I love to read posts and sites and books about cleaning and organizing. I’ve read Marie Kondo’s books and watched her show. I’ve got every book Martha Stewart ever wrote. I even take those quizzes that tell you what kind of “cleanie” or “messie” you are (so much more fun than actually bleaching the grout in the bathroom). All the books and websites have such beautiful pictures about how things will look when you’ve cleaned and organized them, and how cute you’ll look wearing your apron and carrying your glass spray bottle.
Thing is, in the real world, that glass spray bottle gets broken in about three minutes, and then you have to clean up the glass, and then you don’t feel like cleaning whatever you originally set out to clean because you just spent fifteen minutes picking up glass shards and you’ve got a hand full of shallow cuts to bandage. I’ve realized, after mumble mumble years of cleaning, that the rules I follow (and that actually work) don’t appear in any cleaning manual I’ve ever read. For instance:
1. My mother’s favorite rule: Well, I’ve got this wet paper towel…
When I was growing up, my mother would start out to clean the kitchen table by wetting a paper towel and scrubbing the table. Then, she would look down at the sodden mass in her hand and say, “Well, I’ve got this wet paper towel…” and look around for something else to clean. Could be the stovetop, could be the entire inside of the refrigerator, could be my sister’s or my cheeks (often after the paper towel had been used to clean the kitchen table, the stovetop, and the entire inside of the refrigerator). She would keep cleaning until the paper towel was a bunch of shreds that, given all the things it had just sopped up, should probably have been disposed of by a Hazmat team.
I’ve found myself doing the same thing, although I will say you have to be careful what brand of paper towel you use. They don’t make them like they used to, and yes, I’m aware of how much I just turned into my mother. But there are worse fates, and at least my kitchen table, my stovetop, and the entire inside of my refrigerator are clean—not to mention my cheeks! Which cheeks, you ask? I’ll let you guess…
2. My favorite rule: As long as I’m up…
Despite being fascinated by all things housekeeping, I’m actually really lazy. I let dishes soak and tell myself I haven’t made my bed yet because I’m letting it air out. I’d rather sit on my sofa and binge watch shows that went off the air five years ago because I have to know what happens next! But I’ve gotten in the habit of, whenever I get up to refill my glass or use the bathroom or whatever, I’ll do something. I’ll wash the dishes, and then I’ll sit back down. Next time I get up, I’ll empty the trash, and then I’ll sit back down. Little by little, it all gets done.
I should add a caveat to this method: it greatly helps to have recurring bladder infections. When you have to get up to pee every half an hour, this method ends up being a lot more productive. Or you could just drink a lot. Oh, man, the perfect housekeeping method: The Lush! I foresee a bestselling book, possibly followed by a Netflix series. Marie Kondo, eat your heart out.
So that’s how I keep my house in somewhat decent shape most of the time. I’d post carefully curated pictures of my home, but I’ve had a few glasses of wine. When I get up to pee in a few minutes, I’m planning on wiping down the kitchen counters with a disinfectant spray. Fast and lemony fresh! Well, for the kitchen counters, anyway. For those of you trying The Lush method of housecleaning, I do recommend taking extra care to keep your cleaning equipment straight. Nothing worse than a Lysol wipe in the wrong place, amiright?
[Image credit: Image by klimkin on pixabay (no credit required, but a very cool picture and well worth checking out!)]
The release of the movie Bohemian Rhapsody got me thinking. Mostly, it got me thinking that, even though I love Queen with the devotion of the twelve year old girl I was when I discovered them, I’m really sick of seeing that biopic trailer every time I try to watch a video on YouTube. I was sitting through the trailer again the other day while waiting to watch a video of some random girl doing the dance from “Thriller” in full zombie makeup, and I started thinking about an article I’d read that said we spend roughly 2 years of our lives in the shower–or possibly 6 months, depending on (as far as I can tell) if you’re British or not. I started to wonder how many hours of my life I’ve spent watching the Bohemian Rhapsody trailer. Then I started to wonder how many hours of my life I’ve spent watching trailers for movies I’ll never see. Then I started to wonder how many hours of my life I’ve spent singing the song “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Then I got out the calculator. After that, things just kind of spiraled and–well, this happened:
I don’t really do product reviews on this blog, but it seems like everybody else does, which makes me feel like I’m missing out. So I’m starting a new feature: LBG’s Honest Reviews. I promise that, whatever I’m reviewing, I will give you my completely unbiased opinion, no matter how many people try to stop me. I will also make sure I thoroughly try out what I’m reviewing, so I can tell you all about it and you’ll be able to trust my conclusions, or at least understand them. With that in mind, I thought I would make my first review about something I’ve examined from every angle, something I’ve used multiple times and in multiple ways, something I can truly say I gave my all: my ex-boyfriend.
Once you have my ex-boyfriend back in your home and you’ve taken off the wrapper, you’ll find that he comes with several notable upgrades from the standard model. The one that’s proven the most popular is that he comes with his own guitar, which he can actually play quite well. Upon further exploration, his repertoire is mainly limited to country music and mullet rock, but his acoustic version of Warrant’s classic “Cherry Pie” will surprise you with its wistful acknowledgment of the fragility of innocence. Other pre-programmed features include: the ability to perform eerily good imitations of all the main cast members of Game of Thrones; an extensive familiarity with every film in the Saw franchise; and, for some reason, clogging.
Other things to consider when my ex-boyfriend sits down next to you in a bar include: he often makes an extremely unpleasant buzzing sound while recharging at night. It seems to come from his nasal area and resembles a kind of erratic, intermittent jack hammering, or possibly an exceptionally winded Darth Vader. It can be temporarily alleviated with a flailing slap on his upper arm, but it will almost inevitably start up again within ten minutes. There does not appear to be an update or patch in the works to remedy this minor but disproportionately annoying design flaw, probably because he will never actually admit it happens (he will also never admit that komodo dragons are real, no matter how many pictures, Wikipedia entries, or actual komodo dragons you show him, but he believes every word of The Da Vinci Code. Make of that what you will).
I don’t talk to my cats, because I’m not a crazy cat lady. Okay, I do talk to my cats, but I’m still not a crazy cat lady because they don’t answer me. In English. Yet. I worry that someday they will, though, and here are some of the things I’m afraid they might say to me:
Like with many people, my digestion has gotten a lot more talkative as I’ve gotten older. We don’t usually have extensive discussions unless I go to the seafood buffet, but I’ve become fluent enough to carry on a basic conversation in Gurglish (that’s what I’ve named the language of my alimentary canal). My small intestine, which is the chattiest of the bunch, likes to wait until I’m out in public and then tell me long stories about how much better things used to be in my gastrointestinal tract, with the other organs chiming in for emphasis. Here’s how the major players in my digestive system tell me it used to be in their salad days:
All right, all right, I’ll stop with the political diatribe (even though I’m right). What I really want to say is, when this many people strike me as being this rude, the devil’s advocate in me has begun to wonder if the one who’s really out of line is me. Are manners now meaningless? Are precepts of politeness simply passé? Do I demand too much decorum and thus doom myself to deportmental disappointment? Okay, okay, I’ll stop with the alliteration (and the made-up words). All I ask in return is that you take this quiz designed by experts (me) to tell if I’m unduly uppity (sorry) or if people just really are that rude.
Positive affirmations used to annoy the crap out of me. “Tomorrow is bringing good things my way”? How do you know? I want proof. I want bar graphs and pie charts. (I may just want pie; I’m a little hungry.) I’ve finally learned the secret of positive affirmations, though— it’s totally okay to just make them up. They’re like lullabies: no one actually expects to get all the pretty little ponies. You just go with it because it’s less likely to give you nightmares than singing about getting all the nasty little tax bills.
I do my best philosophical thinking while I’m folding laundry. The other day, as I folded yet another fitted sheet and realized both that I actually know how to fold a fitted sheet, and also that there is no point to folding a fitted sheet, I started thinking about how many other things I know that serve no practical purpose. For instance, I know Cookie Monster’s first name. It’s Sid. No one needs to know that (except, presumably, Sid).
I went on Tumblr a few times to try to understand what it is, but the longest I went without getting trapped in porn was fourteen minutes. It may be that porn is, in fact, the proper use of Tumblr, I’m not sure. But I’m told there’s more to it, and knowing how to use Tumblr seems more relevant these days than knowing how to use a finger bowl— at any rate, it’s certainly more common. So if you’re interested or if you’ve got something else to trade, feel free to make an offer. I’m open to negotiation, and I really want my mind-garage back.
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