GCR Women

We went to a house today that was old and worn out. The paint was flaking and the wood trim rotting.  The windows didn't close properly and the doors stuck and were hard to open.  Inside was worse.  The original wood floors were stained.  There were tiles missing from the bathroom floor.  And the smell!  I can't describe the awful smell that overwhelmed us as we went from room to room.  I pulled my shirt up over my nose in an effort to keep from taking in the offensive odor. (And believer me - offensive is a mild word for what my nose was sensing!) As we headed for the back yard, I thought we'd at least be met with fresh air and would be able to breathe again.. And we were.  But the deck was rotten with nail heads popping up here and there, ready to catch the unwary foot and trip the careless visitor.  I feared what I couldn't see - in the grass, under the deck, through the next gate. Unwelcome surprises were surely everywhere.  More ...

We're having company come over this weekend, so that means it's time to clean.  I generally keep the house pretty clean, but for company, I like to clean a little deeper. I say "I like to" but that's not exactly true because I don't really like cleaning all that much.  Still, it's necessary, and having company is a good motivator for me to clean, dust, mop, the whole thing. My regular cleaning routine doesn't always include dusting.  I don't like dusting.  You have to pick up every item on every surface and clean the surface as well as the item you picked up to dust under.  A lot of times I dust around things, especially on the book shelves, but eventually, those have to be thoroughly dusted, too. Same goes for vacuuming.  Sometimes I move the furniture, sometimes I don't.  And I rarely move everything out of the floor of the closet to vacuum there!  Under the beds?  Well... Funny what you find when you dig in deep and move everythin...