Up to a point, not too hard. There were a few false starts, like when I tried to spray paint the metal stair bannister. (Just not practical when you’re trying to hang off the second floor to get the far side of the bannister.) I’m sure a professional painter could have done it, but I gave up and used a brush and roller. After getting up close and personal with the work done by prior painters, I decided whatever I did probably wasn’t any worse.

Then, I decided to do the cabinets in the kitchen. It’s been several years since they were painted. The last tenant was really rough on the lower cabinets around the sink and stove top area, so I started there. I decided if it was just too much, I’d hire someone to do the rest.

There were a few challenges. Apparently, I’m the first painter to actually remove the cabinets and hinges. Everyone else just painted over them, including the original contractor. Therefore, the screw heads were filled with paint. Some came out fairly easily; otherwise, I was banging paint out of the screw head just so I could get good contact with the screwdriver. I also neglected to bring anything to set the cabinet doors on while I painted them, so I was painting them while they were flat on the floor. I’m far too old and fat to be crawling around on a tile floor. It also made it difficult to get the edges just right. I’m also the first painter to actually paint ALL the edges. Apparently, professional painters don’t feel it’s necessary to paint edges that they don’t think will be seen, like the bottom edges.

I survived the experience and the paint job didn’t look terrible. (No worse than any professional painter’s work, in my opinion, and at least all the edges were now painted.) It took almost nightly recovery sessions in the jacuzzi and a fair amount of ibuprofen, but I survived.

Rehanging the cabinet doors is another thing entirely. I thought I’d just take the new hinges, which are exactly the same as the old hinges (only white, so nobody feels the need to paint over them again), screw them all back in and I’d be good to go.

Not really.

My first problem arose when I had to hang two doors that are supposed to meet in the middle. It’s harder than I thought. This is where I realized my limitations – I’ll paint, but I’m going to have a handyman come hang all the cabinet fronts back up again.

All in all, however, that first section turned out looking really nice. I decided I could handle the rest of the paint job. I got some moving boxes that were stored in my garage and set them up so I had platforms to put the doors on while I paint them. Not quite professional, but it works.

So, I informed my husband that I’m going to go ahead and paint all the cabinets. I mentioned that the upper cabinets were going to be harder and I’d need a step stool. He said, “Just be careful you don’t fall and hurt yourself.”

Touched at his concern, I replied, “Awww – are you worried about me hurting myself while I’m all alone in that house?”

“No,” he said. “I’m worried that the medical bill will be more than it would cost to just pay someone else to do it.”

I’m pretty sure he wasn’t trying to be funny.

My complaint about e-books has always been the pricing. Obviously, I don’t have a problem paying full price for a book from an author I know well. Would I pay the $14.99 for the Nook version of A Dance with Dragons? I don’t know. I bought the hardback at Costco for right around $18, which is only $4 (more or less) more and I have something tangible that can join the other books on the shelf (or could if my son hadn’t taken them!). On the whole, I do prefer e-books. I discovered when reading A Dance with Dragons that I was annoyed at having to read near a decent light source. I’ve become accustomed to turning out all the lights when I read in bed at night, and if I fall asleep, the e-book reader turns itself off.

Stick with me here – I do have a point to make and I’m getting there.

How much would I pay for an e-book otherwise? I love Lee Child’s Jack Reacher stories, but I’m not going to pay slightly less than hardback price for the latest installment. I might (and I can’t emphasize that might enough) be willing to pay same as paperback, but a low-priced paperback. The difference here is that as much as I love the Jack Reacher series, I don’t love them so much that I’m waiting for the hardback to hit the shelves so I can run out and buy it. Which means I’m also not waiting with bated breath to download the e-book, either. And I’m not going to pay the same price as paperback when I can get it used – including shipping – for less than the paperback or e-book price, or get it on trade at my local used book store.

Authors and publishers, ask yourselves these questions:

• How much do you make when someone sells their print book in one of the many online resale venues?
• How much do you make when someone trades their print book for another book at a used book store?
• How much do you make when someone gives a print book to a family member or friend?

Big fat $0, right?

If I have to make a choice between paying more for an e-book, many of which cannot be traded and certainly cannot be resold, than I pay for a paperback, I’m going with the paperback. I can sell it, trade it and give it away, which (to me, at any rate) adds value to the book. But if an e-book is priced right, I don’t even care that I can’t lend it, much less resell it. For a well-known author, that price would be no more than the paperback, preferably less. I’m no dummy – I know the cost of an e-book is less than a print book. There’s no printing, no shipping, no returns and the distribution costs are lower. For that reason, I expect to pay less than paperback. For unknown authors or lesser-known authors, the price point for me is about half the paperback price, at least initially. And I’m thrilled when I can get books from a well-known author for half the paperback price. (And even more thrilled when I find a diamond of a book for free, such as Mark Chisnell’s The Defector.)

In case authors and publishers haven’t figured it out, you’ll sell a lot more e-books if you price them for less, and you’ll take a lot of print books that can be traded, given away or resold off the market. Do I need to remind you that you’re currently making $0 on those?

I was taking a look at the books I have on my various e-readers and counting up the ones I’ve purchased. I have an eBookwise dedicated reader. Most of what’s on there, I got for free, so those books don’t really count. It is pertinent to note, however, that I have over 100 books on that particular reader. Then, I have iPhone apps that I use for reading (I’m still trying to justify the cost of an iPad, which I’d love to have for reading e-books). In the Nook iPhone app, I have 9 books I’ve purchased, including a 5-in-1. In the Kindle app, I have 10 books. In the Stanza app, I have a total of 10 books, but only 2 were purchased. I have another 2 purchased books in the Ereader app. That’s a total of 23 books (or 28 if you count the books in the 5-in-1 separately). How many people have 28 print books sitting around, waiting to be read? If you had that many books on your “to read” shelf, would you go buy more? I’m sure I’ll get around to reading all the books I’ve paid for (eventually). I’m also sure I’ll probably not be able to resist adding more to the extensive wish lists I have going for all of them and I’m sure I probably won’t be able to resist actually buying more before I’ve done much to whittle down the number of books waiting to be read. If the price is right! Send me a coupon for XX% off, and I’ll go buy books from my wish list, regardless of how many unread ones are still sitting in those apps. I’ve had 50 books on my iPhone before. They don’t take up physical space; in fact, until I download them, they don’t even take up memory. (Oh, and Barnes and Noble? Stop sending me coupons that exclude Nook books. It’s just plain stupid marketing, in my opinion.) Net result to authors, publishers and book sellers: More sales.

So, authors – what are the lessons to be learned here?

•  When pricing your e-books, give some thought to higher price/lower volume v. lower price/higher volume. In today’s book market, price points are crucial to sales volume.
• Ask yourself what you’re not making money on and whether or not pricing your e-books lower will eliminate that hidden, unpaid competition.
• Just because you’re a popular author doesn’t mean your readers are willing to get reamed. I’ve been in the local used book store and found your books the day after they went on the shelf, and they’re as good as new. I can exchange a paperback book by Crappy Author for yours and pay sales tax only – and you get paid nothing. No hardback sale, no paperback sale, no e-book sale. I’ll do that before I pay more than paperback prices for an e-book, no matter how much I prefer e-books to print.
• Just because the barriers are now lower in self-publishing e-books doesn’t mean you can be sloppy. There’s no point giving away a book to gain readers if the book is crap. You’re going to get crap reviews and you’re not going to sell many books or many subsequent titles. In the new world of self-published e-books, reviews are going to be more and more important. You want GOOD reviews; this is not a case where having people say bad things about your book is better than them not talking about your book at all.
• I am personally tired of typos, grammar and spelling errors, not to mention the garbage characters thrown off by incompetent e-book formatting. Self publishing does not relieve you of the need for an editor and a proofreader. Self publishing does not relieve you of the need to format your book correctly for each of the most popular e-book formats. If the book is free, it merely annoys me; if I pay for it, I find it offensive.
• I am more than willing to read completely unknown authors. I do have criteria. If a book is free and sounds like something I might like to read, I will absolutely download it and read it. For $0.99, I might read reviews before purchasing, but reviews aren’t critical to my decision if the book sounds interesting. In the $1 to $3.99 range, the title needs to have plenty of good reviews before I buy it. Over $3.99, the majority of reviews better be raves.
• For well-known and favorite authors, I’m willing to pay up to paperback price (think Costco paperback prices). I draw the line somewhere around $6. Obviously, for George R.R. Martin, I’ll make an exception, but it’s a rare exception. I don’t own many paperbacks that aren’t cookbooks.

For the readers out there, I hope this helps you make a decision about e-books. I thought I’d hate them; now, I prefer them over print. The selection is getting better and for the most part, the prices are getting more reasonable. If you’re already an e-book fan, please share your criteria for selecting an e-book, where you get them, and what you’re willing to pay. If you’re an author or publisher, I’d be interested in your input on price points and e-book sales.

Yesterday, my husband’s new TV was delivered. The TV that had been in his man-cave was moved into the family room, the TV that had been in the family room was moved to the spare bedroom I’m cleaning up. (Are you with me so far??)

I am expecting delivery of two new mattresses for the spare room today, so the old mattresses got sent out to the curb, along with the two dressers from the garage, as the City of Los Angeles came through in record time and let me know they’ll pick those up. The mattresses were gone within a couple hours. The dressers are still there. The spare room has been torn apart, but I’ll put it back together and do a final cleaning after the mattresses are delivered and I can re-make the beds.

The TV from the man-cave is much larger than the TV that had been in the family room, so some adjustment in the arrangement of the room is required. I cleaned the kitchen this morning and decided I really need to put the family room back together.

Well. That’s where the it’s not as simple as it looks factor comes in.

I haven’t been happy with the arrangement of that room for awhile. We’ve added a Bowflex TreadClimber that belonged to my daughter and now belongs to me. It’s in the family room because there wasn’t space for it anywhere else. It’s not small. My husband has rearranged the man-cave, so now there’s room for the TreadClimber in that space, but I looked at the directions on how to move it and it’s not going to be easy. Also added to the space since I last had it arranged to my semi-satisfaction is a spinet piano I swapped with my sister-in-law for a baby grand, which took up WAY too much space. So, I ‘m sitting on the sofa, looking at the room and mentally rearranging. I realize one of the problems is the size of the sofa and chair, not to mention their shabby condition. Maybe I should go shopping for furniture, but I just spent a boatload of money on a new TV so I really don’t want to do that. But new furniture – the right size – would be nice, right? OK, I really don’t want to spend more money, so I have to figure out how to do this without buying new furniture and without moving the TreadClimber, because I just don’t want to deal with that right now. I think if I move those two bookshelves… wait, that means I’d have to completely empty them out. Ugh! OK, but if I move those over to where the piano is, and move the third bookshelf all the way over to the wall… wait, that means I’d have to completely empty out THREE bookshelves. Ugh! OK, but if I do that, then I can put the piano over there on that wall and I’ll have more room for the TV.

Here’s where I completely derailed. Because now it occurs to me that I really need to paint this room. And as long as I’m moving furniture, it’s a good time to paint, right?

I am my own worst enemy.

Quick update: I took another look at the room and I think I can get where I need to go by moving only ONE bookshelf. Whew!

Today, however, I had slightly different motivation. First, I realized my garage-cleaning project, while off to a good start initially, got stalled when I got distracted by other things. No big surprise there, just the story of my life! And I have also been meaning to clean out the second spare bedroom in my house so I have a functional spare bedroom. So I put the current distracting project on hold today to work on that.

First, I loaded up the car and took a bunch of stuff to Goodwill, simply because it’s convenient. One thing that stalled the garage cleaning was getting a thrift shop truck to come pick up the stuff. Most of it could be disposed in one or two trips, so I made one trip. However, I have a lot of Mason jars, which they won’t take – so I’m waiting to see if another thrift shop or charity donation will take them (along with the rest of the stuff). Another stall, I know.

Then, I requested bulky item pickup from the city for the two dressers I had emptied out before getting stalled. Here’s what I love about the City of Los Angeles. The instructions at their website says “request bulky item pickup at least 1 day in advance of your regular trash pickup day.” My regular trash pickup day is Thursday, so making the request on Tuesday is certainly within the guideline. They also suggest you use their website form – I imagine it saves a lot of time poking through voice mail hell and sitting on hold, so I did that. I sent in the request form, at which point I got a message saying my submission had been received and it would take them 2 to 3 days to process it. Hmmmm. That seems a bit counter to their initial direction, but I’m not going to sweat it. Once I put it on the curb, I’m sure the trash pickers will pick the stuff up long before the city gets around to it. I’m not so sure about the two twin mattresses I’ll be putting out – it depends on the level of desperation out there.

I then came inside to address the spare bedroom. My daughter has pleaded with me to keep a box of stuffed animals. I’ve seen on Clean House house this turns out. Since I’m not navigating my house via trails carved out between piles of bags and boxes, it’s pretty doubtful that the Clean House crew will ever show up here, so the stuffed animals are safe (for now). There are also things I’m not willing to donate but somehow haven’t ever been able to get around to listing for sale on Ebay, but at least I got them in storage bins so they’re not gathering dust on top of a dresser.

During one of my breaks, I sat down and talked with my husband while he was eating lunch and he called me a hoarder. Obviously, he doesn’t actually watch Hoarders. He also hinted that I shop too much, which is completely laughable, since I hate to shop and don’t go into a store unless I already know what I need. There is a difference between shopping and buying, and I broke my shopping habit years and years ago. Actually, much of what’s in that room is residua from adult children who no longer live here. I texted my daughter and asked her about an animal-print handbag I found that had 2 pairs of platform sandals in it – keep or go? She wants to look at it before she makes a commitment. I think I’ll save myself a trip to the thrift shop and send her a picture. I considered texting my son and letting him know I’m throwing away his girly magazines, but decided they’ve been in that room now for a couple years and he’s probably forgotten all about them, so I’m not going to remind him. I just tossed them instead.

Aside from the Ebay items, much of the rest of it is equipment and stuff left over from my now-defunct business. What was I going to do with all THAT? (Besides heave a big sigh.) I did some Googling, sent out a couple e-mails and now have a reply from a company here in Los Angeles that at least wants a list of what I have. There’s hope yet that I can get rid of all that stuff and make a little bit of cash. At this point, that’s all I ask.

Kind of related to all this, my sisters and I have been talking about some family furniture that my sister-in-law (technically, ex-sister-in-law, but that’s just a technicality – I still think of her as my SIL) was getting rid of as part of her move to a new home. My brother died shortly after their divorce was final and before they split households. My mother had given my brother and his wife a nice tiger oak (quarter-sawn oak) table and chairs, and a cherry hutch that we had while growing up. In an effort to keep these in the family, my sister was trying to talk me into taking them. Not only do I have no room for that table, I have no interest in it, either. I thought about that hutch – really, I did. But I looked at my own cherry hutch, which I’ve owned now for over 20 years, thought about the hassle of going and getting it and swapping them out then getting rid of my own hutch – and suddenly, having that hutch just wasn’t all that important to me any more. Besides, I like the hutch I have just fine and it matches the dining room table. If there’s one thing I’ve taken away from Hoarders and Clean House, it’s that an emotional attachment to things causes problems. When people start getting emotionally attached to stuff, it isn’t too long before they find themselves in a house filled with too much stuff.

And I am not a hoarder, so I remain in my current state of getting rid of stuff instead of acquiring it.

In addition to the garage, I have an extra bedroom that’s become a dumping ground. I’m tired of THAT, as well. I’d like to have functional rooms in the house.

While the City of Los Angeles doesn’t want us throwing away certain things in the regular trash bins, they also don’t make it really convenient to get rid of them. Unless I want to drive 15 miles to the closest permanent collection center at UCLA, on a freeway that’s busy even on Saturday, I have to wait until the city has what they call a mobile recycling event in my area. The next event is June 4th, so I drove to UCLA.

I started today by gathering together all the e-waste and household items that can’t just be tossed into the trash and aren’t worthy of recycling to a thrift shop. In the extra bedroom, there was a box of old – and I mean REALLY old – computer programs that I’ve been meaning to sell on Ebay for the last several years. Part of my resolve in cleaning up included either getting the stuff on Ebay, or getting rid of it. I decided these programs were too old to even try and sell any more, so in the car trunk they went. Also, two televisions that are too old to bother fixing, a couple of old clock-radios and anything else I could find that had a power cord and/or looked electronic. I went into my bedroom to get my purse to leave for the recycling center when I noticed an old cell phone. I picked that up. Then, I remembered all the old cell phone batteries I had in a drawer. Along with the old cell phone batteries, I found a bunch of regular batteries, which I’m sure were so old they probably had no more juice. Things were getting awkward, so I got a bag. Then, I remembered all the electronic bits and pieces I throw into the bottom drawer of my filing cabinet. By the time I was done, I had filled the bag with all these little things (CRAP) around the bedroom and office.

I also can’t believe that after I got back and started going through some more boxes in the spare bedroom, I found ANOTHER cell phone and more cell phone batteries for phones we don’t even own any more. It’s like those things multiply if you let them sit for too long.

As long as I was getting filthy dirty, I decided to go out and see what is in two chests of drawers that I have in the garage. This required moving 2 doors from a 1971 El Camino and maneuvering around a restored car frame (part of the car project). These chests were some I bought years ago for the kids, then apparently appropriated for myself at some point, because they’re full of my stuff. They’re not very wide or deep, but they’re tall.

How many boxes of jumbo paper clips do you think someone needs? I’m guessing anyone reading this will agree I probably didn’t need the SIX large boxes of them I found. It’s like I stopped using paper clips overnight. (Well, I probably did – I also stopped using paper, for the most part.) I didn’t throw away the boxes of glue sticks or the glue guns – I mean, they might still be good, right? Do glue sticks go bad? I do remember my husband asking me a couple years ago where the glue guns went and I had absolutely no clue. We moved 3 times in 3 years and I can’t keep track of all this stuff.

I might mention that we also cleaned out the garage several years ago, a couple years after those moves. The garage was full to the gills and we finally couldn’t stand it any longer. We pulled everything out and either got rid of it or I had to justify why it went back in. Knowing that, I’m surprised at what I’m finding in the garage. We must’ve been really tired and my husband less vigilant by the end of the day because there’s absolutely no rhyme or reason for keeping some of this stuff.

Back to those chests of drawers…

Handwritten ledgers of income and expenses for my transcription business, dating back to 1994. That would explain why they were handwritten and not on a computer. It does NOT explain why they were still there! Oh! And stacks of invoices to clients and from independent contractors who worked for me, and check stubs from client payments. Again, no clue why I kept them. I usually keep stuff like that in a filing cabinet and I cleaned out the filing cabinet several years ago, filling a bin for the mobile shredding truck.

Have I also mentioned I have a penchant (okay, a passion) for paper things, particularly stationery? And who writes letters any more? Another drawer was filled with printed stationery and Christmas cards. It kind of looks like the drawer in the house that’s full of stationery, only older. Who writes letters any more? I couldn’t bring myself to throw those away (yet). I may get to it, or I may become a prolific letter writer, serving the dual purpose of using up the stationery and giving the USPS some business.

Another drawer is full of photographs of the kids and old letters from friends, back in the day when people actually sent letters. I could make a case for writing letters. After my brother died, my sister went through some of the things we took when we cleaned out Mom’s place and she found a package of letters he wrote to her. Who saves e-mails? (I used to print some of them and save them but it got ridiculous and I stopped. Now, I’m just a digital packrat – it’s much cleaner and takes up less space.)

Some years back (too many to calculate), I bought some dry storage barrels. I know what’s in 2 of the ones that are in the garage. One has yarn (another one of my compulsive passions) and the other has fabric (ahem). Don’t worry – I haven’t been in a yarn or fabric store in years. Sadly, I also haven’t crocheted or knitted in years and I don’t even own a sewing machine any more. However, I had no idea what was in the two barrels that were blocking these chests of drawers. One turned out to be empty. As for the other, I have absolutely no memory of how the contents of that barrel got in it, or why they’re still there in the garage. I mean – I can see keeping the barrel, even if it’s empty. They’re very useful for storage, including food storage. But this barrel is filled to the brim with old totes, cosmetic bags, purses, and what looks like a couple of rolled-up rugs. THIS time, that stuff is leaving the garage for good!

I have found a few real treasures while cleaning out the garage. A couple weeks ago, I found the Beach Boys CD collection I thought was lost forever. I was thrilled (I love the Beach Boys). Today, I found a little sterling silver serving dish and spoon that must’ve belonged to my mother-in-law. I have absolutely no clue why it was in those drawers.

The adventure will continue until the garage is clean and I promise to post a picture when there are actually CARS parked in the garage!

It would be nice if Amtrak here on the West Coast was as convenient as it is (apparently) in the Northeast corridor. I checked schedules to a couple destinations I might be likely to travel to and they involved a lot of changing from bus to train and back again, as well as overnight travel. So – I checked Los Angeles to San Francisco. One would think this a pretty straightforward destination, but no; again, it involved changing from train to bus and back again. The train to Las Vegas is a straight shot – Los Angeles Union Station to Las Vegas. Then, I checked the travel time – a whopping 19 hours – for a distance that can be driven in less than 5. Wow. Even the fare isn’t that great at $86, considering that most airlines have specials to Las Vegas for under $100.

Which got me thinking about my personal favorite form of travel – my car. Of course, gas prices being what they are, I’ll probably be staying home a lot. Unfortunately, when gas prices go up, so do airfares – and driving was already cheaper and – in my opinion – more convenient than flying.

Take my most recent road trip. My brother passed away in February and I actually made reservations fly from Burbank to Salt Lake City. The fare probably would have been less if I’d made reservations a couple weeks (or months) in advance, but there are some circumstances that simply don’t allow for that, and this was one of them. The cheapest fare I found was over $400. And, BTW, airlines don’t give any kind of discount when you have to travel suddenly due to a death. I think they could at least offer the same fares they’d give if you were making a reservation well in advance, but that’s just me. (I’d also give passengers more seat and leg room, which I also don’t expect to see any time soon in air travel.)

The morning I was to leave, I was having lunch with my husband about 2 hours before I had to leave for the airport and I managed to talk myself out of flying. Because I’d made my reservations just the day before, I wasn’t able to get any of the cheaper fares with restrictions, which turned out to be a good thing – I was able to cancel my reservation without penalty and get it credited back to my card.

There’s one drawback about driving by yourself and kind of needing to be somewhere at a certain time. You can’t really stop and take pictures. The drive through Southern Utah was absolutely gorgeous. There had been a big snowstorm two days before and although the roads were dry, the landscape was like driving through a Currier & Ives postcard. There was a top crust of ice on the snow and it sparkled and glittered in the morning sun. There were occasional old barns and small towns that looked really picturesque. You know – you can’t see this stuff from an airplane.

My gas cost round trip was $250. In addition to the airfare of approximately $400, I also saved $200 on a one-week car rental, so overall I saved money by driving, even if it did take me longer to drive. If I’d driven straight through, the drive time would’ve been 3 to 4 hours more each way than the time it takes to fly (factoring in all the pre- and post-flight time necessary). All in all, I felt it was worth it to save over $300 and sit in a comfortable seat with complete control over my departure time.

One tradition, as previously discussed here, was Grandma’s cookies, which were like rocks. But last night, as I cleaned my kitchen, I thought of another – the post-dinner cleanup. At Grandma’s, cleanup commenced immediately following dinner. All the food had to be put away, the dishes washed, dried and put away. The silver had to be counted, washed, dried and put back in the chest. Everyone pitched in (voluntarily or otherwise) until the kitchen was, once again, spotless – and then you could kick back and relax.

Part of this was due to the sheer number of people. Some years, the tables took up the entire covered porch next to the kitchen, with barely enough room to move around the table. I remember one year when there was actually a table in the basement because there were so many of us. At the very least, the tables had to be cleared and taken down – there simply wasn’t room for anyone until that happened.

My in-laws do things very differently and it took me a couple of years to get used to it.

First of all, dinner doesn’t start with dinner – it starts with – starters. Chips, dips, vegetables and dip… you kind of have to pace yourself or there won’t be room for dinner. If you’re told dinner starts at 4:00, that means dinner actually goes on the table at about 6:00 or so. The only food that’s put away after dinner is anything that will spoil. Dishes are piled in the sink, on the counter tops and dirty pans are left on the stove while presents are opened and everyone retires to another room. Nobody helps clean up – the cleaning is done by the host/hostess after everyone leaves.

This was quite unusual to me. I mean – being naturally lazy, I like it when I’m not the hostess. But it was difficult to adjust to just walking away and leaving the mess for someone else to clean up. However, as I cleaned up last night after everyone left, I reflected that I kind of enjoy this way of doing things.

I left the mess in the kitchen and we went to the living room to open presents and visit. And after everyone left and I was exhausted, I made sure whatever might spoil was put away – then I went and watched TV (and fell asleep a couple of times), completely ignoring that my kitchen was a disaster. I wonder how Grandma would feel about that. (My mother would laugh out loud if she knew some of my friends consider me the Queen of Clean.) After I rested (ibuprofen helps) and when my husband came to bed, I got up and started to clean the kitchen. I loaded the dishwasher and ran it, then organized the rest of the mess so I knew what needed to be done the next day. I put food away. I left bags of rolls and cookies and appetizers out for anyone who wanted to keep picking away at it. I left roasting pans full of juices on top of the stove. I ate a couple of chocolates. Then I went to bed.

One thing my mother used to say was – what if you died? Would you want people to see your house was a mess? Well golly – I’m dead! Do I care any more? Does my grieving family care that I left a mess behind? I hope the fact that I’m dead and gone overrides any mess I might have left behind!

Or, my next favorite – what if someone broke into your house? OK, I guess the sterling soaking in a bowl next to the sink might be awfully tempting and a heck of a lot easier to find than if it was in its case in the hutch (and yes, I also count the sterling before it’s put away). But in the scheme of things – if there’s a complete stranger in my house and I didn’t invite him in, do I really care that my kitchen is full of dirty dishes and there’s bags of food out on the counter? At least the cookies are easily at hand to offer the cops. And if I have to shoot an intruder – well heck, I had to clean the kitchen anyway!

I did have one benefit of last night’s cleanup. I broke the top part of my glass butter dish. I was planning on sweeping/Swiffering the floor, anyway – and I had already previously broken the bottom part and had to replace the whole thing, so i was able to just pull the top part out of the cupboard and voila – I have one whole glass butter dish again! I knew that thing would come in handy.

I hope everyone had a very happy holiday. Relax – you can clean house tomorrow.

Now – what she told us was that if (God forbid, of course!) we were in a terrible accident and died, we wouldn’t want anyone coming into the house and thinking “what a mess!” And for years, I thought – when you’re dead, it really doesn’t make any difference what people think, does it?

Of course, this is the same woman who told me she made marks on the walls before I cleaned them, just so she could make sure I had thoroughly cleaned them. Washing down the walls was a regular chore for my sister and I, and one that I hated (and loudly complained about doing).  At the tender age of 7, I told her if she had to mark them up in order to make sure they’d been done, then they probably didn’t need to be done at all. It was a sign of things to come.

Another thing that fell in the category of “things you do in case you die” was clean underwear with no holes in it. As an adult and a parent, I now wonder – why did we even HAVE underwear with holes in it? If she didn’t want us wearing holey underwear, all she had to do was remove them from our wardrobe. She controlled just about everything else in our lives – why not the holey underwear? And that completely ignores what happens to your clothes if you’re in a terrible accident (and with my mother, the implication was always that if you died before you made it home again, it would be in a terrible accident!).

Anyway, back to the clean house thing…

As an adult, I suspect the real reason my mother wanted a clean house before leaving town was so she could come back to a clean house. Oh, and because she was OCD about cleaning. Don’t ask why she didn’t just say that – that would be a topic for a year’s worth of blogging, or possibly even a novel. I appreciate coming home to a clean house, which is why I’m leaving a clean house. Unfortunately, I’m also leaving my husband and son, which means it won’t be as clean when I get back as it is when I left. But at least I have the satisfaction of knowing that my house was clean. And if I am in a terrible accident and people come to my home – I could give a rat’s ass what they think of my housekeeping skills!

Now, it means something completely different.

Don’t ask me why, but dust just springs to life before my eyes when I’m on the phone. It doesn’t matter which room I’m in or when I last dusted in that room – I see more dust than I thought was humanly possible, in places I apparently haven’t looked at before. So I strap on the bluetooth headset – which used to keep my hands free to I could use the computer while I was on the phone – and continue talking while I get a cleaning cloth and some Pledge, as well as a long-handled duster for the cobwebs, and get to work. As I’ve mentioned before on Twitter, spiders seem to love the hot, dry weather we’ve been having and there’s been an explosion of cobwebs inside and outside the house.

I did decide it’s somewhat rude to run noisy machinery while talking on the phone, so I don’t vacuum. Folding and hanging up laundry is acceptable multitasking.

I don’t think I’ve discussed it here before, but I let my cleaning person go several months ago. Aside from the savings, I just wasn’t happy with the job she was doing. Here’s my philosophy – when I do clean, I do a better job than she was doing, partly because well – I do a better job – but also because I don’t leave things for that day when I know someone will come and clean, so some things get cleaned more often. Given the amount of dust I’ve discovered while on the phone, obviously there are things I don’t get to as often, but my bathrooms and kitchen have never been cleaner.

Another thing that jumps out at me when I’m on the phone is the fact that my windows really, really need to be cleaned. That’s one I haven’t attempted while on the phone because I feel it’s necessary to do ALL the windows once I start – and I just don’t feel like doing that just yet. On the bright side, neither did the cleaning person. OK, so maybe I don’t do a better job in all respects, but I’m a lot cheaper!

I’ve been Domestic Goddessing.

And I don’t mean taking candlelit bubble baths, either.

I mean cooking, baking, cleaning, doing laundry, hanging it up and putting it away, hanging pictures, making beds – that kind of stuff.

You want to know what makes me feel MOST domestic goddess-like?

Ironing my husband’s shirts.

Oooh – how 50s is THAT?

For the records, I don’t normally iron his shirts. I don’t even wash them. They go to the dry cleaners. There are a couple reasons for that. First and foremost – they do a much better job than I can do. That’s why they’re pros. Second, they’re not all that expensive, especially if you work the discounts. If you take in 8 items, you get 1 free. (Check.) If you pay cash, you get a discount. (Check.) I figure for about $1.50 a shirt – which is what it ends up costing me – and a superior job, it’s worth the money. Not to mention the third reason this is a good idea – I soon get overwhelmed by the endless march of shirts and pretty soon I’m washing and ironing at midnight so my husband will have a shirt to wear to work the next day.

That doesn’t mean that occasionally I don’t mind wallowing in the DG of it all. On the most recent occasion, I lost track of where I was in the shirt cleaning timeline, took them in and found out the next week he needed 2 more cleaned and ironed shirts before I could pick up the ones I’d taken to the dry cleaners. Normally, if I know this in advance, I’ll hold back a couple shirts. Unfortunately, this time I didn’t realize it. I took the shirts in on a Saturday, so there weren’t even any more shirts in the basket that I could wash and iron.

After going through the closet, I found 2 shirts he just doesn’t like to wear – and one that shouldn’t even been there because the collar was so badly frayed. They happened to be clean, they just needed ironing. This is one benefit of doing the ironing myself – I get to see the condition of the shirts. He may (or may not) complain that his shirts are falling apart – but it doesn’t stop him from wearing them, just as long as they’re cleaned, ironed and hanging in his closet. I mean – I’ve made him take off shirts that had holes in the cuffs, for heaven’s sake.

“You can’t wear that!” I exclaim.

“I can’t? Why not?” He begins self inspection.

“Look at the cuffs. And OMG – the collar! Take that off.”

“It’s not so bad.”

“I’m throwing it away. Get another one.”

This doesn’t happen often, because he usually leaves the house by 5:30 a.m. and I’m still in bed.

Well, back to those 2 shirts.

When I was growing up, my mother always assigned us chores and the chores were geared towards our age and ability. I remember being so proud that she graduated me from ironing pillowcases to ironing my father’s dress shirts. My oldest sister showed me how. First, the collar, then the back yoke, careful to stretch out the seam to iron out the puckers. Then on to the front of the shirt, paying special attention to the seams and the button area, but especially the front placket, which is what shows most after the shirt is buttoned. Down the sides, pulling out the side seams and stretching them, then around to the back, being careful not to crease the back pleat, then the sleeves and the cuffs. I use lots of steam because I love the smell and the sound. I also like to spray on sizing, so the shirt is crisp, but not stiff. Because I’m lazy, I don’t take down the sleeve iron – honest, I would if I did these all the time. It’s a leftover from the “old days” when I actually sewed. When I’m done, I hang the shirt up and inspect it. I feel satisfied and fulfilled and all warm and gooey – almost like cookies, but less fattening.

Ahhh… the life of a Domestic Goddess!