Mother's Day = more dusting
Round two of cleaning started a little later today. Mom had bought a tube of cinnamon rolls. I wanted to be sure I was downstairs by 7:30 to make them; she was surprised I was up that early. (Also a surprise: When I heard mom coming downstairs and I said, "Good morning!" And the first voice answering was my dad's from the couch. He'd been snoring about a minute earlier.)
Mom implored me not to burn the rolls, as this is a common occurrence apparently (we don't make these often; she might be thinking back to her childhood, really). She had me use the nonstick pan temperature since that was lower and that seemed to make things okay, though she said next time I should wait to put the icing on because "it's not white!" and it ran off the tops of the rolls and pooled on the bottom. She also likes her rolls more on the soft side, whereas I was looking to bake them to a golden brown like the package suggested. Okay, I'll try to remember all that in five years when we next make these.
After that, I went back to cleaning. This was the easier part of the task in some ways, since one wall's basically my closet doors, and the other wall has my bed and the windows, so there are fewer tchotchkes to clean. I did wipe down the blinds, and that was a big task, but aside from that the hardest part was pulling the stuff out from under my bed so I could vacuum. This is probably the first time I've vacuumed under there since I got the bed in 2017. And then it was a matter of figuring out what to put back under the bed and what could go elsewhere, and in the case of my insurance information from 2007, what could get recycled. One thing different about today was that I didn't use my label maker. I had pulled that out to label all my cords by my TV yesterday, which included new batteries--though the machine tells me "BATTERIES!" about every time I use it for some reason; turn it off and back on and it works fine--as well as replacing the tape. I did have a replacement, which is good, but I use it so infrequently that I'm not sure I would buy more tape the next time I run out. But we'll see; that's about a decade down the line.
I moved a bunch of stuff out into the hallway in order to vacuum; it's still there. I'm not sure how much of it I want to put back. I've just accumulated so much stuff, it's no wonder some of it has just been sitting on my floor for ages. For example, I'd had some items piled in this small area between my bed and one of my shelving units; this is under one of the windows. I'd had to move them out of the way last summer when dad replaced my screens and needed to access my windows. I never put the stuff back and it's been sitting on the floor in front of my dresser ever since. Yeah...I need to do something about that. It's been so nice to *not* have crap on the floor this weekend. I need to keep it that way! I'm still not done, though I did at least clean off my bed from earlier today--only because it was laundry day and I needed to put my sheets back on. I still have to find homes for a lot of things and I probably won't finish that tonight, but it's okay. I've made a lot of progress.
In the middle of that, we made our weekly phone call to grandma. She's doing okay and was thrilled that mom had gotten a birthday card from her brother that included a letter inside, never mind that mom's birthday is still a couple weeks away. Grandma about thinks that the roommate dictated the items in the letter to my uncle, rather than him having his own thoughts and being able to coherently put them in the card. That...seems really odd to me. I mean, it wasn't like it was a pleasant letter; it was complaining about how people suck during the current circumstances. And it's clearly his handwriting so it's not like the roommate wrote it up and stuck his name on it. Weird. But grandma was delighted anyway. His birthday was in late April and mom not only sent him a card, but wrote him something, too, so he's just reciprocating. That's, you know, a normal adult thing to do. I get that he's not entirely a normal adult, but he can fake it when he needs to. Anyway, grandma's birthday is coming up, and I have kind of a depressing thought about a gift for her--I could make her a mask or two. She only has one, a disposable medical mask, which mom gave to her, and it'll only last so long. I think my other uncle and aunt ordered theirs online. This might be a nice idea for her, and she'll appreciate that it's homemade. I've since spent some time looking at fabric on Joann's website to see what they have. I don't know that I'll pull the trigger and order any, but it's good to know that some of it can be ordered online and picked up at the store for free, rather than having it shipped to my house for a charge. I may check with mom to see if she has any fabric preferences. It's a two-yard minimum if you order online. That's...a lot of masks.
Mom implored me not to burn the rolls, as this is a common occurrence apparently (we don't make these often; she might be thinking back to her childhood, really). She had me use the nonstick pan temperature since that was lower and that seemed to make things okay, though she said next time I should wait to put the icing on because "it's not white!" and it ran off the tops of the rolls and pooled on the bottom. She also likes her rolls more on the soft side, whereas I was looking to bake them to a golden brown like the package suggested. Okay, I'll try to remember all that in five years when we next make these.
After that, I went back to cleaning. This was the easier part of the task in some ways, since one wall's basically my closet doors, and the other wall has my bed and the windows, so there are fewer tchotchkes to clean. I did wipe down the blinds, and that was a big task, but aside from that the hardest part was pulling the stuff out from under my bed so I could vacuum. This is probably the first time I've vacuumed under there since I got the bed in 2017. And then it was a matter of figuring out what to put back under the bed and what could go elsewhere, and in the case of my insurance information from 2007, what could get recycled. One thing different about today was that I didn't use my label maker. I had pulled that out to label all my cords by my TV yesterday, which included new batteries--though the machine tells me "BATTERIES!" about every time I use it for some reason; turn it off and back on and it works fine--as well as replacing the tape. I did have a replacement, which is good, but I use it so infrequently that I'm not sure I would buy more tape the next time I run out. But we'll see; that's about a decade down the line.
I moved a bunch of stuff out into the hallway in order to vacuum; it's still there. I'm not sure how much of it I want to put back. I've just accumulated so much stuff, it's no wonder some of it has just been sitting on my floor for ages. For example, I'd had some items piled in this small area between my bed and one of my shelving units; this is under one of the windows. I'd had to move them out of the way last summer when dad replaced my screens and needed to access my windows. I never put the stuff back and it's been sitting on the floor in front of my dresser ever since. Yeah...I need to do something about that. It's been so nice to *not* have crap on the floor this weekend. I need to keep it that way! I'm still not done, though I did at least clean off my bed from earlier today--only because it was laundry day and I needed to put my sheets back on. I still have to find homes for a lot of things and I probably won't finish that tonight, but it's okay. I've made a lot of progress.
In the middle of that, we made our weekly phone call to grandma. She's doing okay and was thrilled that mom had gotten a birthday card from her brother that included a letter inside, never mind that mom's birthday is still a couple weeks away. Grandma about thinks that the roommate dictated the items in the letter to my uncle, rather than him having his own thoughts and being able to coherently put them in the card. That...seems really odd to me. I mean, it wasn't like it was a pleasant letter; it was complaining about how people suck during the current circumstances. And it's clearly his handwriting so it's not like the roommate wrote it up and stuck his name on it. Weird. But grandma was delighted anyway. His birthday was in late April and mom not only sent him a card, but wrote him something, too, so he's just reciprocating. That's, you know, a normal adult thing to do. I get that he's not entirely a normal adult, but he can fake it when he needs to. Anyway, grandma's birthday is coming up, and I have kind of a depressing thought about a gift for her--I could make her a mask or two. She only has one, a disposable medical mask, which mom gave to her, and it'll only last so long. I think my other uncle and aunt ordered theirs online. This might be a nice idea for her, and she'll appreciate that it's homemade. I've since spent some time looking at fabric on Joann's website to see what they have. I don't know that I'll pull the trigger and order any, but it's good to know that some of it can be ordered online and picked up at the store for free, rather than having it shipped to my house for a charge. I may check with mom to see if she has any fabric preferences. It's a two-yard minimum if you order online. That's...a lot of masks.