new laundry!) Cleared off the tops of the bookshelves and put up Kiir’s new TV (See other post). Took the bed off the rails so the boxspring sits directly on the floor. That part’s so DK can get off easier. Now he can actually almost look over the edge of the bed from a standign position, so when he slides off it’s not near as far a drop. Especially important when he’s not paying attention and tries to go off face first instead of feet.

Now I have two beds frames and a couple large boxes of clothes to take to the attic. Plus whatever’s still in the basement. Plus whatever we pick out next week :o

And the front grew weeds before the grass seed even germinated. Oi. but the back yard did a good job of staying clear. When we were out playing with the tye-die stuff that kiir’s talking about, back in late March, maybe?, it was nice and clear. Yay it worked!

Or did it? Turns out, no. When I looked out there like two weeks later, it was all regrowing. Even the miscellaneous bush (which, admittedly, I didn’t manage to dig out completely) was back. And I was looking because I was trying to figure out where to put Des’ new Water Table toy thingie.

Looks like ~125 to put weed netting over the front and back yards. Not sure it’s supposed to be used for that much space, but I think I’ll work with it anyway. Another 100 or so for the sod for the front (because the grass seed worked TERRIBLY last time, honestly, and I don’t want to go through a lot of effort and time for no result, again ; I’d rather play with my son, frankly). Need some kind of tiller to grind up the soil, IMO, which are exoensive (500-1000, and most of them will do my whole yard in one swath … if I had the riding mower to attach them to!), or rented (don’t know the price, but I’d probably have to rent the truck, which is like 50$/hr). Lowes has a portable cordless weed-whacker looking cultivator, which supposed turns the soil an’ all a few inches deep. 100$, sounds like what I want, no?

Then we want to expand the slab patio in the back. Pave a bit more yard so there’s a surface for Des. The stones we like, looks like ~200 do do a small chunk of the yard. And the yard is apparently much larger than it seems, b/c 10×10 is less than half the damned thing! WOW! but at 2.50 for 1×1, we’re leery of doing too much :/

yaknow, I may just go ahead and get the cultivator. I have no real use past the yard project, but I think it’d cost me as much, or more, to rent something. I’ll also need to work over the weekend to dig out the remnants of bushes and trees in the back, I guess. Make sure they’re gone this time.