Whole-House Makeover: Update 1
1. CLEANING
DONE. The House Shining people came over last Friday and did their best with the kitchen for four hours. We have a whole new kitchen! They will be back next month on the 17th to do something else for four hours. Eventually all the grime will be scraped away from the entire house and we can just do NORMAL regular cleaning.
2. AIR FILTER
DONE. This one is winging its way to us right now! I am REALLY looking forward to this, because there is just so much freaking cat hair floating around all the time. And smells.
3. GET RID OF ANNIE'S SPARE DESK
DONE. I don't know why this was suddenly so easy, except for that "things happen in higher power's time not mine" thing. Because before, I had posted it on craigslist for money (no bites) and freecycle for free (no bites) and twitter/facebook (no bites) and maybe even Berkeley Parents' Network. Nada.
This time, I was looking at my mail and decided to wander over to freecycle to see if the plant I saw was still available. And I logged in, and it was all, "you have one post active". And I clicked through to see if I could re-post the desk (nope, you have to cancel and re-send: bogus) and lo, the picture of the desk was right there waiting for me to download it and use it to try craiglist again. I stuck it in "free" and had something like 10 inquiries within five hours. And the first one we called came over that night and hauled it away to use for college!
PLUS I cleaned the desks off and we put Annie's new desk in that spot right away instead of being like "Great! We'll finish this up sometime!"
4. ORGANIZE THE CLOSET
Yes, yes.
Well, I used the closet-organizing money for other household stuff, so next month we'll do this.
5. MAKE PLANTS BETTER
HALF-DONE. Last Wednesday I went to my old office downtown to clear my desk out. I made sure to finish by like 11 so that I could sneak out and go to IKEA and buy plants, because the idea of trying to cram plants in my co-worker's car in the morning didn't really appeal to me and I'd rather do it on a day when I'm driving my own car to work. So now I have a tall-ish plant in my doorway and a little round succulent on my desk, both labeled "money tree".
Next: I still need potting soil and to re-pot a bunch of seedlings and to re-pot these ones! MORE MORE MORE.
6. BARBECUE
Yeah we don't have that yet. I WANT RIBS
7. NEW LITTERBOXES
DONE. These ones are winging their way to us! Next: we'll have to go buy clay litter in bulk and see how it compares to buying clay litter at Pet Food Express. Or we could just buy it at Pet Food Express, where the people are nice, the store is independent, and everything is "buy 3 get 4 free" all the time.
8. ROOMBA SCHEDULER
It's actually like $400 if we get one at Hammacher Schlemmer, which is a really awesome place to catalog-browse and which has an "unconditional lifetime guarantee". We'd have to save up for longer, but it would mean that anytime it breaks, (I've broken Roombas every possible way), they would just hand us a new one, no questions asked. So in the long run it's a lot of savings.
9. RUG FOR MY CUBICLE
And other decorations. Not done, except for the plants.
10. COIL-LESS MATTRESS I forget what I replaced that with in my head, besides "reducing EMFs". Getting the car cleaned?
10. GETTING THE CAR CLEANED OUT
DONE. It was so filthy you guys! The walnut tree above it gets all kinds of sap or whatnot on it, and plus I had filled the inside with stuff from Mandana. Crazy! Now it is clean inside and out, thanks to the sloppy-but-cheap folks at the 76 station on Broadway. It is SO nice to drive around in a vehicle with clear sparkling windows!
How's that for power and motivation?
DONE. The House Shining people came over last Friday and did their best with the kitchen for four hours. We have a whole new kitchen! They will be back next month on the 17th to do something else for four hours. Eventually all the grime will be scraped away from the entire house and we can just do NORMAL regular cleaning.
2. AIR FILTER
DONE. This one is winging its way to us right now! I am REALLY looking forward to this, because there is just so much freaking cat hair floating around all the time. And smells.
3. GET RID OF ANNIE'S SPARE DESK
DONE. I don't know why this was suddenly so easy, except for that "things happen in higher power's time not mine" thing. Because before, I had posted it on craigslist for money (no bites) and freecycle for free (no bites) and twitter/facebook (no bites) and maybe even Berkeley Parents' Network. Nada.
This time, I was looking at my mail and decided to wander over to freecycle to see if the plant I saw was still available. And I logged in, and it was all, "you have one post active". And I clicked through to see if I could re-post the desk (nope, you have to cancel and re-send: bogus) and lo, the picture of the desk was right there waiting for me to download it and use it to try craiglist again. I stuck it in "free" and had something like 10 inquiries within five hours. And the first one we called came over that night and hauled it away to use for college!
PLUS I cleaned the desks off and we put Annie's new desk in that spot right away instead of being like "Great! We'll finish this up sometime!"
4. ORGANIZE THE CLOSET
Yes, yes.
Well, I used the closet-organizing money for other household stuff, so next month we'll do this.
5. MAKE PLANTS BETTER
HALF-DONE. Last Wednesday I went to my old office downtown to clear my desk out. I made sure to finish by like 11 so that I could sneak out and go to IKEA and buy plants, because the idea of trying to cram plants in my co-worker's car in the morning didn't really appeal to me and I'd rather do it on a day when I'm driving my own car to work. So now I have a tall-ish plant in my doorway and a little round succulent on my desk, both labeled "money tree".
Next: I still need potting soil and to re-pot a bunch of seedlings and to re-pot these ones! MORE MORE MORE.
6. BARBECUE
Yeah we don't have that yet. I WANT RIBS
7. NEW LITTERBOXES
DONE. These ones are winging their way to us! Next: we'll have to go buy clay litter in bulk and see how it compares to buying clay litter at Pet Food Express. Or we could just buy it at Pet Food Express, where the people are nice, the store is independent, and everything is "buy 3 get 4 free" all the time.
8. ROOMBA SCHEDULER
It's actually like $400 if we get one at Hammacher Schlemmer, which is a really awesome place to catalog-browse and which has an "unconditional lifetime guarantee". We'd have to save up for longer, but it would mean that anytime it breaks, (I've broken Roombas every possible way), they would just hand us a new one, no questions asked. So in the long run it's a lot of savings.
9. RUG FOR MY CUBICLE
And other decorations. Not done, except for the plants.
10. COIL-LESS MATTRESS I forget what I replaced that with in my head, besides "reducing EMFs". Getting the car cleaned?
10. GETTING THE CAR CLEANED OUT
DONE. It was so filthy you guys! The walnut tree above it gets all kinds of sap or whatnot on it, and plus I had filled the inside with stuff from Mandana. Crazy! Now it is clean inside and out, thanks to the sloppy-but-cheap folks at the 76 station on Broadway. It is SO nice to drive around in a vehicle with clear sparkling windows!
How's that for power and motivation?