Bjorn and I woke up at 7:45 to prepare for the delivery of our new bed (FINALLY!), which was scheduled to arrive between 8:30 and 10:30. We had cleared out the bedroom last night, but this morning we had to strip the sheets and fold up and put away the temporary cots we've been using for a month.
With that done, my OCD-self itched to clean up the piles we have everywhere. We have basic furniture, but no shelving or storage units, so that means everything goes in stacks, piles, and groups of items collected as neatly as we can possibly make them.
I had already planned on cleaning the bathrooms this morning. One thing I have maintained for the last several years is a religious adherence to weekly bathroom cleaning. I HATE dirty bathrooms. I want the faucets to sparkle, the toilets to gleam, the floor to be smooth and polished. And of course, I want the knowledge that everything is sanitized and anti-bacterialized. (Yes, that's a word.)
But now, for the first time in my life, I'm responsible for two bathrooms. In the same house. Even in our dorm, we had one bathroom. Luckily, our downstairs bathroom is a tiny room with just a toilet and sink, but that also means it starts to smell funky pretty quickly.
So we had breakfast and awaited the bed delivery - which arrived at 9:00 sharp. (It looks beautiful, by the way -- as soon as we get proper bedding, I will share pictures! For now, Bjorn's fighter jet comforters are our nightly warmth, and I refuse to let the public see them.)
Once the bed was in place and the men left, on went the gloves, out came the antibacterial cleaner, the glass spray, the toilet bowl gel, the sponge...and the iPod speakers, for auditory entertainment. I happily scrubbed, wiped, brushed, rinsed, swept, and mopped the upstairs (big) bathroom for 45 minutes while Bjorn began assembly of our new wardrobe to go with our bed.
When I finished, the bathroom smelled like lilies and lemon. And I moved downstairs to the next bathroom, where I battled FOUR daddy-long-legs and a plumbing problem that gets in the way of any lily or lemon-fresh scent. (Add that to the list of things the housing company needs to fix.)
Then I moved to the kitchen. Wash a counter full of dishes, wipe down the counters and stove, put away dishes and electronics we don't need on the counter, take out the trash and separate the recycling, sweep and mop the floor.
Then I busted out "James" - our friendly vacuum (see picture), who is very different from the push vacuums I have used all my life, and whom I discovered does NOT do well with the downstairs carpeting. For some reason the carpet downstairs is thicker and denser than upstairs, so pushing that little handle and brush around required a TON of manual labor. And of course, it's the biggest spanse of carpet in the whole house! It took me 20 minutes, a great deal of huffing and puffing and sweat, and sore shoulders and back by the time I flipped off the switch and collapsed on the sofa.
(His name "James" is on the back of the blue body.)
But I wasn't done. I still had to bring boxes we had downstairs up three floors to the attic, use the dust-buster to vacuum up the carpet fluff, dirt, and other debris from each step of both staircases, and then stop cleaning - not to rest - but to help Bjorn with several steps of the self-assembly wardrobe - which involved ladder climbing, heavy lifting, hammering and drilling, and then shifting a unit twice as tall and wide as I am into the corner of the room.
Then I had to go up to the attic, where I had to fold one load of dried laundry, remove load #2 from the washing machine and hang the clothes each, one by one, with clothespins on our drying rack (because Bjorn insists on air-drying clothes like his mom does, and refuses to get a dryer) and then put load #3 into the washer.
(When I took this pic, load #3 - bed sheets and hand towels - was already drying on the rack. (These are faster to hang than a bunch of shirts and socks!)
Then I had to run down to the ground floor, out to the backyard, grab all three rolling trash bins and rush them to the curb because the trash truck was rumbling down our street.
Then it was back up the bedroom to help Bjorn again with the wardrobe.
Then I had to unwrap the new mattresses, insert them into protective covers (an exhausting chore in and of itself), and set them up in the bedframe.
By then, it was 2pm. And I was exhausted. And I smelled. And I looked like hell - wisps of hair flying out of my ponytail, dirt and grime on my clothes and skin, and my face flushed red.
Mind you, I've cleaned house before - I often spent similar Saturday mornings at the dorms, cleaning the kitchen and bathroom, vacuuming the whole apartment, and running down three flights of stairs every hour to get my laundry at the communal washers. It took about 2 hours if I had a full list of chores to do.
But I've never been the primary cleaner or caretaker of a HOUSE. A three-story, two-bathroom, three-bedroom house. AND consider the fact that in between every action I was performing, I was running either up or down a flight (or two) of stairs. And it took 6 hours, not 2. I absolutely, undoubtedly got more exercise and burned more calories today than I did walking around Prague all day on my trip.
Once I FINALLY stepped into the shower and washed off all the sweat and dirt, donned fresh clean clothes, and collapsed on the sofa to write this, I came to two very important realizations.
1. It's true: you really do appreciate that which you've cleaned and cared for yourself - especially a house.
2. I don't care; I want a maid.
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