Tag Archives: cleaning

Jul19

In this case, I hope it gets worse before it gets better

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In this case, I hope it gets worse before it gets better

Upon considering the ingredients of my homemade ant bait, and the massive, MASSIVE swarm of ants around the baits I set out, I am concerned that I may have concocted some kind of bacon grease ant beer powder. With yeast, cornmeal, baking powder and bacon grease…seems like once it all ferments we’ll it’s going to be beer powder.  And because when I woke up this morning, the number of ants all up ons the baits had, like, quintupled.  So much of the baits had been taken that they were starting to erode around the bases, tiny little bacon grease ant beer powder granules dusting the back of my sink.  (The parts that weren’t swarmed by hoards of drunken ants, that is.)

It’s like EVERY SINGLE ANT IN INDIANA IS ON MY KITCHEN SINK.  It’s like the word got out last night and they’re all, PARTY AT THE WOESTMANS!

And I most certainly can’t wipe the back of the sink down or I’ll destroy their scent trails.  So I have water spots, fingerprints, dishwashing splatters, ant beer crumbles, a few strewn ant carcasses here and there (ant beer poisoning casualties perhaps), and eleventy billion ants in hot pursuit of whatever I made for them yesterday morning.

Due to the dramatic increase and not so much at all decrease in the ant swarmage, I would have to go on record to say I am Skeptical At Best about this ant killer remedy.  But I’ll give it another couple of days.

If my baits last that long.

I put out 7 yesterday, SEVEN!!!!, and they are all swarmed and decomposing due to the sheer volume of ant nibblers.

In my imagination, here’s what’s happening in the ant nest within the next two hours: KABLOOEY.  

And then they’ll all be dead and not on my sink anymore.

Jul18

Ants, ants and MORE ANTS

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Ants, ants and MORE ANTS

As previously mentioned, the area behind my kitchen sink suddenly became infested with theif ants on Thursday. Since that time, I have scoured my sink and counters twice a day to try to remove their scent trails, scattered cayenne pepper along the entire length of my sink, put out Terro baits, and been pretty much disgusted with the state of affairs in my kitchen. I haaaate putting Terro on my counters since, you know, it is poison.

Sometimes the ants will disappear for half a day or so.

False hope.

This morning, after finishing my research on what kills theif ants (not Terro, they don’t like it!) I mixed up a non-toxic ant bait from bacon grease, cornmeal, yeast and baking powder.

Eh, you say?

The ants are supposed to love it and carry it back to their nest where it expands in their bellies and they swell up and DIE, BABY, DIE. I set the baits out this morning, scattering little bait blobs all over the back of my sink. The ants did not come. They didn’t seem interested this afternoon, either. Then, after dinner, I noticed reddish brown swarming behind my sink again. The baits were consumed with theif ants (gross and yet SO YAY!!) and the ants were carrying little nubbins of bait back to their nest.

Hopefully they are exploding in their nests right now.  Because this is just so, so revolting.

Mar31

It was random, but I loved it

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It was random, but I loved it

Thursdays are cleaning day.  This is because Joey is gone for over 1o hours of the day, and by the time he gets home I’m climbing the walls if I haven’t done something Very Productive Indeed.  So I have spaced out all my housework to different and specific days of the week because a.) that’s how I roll, and b.) that’s how I roll.  This makes sure it all gets done and that I know what I have to do still.  Because since having a child, my brain has gotten forgetful.

Go figure.

Anyway, today is cleaning today.  I am pleased to announce that I am now sitting in a clean (but not spotless, that went out the window when I had a child too) house.  It used to take me 3 hours to clean.  Now it takes me 1 1/2.  Don’t judge me.  I already feel like a scuzz because I only clean the second bathroom every other week now.

In between cleaning, which I mostly do when Analie is asleep, I have been playing with and reading to Analie.  This week’s school lesson is to read nursery rhymes over and over and over again.

I don’t like nursery rhymes.

So we’re reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom instead.  It fulfills the rhyme requirement and yet it’s not creepy.

The thought behind the rhyme repetition is that it’s teaching the baby to listen because I guess babies like rhymes.  Rhyming books annoy me (except for Chicka Chicka Boom Boom) so I’m taking Analie’s “textbook’s” word for it and doing what they tell me to.  It’s also teaching her listening skills and to enjoy book reading.  We’ve been reading books for ages now, and she really loves it.  It’s super cute, if you ask me.

Right before the nap which she is currently taking, I had her help me vacuum the house.  She rides in her sling while I do the vacuuming.  Basically it’s twice as much work for me, but I am using it to teach her about work.  I want her to grow up respecting work, even vacuuming (which is my least favorite household chore), and learning how to enjoy it.  I hope that she can learn this while she works alongside me as she’s growing up, and doesn’t have a resentful attitude towards it.

I don’t remember resenting chores and yardwork too much growing up, but that’s always because as we grew older we learned how to make it fun.  Especially with yard work.  We became all OCD on lawn mowing patterns and procedure (THREE rings with the push mower around each tree, not TWO), and if someone (cough, THE KID) didn’t do it right we would get all over his case.

And now he’s just as crazy about it as the rest of us.

I’m sure we gave mom and dad their fair share of fits over chores.  But for the most part, I remember enjoying the process of cleaning and working outside.  I hope to pass that on to Analie, and I intend to start early.

After we vaccumed, we read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom again, and then someone was clearly ready for her nap.  All that vacuuming wore her out.

So I zipped her up in her sleep sack and we went to rock for a few minutes.  I just love that she’s starting to engage with me more when we do her sleep ritual.  She reaches up and touches my face and, lately, has been trying to grab my lip and rip it off.  So we’re working on being gentle.

This morning’s sleep ritual was less a ritual and more of me saying “no no, be gentle” and disentangling tiny little fingers that were trying to yank my face apart.

And don’t even get me started on her fascination with my nose ring.  She managed to get her hand on it last week and pulled it out.  That’s when her face grabbing penchant stopped being cute and I realized it was time to learn about being gentle.

Such a random morning, and I wouldn’t change a single thing.

Nov21

Rotten pears and tomatoes

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Rotten pears and tomatoes

Good morning.

I am skipping church.

But not because I am in labor, or any stage of early labor.  Just because I don’t feel well at all.  I feel like one of those rotten pears at the grocery store that got buried under the perfectly ripe ones.

I want a pear now.  A ripe one.

I had this epic moment at 4:30 this morning: I feel like I need to share.  I was laying there, asleep, and for some reason I suddenly felt like I was going to lose whatever I had eaten for dinner the night before. (What WAS that, anyway?)  So, half asleep, I shot straight up, launched myself out of bed and somehow missed crashing into and destroying the Pack ‘n Play, and ran to the bathroom.

And once I was in the bathroom, I realized I felt completely fine.  There was no reason for that whole lunging from the bed thing I had just done.  Must have been in my dream?

In any case, I haven’t moved that fast in about…ten months.  I kind of wish it had been caught on tape so I could relive it.

So far this morning, I have eaten some breakfast, threw lunch in the Crock-Pot, and sat on the couch.  Today’s agenda is going to be basically take my sweet time cleaning the house (so it’ll probably take about 5 hours instead of the usual 3 1/2 hours…lame) and maybe put up a few Christmas decorations.

Maybe if the child senses Christmas decorations, it’ll inspire her to want to come out into the oxygen.

I’m not getting my hopes up.

Also, Henry needs a bath.  It has been at least three weeks (he usually gets bathed once a week) and he smells not unlike the rotten tomato I discovered behind the vegetable drawer in the refrigerator of our first apartment.  Thing had been in there so long and was so rotten that it completely disintegrated when I touched it….and oozed its rancid guts all over the bottom of the fridge.

It was one of the grossest moments of my life.

Sep2

“Pet Stains”

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“Pet Stains”

This morning, Joey met with the contractor who is planning to refinish the wood floors which encompass our entire house, except for the two bathrooms which are, or will soon be, ceramic tile.

I can handle wood floors and ceramic tile.  Yes, yes, I can.

We had a budget for the wood floor refinishing, and Joey and I were both pleased that the quote came in substantially under what we had budgeted (YAAAAY) despite the fact that the whole shabang needs to be re-stained a darker color because of some major nail/rust/tanic acid staining from when the wood floors were covered with carpet.  These lovely stains are nearly black and run along all the baseboards where they had nailed the carpet junk into the floor. Or something.

The point is, the nail stains look bad and that’s why we have to get the floors refinished in the first place.

When the contractor was looking at the floors this morning, he noticed several dark spots in the middle of the great room floor, rather by the entrance to the second bathroom and the baby’s room.  We’d noticed those spots before too, and we assumed it was a traffic pattern.  Even though that wasn’t a super high-traffic area, it just seemed to make sense.

“Ah, pet stains,” the contractor said.

And in contractor speak, “pet stains” is tactful language for SOME STUPID DOG PEED ON THE CARPET YEARS AGO.  Lots of times.  Lots and lots of times.  Because the aforementioned fluid soaked through the carpet pad, marinated there for awhile, and subsequently stained the wood floor a nice, dark shade.

“I’ll be able to get most of that out,” said the contractor.  ”But not all of it.  You probably won’t notice it so much.”

Um, heck yes I will now that I know what it is.

Joey was relating this to me as I stood in his office, 50% covered in sanding dust and paint residue from my failed attempt at working more on the kitchen cabinets today.

And when he told me those large, discolored spots in the middle of the floor were old dog pee?  I gasped.  Like, super loud.  And I bellowed, “NO. No, no, no, no, no.”

See, that’s why I hate carpet.  First of all, dogs shouldn’t be having accidents in the house and second of all, these people must have thought they “cleaned it up” (I hope) bit in reality the germs were all still down in that evil carpet pad, destroying whatever was underneath it and radiating their germiness back up onto the carpet.  And these stains are really large, so it’s not like this was a one-time occurrence.  I know the people before us had a cat, not a dog, so it has been there for over 11 years.

I’ll feel much better about our little girl crawling around on ancient dog pee stains once I know they have been sanded within an inch of its life.  I’ll probably mop that area daily for at least a week, too.

So yeah, we have “pet stains” on our floor.  They’ll be there until September 1oth or 11th or 13th…I really forget which date Joey told me they were coming.  But it’s going to take them two days to get it done, and when it’s done, it will be beautiful.  I am sure of it.

I’ma take a Before and After picture of the “pet stains” just to see how much better it will look.

Aug23

Too Much Work

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Too Much Work

I went to church today to help Joey with a cleaning project he’d asked me to do.  It took…a really long time.  My ankles had swollen and my feet were all bruised by the time I was done, so I was walking everywhere super slowly.  Had I been thinking, I’d have just walked regular speed.  (It would have been more work but I would have had it over with sooner.)

I came home at 4:00 and was supposed to take a shower, but I got sidetracked by having a snack (nutrients to rebuild my morale) and then started reading Cooks Illustrated.  Thus, I still haven’t taken a shower.  My right arm has hot chocolate on it and so does the baby.

Actually, she’s covered in hot chocolate.  I think she likes it.

My agenda for today was completely altered, I had planned to go to the grocery store as, once again, we’re out of just about everything except flour.  And I’m going to use that later to make a Foccacia biga so I can bake some tomorrow.  I just threw dinner in the oven (not sure what it is, I just thought “let’s put something in the oven so I don’t have to think about it” and then suddenly I had concocted some potato dish and some chicken thing, and they are now in the oven.  WHO KNOWS IF THEY WILL BE GOOD, I’m not really sure what I did to make them.)

I was just wandering back from the bedroom when I encountered Joey, who was coming out of the kitchen.  ”Tomorow I will wash the sheets and change them, and get us groceries,” I said.

“And you will mostly relax,” Joey said.  ”You did too much work today.”

“I didn’t do SO much work,” I said, rolling my eyes at him just a little.  ”I just did SOME work.  I can do work.”

“It was too much work,” he said.

If he thinks cleaning all day was “too much work”…I shudder to think what he will have to say about labor.

Jun24

First Day….

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First Day….

So, starting a new job is always kind of weird and stressful.  Yesterday was my last day of Corporate America for a very long time, if ever again.  Today is my first day of not working.  It’s weird.

I was all sobby yesterday afternoon carrying my canvas bag of personal belongings from my desk down the elevators.  I knew it would be hard to leave all my friends, but I didn’t expect to be such a crybaby about it.  (Then again, I didn’t expect to sob and hyperventilate in Toy Story 3 either, so maybe I should just trash my expectations these days.)

Today, so far, I:

  • Slept in until 9, completely on accident
  • Went to the spa for two hours and am now feeling very relaxed
  • Ate my Brisket Taco leftovers from Mi Cocina for lunch
  • Picked up all the random cups we had laying around the house
  • Started the dishwasher
  • Made the bed
  • Started the washer

I am really worried I’ll be lazy until the baby comes.  I’m thinking about making myself a daily schedule so I can be sure I am using my time wisely and not just laying around reading books or watching TV and movies.

With our house in this state of packing upheaval, I am ashamed to say we have let a few things go to the dogs.  For instance, we have two laundry baskets overflowing right now, and we did not dust any surfaces over the weekend.  Actually, I don’t even think I scrubbed out the toilet.  EW.  I am such a dirty person.

Just for “fun” (for you, not for me), I took some pictures of our poor apartment looking all disheveled.  Please enjoy them.  I do not.

This used to be our study/den.  Its walls used to be a nice shade of green.  Now they are barfy white and obviously there is no where to study or sit around in here.  Prior to the demise of The Futon Whose Next Home Will Be The Dumpster, this is where we watched movies.  (Incidentally, some poor person took The Futon from the Dumpster not 24 hours after we set it there.  We are sure they will realize their mistake as soon as they sit on it and they feel the broken support boards poking them in their hindquarters.  We expect to see it back at the Dumpster any day now.)

Our poor living room.  There are almost no words for this.  The computer setup has totally taken over what used to be our coffee table, and Henry’s kennel and toys are pretty much everywhere.  Even the couches look mad about the fact that we’re moving, they look all frumpy.

The only nice thing in this picture are the flowers Joey got me for my last day of work yesterday.  But everything else cluttering the counter up is decreasing their property value.  As soon as I’m done posting this, that counter is going to be dealt with straightaway.

As I mentioned previously, the laundry situation is flat out of control.

Having our home in such a state of confusion does motivate us to do one thing though: pack it up, baby.  Let’s get moved so we can settle in up in INDIANAPOLIS!

I hope it’s much cooler up there than it is down here.  It’s hot like fire and I say, I don’t care for it this year.

May23

stuff, Stuff, STUFF

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stuff, Stuff, STUFF

One thing that Seriously Bothers me about being an twenty-first century American, is the underlying drive we all seem to have to ACQUIRE! MORE! STUFF!

We are trained to believe (from before we are born – trust me, I get ads from Babies R Us) that we NEED this thing, that this item will make our lives easier, and people will respect us more if we have this gadget.  We get a sort of adrenaline rush when we swipe our plastic and somehow we feel, for a few minutes at least, that we are powerful, successful, and people will want to be like US now that we have this new thing.  Whatever it is…toilet plunger, food processor, humidifier, trash can, new outfit.

And once we make a new purchase, we spend a ton of time trying to make our friends feel like they need whatever it is we just plunked down good money for.  ”This is AWESOME, you totally NEED this.”  (Read: be like ME!!!)

I know I do all of that.  I bet you do too.

Anyway, I don’t like stuff just to have stuff.  Seeing American consumerism pile up in my home stresses me out and it makes me feel guilty.  Guilty that I have all this extra plastic and cotton and silk and wool that I don’t even care about or in some cases, remember that I had…and there are people with nothing.

The walk-in closet in our bedroom has been bothering my conscience for weeks.  Especially lately, since I have been spending good money on buying maternity clothes.  I feel bad buying more clothes when I know I have scads that don’t fit, or I don’t wear because I don’t like them, or I have just plain forgotten about them.

So today, on the way home from church, we stopped by Target and picked up at 116 gallon Sterlite container with a snap-on lid.  My goal: go through every item of clothing I owned and think about it.  Would it fit me in a year?  If so, would I be interested in wearing it then?

I filled that container with all of the clothes I am going to save, summer, winter, jackets, formalwear, everything.  And whatever didn’t fit is sacked up in several very large trash bags (nearly folded, of course) and waiting by the front door to be donated to Luke’s Closet down at DTS.

Every time I walk past those bags, I feel ashamed that I have acquired so much stuff that not only do I have enough to save 116 gallons worth, I had so much I am giving away whole trash bags full.  I obviously need to be more careful about what I am buying if I have allowed myself to pile up this much stuff.

While I was at it in our bedroom closet, Joey tore apart the hall closet.  He discovered another four trash bags full of random, and in some cases broken, things we had just shoved back behind the walls and didn’t even remember we had.  I don’t know what it is about keeping a broken item that makes us feel better about it not working anymore.  Ick.

And really, we’re not savers.  We don’t keep stuff just to keep stuff.  That’s what shocked me so badly about all the stuff we have gotten rid of today.  I’m not sure where it came from!

We had been hanging on to four suits of Joey’s from college and his terrible Chorale uniform tuxedo for the last five years, and neither one of us really knew why.  The suits didn’t fit him, when we bought them he and I had our first dating couple argument because he wanted them to be huge and baggy so they’d be comfortable.  Um, let me just say that when he wears them he looks like he’s a little boy playing dress up.  And within the last five years, he’s come to realize that so he won’t touch them with a ten foot pole when it comes to wearing them…but we couldn’t get rid of them.

His brother’s wedding is next weekend and Joey’s officiating.  We did break down and buy him a new suit today, even though he had already four in the closet…that didn’t fit him.  But those other four we are donating to Luke’s and hopefully some seminary student will be just the right size for them. (Along with that terrible looking tux, hopefully someone gets excited when they see it.)

Our closet right now looks amazing.

There is ONE suit hanging in the back of it, and it’s a suit that fits properly.  He will be a very handsome officiant next weekend.

The only clothes of mine that are there fit me and I will wear.  I used to tell Joey I didn’t have anything to wear, but that CLEARLY wasn’t true.  I just had so much stuff hanging there that didn’t fit that I couldn’t see what did.  Noise, he calls it.

No more noise in our closet.  It is ROOMY in there.  And it’s exactly the way I like it.

Apr23

Pollen pollen in the air, pollen pollen EVERYWHERE

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Pollen pollen in the air, pollen pollen EVERYWHERE

Joey called me at 4:45 last night and said we were going to Mattito’s for dinner and we were going to do our usual and split a Martin.  This is really the best situation for us because then we get a tamale, a chicken enchilada, a cheese enchilada (which, really isn’t to share, it is ALL MINE), and a taco.  We cut the tamale in half and I eat my enchilada, the tamale half and the beans…and Joey eats all the rest.

It’s the best situation, really.  We get our faves but we don’t feel so full that we want to explode and die.

Even still, my stomach seems to have shrunk for the evening meal lately, because I barely put away the enchilada.  I kept having to take long, long pauses in between bites and Joey would be all, um are you going to eat that?  And I would say pssssh, YES I AM; BACK UP OFF MY ENCHILADA.  So I moaned the entire drive home because somehow that one solitary enchilada and a few bites of rice and beans filled me up like two helpings of everything at Thanksgiving dinner.

I don’t know what any of that had to do with anything really, but now you know that it was Mattito’s in my tummy as we walked from the car and up the steps to our front door.  And I looked at the cement and said to Joey, “I’m mopping this tomorrow night.  I don’t care if you think I’m weird.”

The pollen in the air down here for the last month has been ri-di-culous.  Everything is coated in a creepy yellow sheen of pollen dust, and I have been searching the heavens for rainclouds for about the last two weeks because I couldn’t stand to look at the cars any more.

I actually went and washed one several weeks back, but the very next day it was covered with so much pollen I was surprised bees weren’t trying to pollinate it with the daffodils.

Anyway.

The cement right outside our door has a slight yellow tinge to it.  And our blue door?  Cover it up in pollen and it looks green.  The black railing is so covered that nobody even uses it because touching it would mean having a yellow hand.

So tonight, during our Nerdy Woestman Friday Cleaning Party, I’m taking the mop bucket and dealing all that pollen a dose of hot, soapy water.

The good news is that it rained buckets on Saturday, and also last night.  The cars look great again (for freeeeee!) and I think all the rain has knocked most of the pollen out of the trees.  Which makes tonight a great night for mopping exterior cement.

Hehehe.  I will probably look like a total nerdball doing so.  Let’s hope no neighbors spot me doing it.

Mar28

It’s clean now.

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It’s clean now.

The trash can is clean.  I never did locate the bleach, so I decided to just see how vinegar did on its own.

That stuff packs a pretty powerful punch; I’d forgotten.

It also smells kind of like armpits before it airs out.

But  my trash can is freshly washed, I’ve rinsed the creepies down the bathtub drain, and I’m ready to sit down and read a book for the rest of my Sunday evening.

Ahhhh.