Yesterday afternoon, I wrapped up with work a couple of hours early and I headed out to Dave’s to help with house-cleaning. I was going to drive past my salon on my way, so I called to see if they could squeeze me in for a quick eyebrow wax. This was a particularly important task on my to-do list, because both my mom and my sister are going to be in town next week, and they tend to chase me around the house with tweezers if my eyebrows are less than perfect. The salon had an opening right when I was passing them, so I exited the freeway and drove over. Fifteen minutes, twenty bucks and a few tears later (I didn’t cry, but my eyes always water when they yank the wax off), I was well-groomed and back in the car headed out to Duvall.

Since Sunday, Dave got all the trim painted in the living room & dining room, and it looks really great. I got started working on the floors downstairs, while Dave fixed the toilet in the guest bath (it works now! Hooray!) and painted the trim in the guest room. I cleaned the floor in the laundry room, which was kind of horrifying. Ever try to mop dried detergent off of a linoleum floor? It’s sticky and messy, I wouldn’t recommend it. Next was the laminate floor in the living/dining room, which was easy, it just needed to be swept. (I love that stuff that we installed.) Then there was the real hardwood floor in the foyer, hall, breakfast room and kitchen, which was a whole different story. Ok, so first I swept it. Then I went around with a bottle of Simple Green and sprayed all of the stains on the floor (mostly spilled paint from other household projects). Then I took a metal scrubber sponge (kind of like steel wool) and scrubbed the aforementioned stains off the floor. Thank god for the rubber gloves we bought the weekend before, because that was a truly gross task. A lot of the bigger stains had to get sprayed two or three times before they’d come up, so I’m guessing I spent probably an hour on my hands & knees scrubbing the floor. (Very Cinderella-esque image, no?) I used almost an entire bottle of Simple Green. Then, after that was done, I had to mop the floor to get up whatever dirt was left over. Whee!

The hard part was keeping the cats out during all of this. Not that they’d bother me, but those cleaners tend to be toxic, and I didn’t want them to run across the floor and then later ingest the chemicals when they licked their feet. So Beaumont & Cleo were put in Dave’s bedroom with the door closed, and Greta was outside. She kept coming up to the door while I was mopping, and I felt bad about not letting her in because it was damn cold outside last night, but she came in after the floor was dry, and all was well. The cats seem kind of distressed that there have been all of these changes made to their house lately (Beaumont in particular), but I’m sure they’ll adjust ok. Cats are like humans, we’re all routine-based creatures that (mostly) don’t like change.

Anyway, the white trim in the newly-lavendar guest room is beautiful. I need to get a picture of it, it’s such a cute room now. We put Dave’s old bed in there (which kind of takes away from the cuteness of the room, but oh well), and hung some art in there. There was still come clutter around the house that needed to get put away when I left last night (at midnight), but overall the house is looking really good. I hope his mom is happy – she’ll be arriving in about an hour.

Oh, about the subject line. This may just be one of those things that struck me as funny because it was so late at night and I was exhausted. Dave and I were taking the tape off of the borders in the guest room and I told him about this quiz I took that predicts when you’ll die. It told me that I’ll die when I’m 69, and my most likely cause of death is homicide. Dave said something like “Well, now that I know that Simply Green cleans up blood stains, I could off you much sooner than that.” I started laughing and told him that it’s called Simple Green, not Simply Green. It’s not like the band Simply Red. (Oh, and we learned about the blood stains because we read the label before we started using it, NOT because Dave has blood stains on his floor. Honestly. And Dave isn’t going to off me, it was a joke.)

Yeah. I think you probably had to be there. And hysterical exhaustion wouldn’t hurt.

So, this morning I woke up in a world of hurt. My back is killing me, probably from being on all fours while I was scrubbing the floor, but I’ve also noticed that my posture when I’m mopping is not that great, so I’m sure that didn’t help. My muscles in my legs are sore from running up & down the stairs a hundred times. (Fine, at least I know that’s good for me.) I also have a couple of small injuries (blister on my finger, scrape on my foot, etc.), which is pretty typical for any major household project that I’m involved in. The klutz gene never lets me escape these types of things unscathed. But worst of all is that my face is swollen and I can barely breathe. I’m sure that it’s an allergic reaction from all of the dust and chemicals that I inhaled last night, but man, I felt like hell. I took a couple of different cold medications this morning, which has helped a lot. So if this post seems a bit rambling – don’t blame me, it’s the decongestants talking.