The Great Purge: The Monday After

Dear Diary

Monday. Today I woke up late, ate a buttery English muffin, dropped a whole thing of iced coffee all over the kitchen floor (same floor I'd just washed yesterday, natch) and then I did nothing of any value to anyone the whole rest of the day. Except for cleaning up the spilled iced coffee. If I'd put the coffee into my body instead of onto the floor, maybe I'd have gotten more done today. But here's what I've been doing all week...

• I re-arranged the porch furniture and fixed it up so it looks nice. Joe's been enjoying sitting out there of an evening, with his feet up, enjoying our little urban oasis. I brought one of my stone gargoyles out there to sit with my little plants (basil, thyme and rosemary). 

• I cleaned and swept the back steps landing. I sorted and organized the shelf where we store things like my toolbox, citronella candles and paint supplies. There were random items in the way that I finally brought down to the basement. I sneezed approximately 45 times.

• I cleaned and organized under the kitchen sink. A fluffy feather duster had been reduced, either by time or by a mouse family, into a pile of gossamer flying dust. That was a chore to clean up. I sneezed approximately 107 times.

• I swept and mopped the kitchen floor. It's white and super hard to keep clean. I wiped down every kitchen surface until everything gleamed. I made some organizational changes, such as where I store the lids for the pots and pans. I'd just done a deep clean in the kitchen recently so it didn't take too much work.

• I sorted eight bags of recyclables, and when Joe got home he took them downstairs to the bins. So now I can see the pantry floor again. Swept and mopped, and completely took apart, cleaned and re-stacked the cookbook bookshelf. It was really dusty. I found a bag of tortillas behind it. So that's where those went.

• I dusted and cleaned the living room. I tidied the stacks of sheet music books around the piano. I sorted and organized piles of books, and cleared the table of its mountain of mail, sunglasses, art supplies and sundry-whatnots. There'd been a folding table set up to do a video project, so I put that away, along with several boxes and overstuffed bags of video-making gear, and I moved the striped ottoman into place. I fluffed and tidied the drapes. I sneezed so many times I needed a nap. 

• I overhauled our clothes in the bedroom, including re-folding about a hundred T-shirts of Joe's. He's now wearing again some cool shirts that he hasn't even seen in months. My clothes and accessories are now all organized, and I'm purging whatever was ill-fitting or just "what was I thinking." 

• I cleaned the bathroom. 

Here's what's left of the Great Purge of 2017:

• TV room needs a good floor cleaning and deep dusting. 
• My studio needs a big purge, mostly of old papers. 
• I think Joe's studio needs a deep clean too but I'll leave that to him. 
• I have to bring a dead lamp to the curb on Thursday nite for trash pick-up. 
• I have to take my wheelie cart and bring a few bags of purged clothing to the charity box at the gas station on N. Harvard Street.
• The refrigerator and me have an appointment. It's a nightmare in there. Something sticky spilled at Christmas. Don't ask.
• Stop saying the word "purge" now. The word gives me the willies. 

Once I'm done with the last of these chores in these rooms, the whole apartment will be tidy and organized, ready for a nice long winter of books and art and music, with no gnarly projects or messes to vex me.

Now I just need to find a job. Please hire me.