Horror films R Us

So. If you haven't guessed already, I live in Texas. Texas is hot. Texas has never been properly socialised. Texas has assholes in the Governor's Mansion and most of the senate and house.

Texas has bugs.

Big. Bugs. Spiders, scorps, centipedes you could put on a leash and take for a walk. Roaches that ask for the keys to your car.

Fortunately, I have never seen one of these, else I might not be alive to write this.

http://dorothyramon.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/

Eventually even the nicest houses get bugs in Texas.  Termititis is not a matter of of if, but when. Carpenter ants. Fucking Fire Ants (they can die in HELL). And these humongous tree roaches that invite themselves in during wet or cold weather and, like the worst houseguests, never leave.  They hide in insidious ways and then fuck a lot.

Please note: this is NOT my hand....NFW  Random pic from teh intarwebs
just to give you scale.

Also note, I know bugs are bigger in Belize, you don't have to show me, thanks.

So. These little (little?) fuckers had set up shop in my pantry. I don't think UGH is quite strong enough to portray my disgust. I had put out those bait things where they're supposed to dine, go back to the nest, die, and let their cannibal relatives eat them so they die, too.  Yeah...not. They would eat the stuff, decide to stick around, shit on things, lay their nasty little egg cases, then try to crawl across the floor but be so sick they couldn't make it...

This actually isn't my worst roach encounter...I should tell you about my kitchen in Mid-City, New Orleans....but I'm sure you've probably already lost your lunch.

Some time ago I had made sorta kinda loose plans to remodel my tiny pantry. It's got deep, particle board (read cheap) shelves where things get lost and organisation is just a buzzword. I'd show you the before, but I pulled everything out last night about midnight. On Thursday I told Silly Man that I'd had it with our little guests and it was finally time, this weekend, to tear it apart, paint it, make new shelves, etc. and use high-density roach poison for glue. Last night...I couldn't stand it any longer and started pulling things out, I got most of it out and this one cheeky, enormous fucker decided to flaunt my efforts...it didn't end well for her. Bitch.

So. That's my project, forsaking all others for this weekend. I want to do some things like these:

Apologies to whomever's photos I just nabbed. I will take them down if you contact me.

The door is only 17 7/8" wide. These very handy Bekväm spice racks from IKEA are exactly the right length. 

And I have four of them, so they might get used some place...but I'd rather make something like the last pic above it. I want to put things I cook with all the time and non-refrigerated condiments (e.g. ketchup) on the door. Spices, bottles, etc.  I have a whole slew of Indian spices that are on the metro shelf right now, getting exposed to light. BUT  (isn't there always a but?) I already have four of the little racks, they are the right size, and....no sawing. That's gotta be worth something, not to mention the time saved planning, buying, cutting, painting. I'll still paint them, though, because the raw wood would get grease-stained very quickly. I'll probably need a couple more.

 

I will try to be more diligent about posting pics and all. I really want this done THIS weeked HAHAHAHAHAHA....eh hem. One thing I excel at is scope creep.

Escaping earth's gravity, or welcome to the swirling mass of entropy.

I got the kitchen neat and straight, for the most part at least. Am determined to keep it that way, too. I've been doing the little dab of washing up every night and wiping things down. It's very nice to wake up to, by the way.  Have you every cleaned up a room and the rest of the house is a disaster and all you want to do is live in that room?  That's kind of where I am now. 😋

My husband's best friend from high school came through town this week and we had dinner with them. It was pleasant, although their two kids eat like little pigs, literally shoveling food into their mouths off the edge of the plate, and his wife is very nice. I might have committed a faux pas though, they're Mormon, which I didn't realise at first, and I ordered a beer...they were paying. Oops.

Anyway, apparently their house is not in "House Beautiful" shape either and she said they called it the swirling mass of entropy. I like that...classy name for too much clutter to move. I think my place has gone beyond the "creative clutter" term my mom used for my place back in the day. Of course that was after we had massive fights about the way I kept my place, which was really not that bad.

Quite ironic considering her place sank into major problems over the two and half decades after I left. She never hoovered; instead of cleaning the catbox, she'd set it outside and get a new one. My brother and I both found the most disgusting things in her fridge. After she lost her house in Katrina, it would have been a sterling chance to start over with a minimalist life style. But she proceeded to cram the place with furniture, most of it mine, and then when stuff started coming over from the second floor of her house in New Orleans, nothing got thrown out. Her good clothes were lost downstairs, so the clothes that came were bags of stuff she had been getting ready to donate...and yet...she still has them, in addition to clothes she bought here.

She can't find anything she needs, like her SSN card or birth certificate, there's mounds of paperwork, none of which does she need, but she keeps blaming Katrina...twelve years later. and won't throw anything out. I do understand the trauma. but it's kind of hard to help her. And for a while now, her memory is going and she's got the beginnings of dementia, up to and including thinking my son-in-law called her up and bawled her out about something on Facebook. Erm....no...sorry, didn't happen.

There's much more going on and I'm not sharing here, but on top of my own health stuff, work, and my clutter at home (have I done that so I don't have to have my uncle and aunt over?), dealing with her issues is trying to say the least. There are days I just want to keep driving...but I'd have to get lost and stay lost, since my family would never speak to me again.

Thursdays are my night to meet my friend at a coffee shop and write. We chat some, but mostly it's companionship. She's a published author and maybe one day I will be, too. Meanwhile, I keep getting rid of clutter and plot my escape.

14 July 17 -- Happy Bastille Day, or how I became a puffer fish.

Moving along, at a tortoise's pace, with the house. Every small thing is a victory, I guess. Recently I've been watching this Irish chick, Laura Hutchinson, on You Tube. Her channel is called How to Get Your Shit Together.  She's gotten a little theatrical lately, but I love her stuff, she's Irish and sweary and that's right up my alley. She's a big proponent of the KonMari method of "tidying," which really should be "decluttering," as tidying is dusting and hoovering and the day-to-day routines that keep your place tidy once you've found all the furniture and floors...

Apparently I'm late coming to the table on this, the book has been around for a couple of years and there are a kabillion and one videos on YT about how everyone's "KonMaried" their digs. But...if you're like me and haven't seen it yet it's called The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo. Even if you didn't know she's Japanese, you'd figure it out soon enough by reading. Among other things, she tells you to greet your house each time you come in and thank your belongings for their service...as you're shoving them out the door. 

I got the paperback version because it was the cheapest, I'm glad I did. I made notes in it, made it mine...and lent it to my daughter. But it comes in all formats from audio to hardcover. I haven't really started "doing" it yet, but the basic advice is sound. 1. take one category at a time (e.g. clothes); 2. take them all out and put them in one place; 3. handle each and every item; 4. decide if the item "sparks joy"; 5. if it does, keep it, if not, thank it for its service and discard 6. find a permanent place for things you keep.*

"Sparks joy" is open to interpretation, of course. For instance, your toothbrush or dishcloths are not going to "spark" any fuckin' joy...but you need them. Discard, or as Kondo keeps saying "throw away," is of course a multi-layered thing. Garage sales, charity shops, freecycle, Craigslist, etc....the last thing you want to do is actually bin it, and only if other options are not apropos for the item,. I have several options here: a creative reuse shop run by the city where they resell craft and art supplies to support the city arts program in schools; the Habitat for Humanity Restore, which takes all kinds of things; Freecycle; the hazardous materials depot for those cans of paint and bug killer you no longer need; and of course the good old stand-by: Goodwill. I don't use Salvation Army because of personal philosophies. 

This past weekend I took boxes of shit I'd decluttered to all those places--nothing freecycled or garage-saled, however.  It felt sooooo good, too.

I've been working on a project, making a china cabinet I got from a friend work for me and here's how massively stupid things had gotten. I found myself working on top of the washer and dryer and a little dresser because EVERY SINGLE FUCKING TABLE had shit two feet deep on it. I stopped and literally said out loud, "What the actual fuck? just clear off the tables already, what is WRONG with you???"   You don't know how tempted I was to just take my arm and literally sweep everything off on the floor. But then I'd just have a pile o'shit on the floor. Not helping.

I got stalled mid clear-off because I had to go clean mum's kitchen...that's a whole other thing, there...

I actually started this post because I woke up feeling just a tad nauseated and resolved to eat very little and as cleanly as possible today. I had waaaay too much sugary crap yesterday (omfg that cherry pie was delish); I'm not even going to test, I just don't want to see the number. I have also stopped taking both of my acid reflux meds, famotidine and pantoprozole. The famotidine was making me gain/keep enough weight as it was, adding the pantoprozole made me feel like a puffer fish, like overnight. 

So, today's program: tea and fruit, no fucking gerd meds (going with a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar in a cup of cold water before bed--sounds counter-intuitive, but it works), and clearing those tables!

Cheers!

*ETA for the time being, I will have to treat each table, then each room as a "category."  More on this later.