Adventures in Housekeeping

The pain got worse. So much so, that the doc found time in his busy schedule to perform another procedure last Monday.

It seems to have worked, although I have to say that the side effects of the conscious sedation lasted a lot longer this time. I managed to make it to work a couple of days last week, but that was about it...all I could manage was sleep.

Today I am almost pain free, for the first time in months. And this weekend, also for the first time in months, I CLEANED. I cleaned because I could walk, and bend, and move, and it didn't hurt. Of course, the crowd of people standing in the front yard with torches and pitchforks yelling "UNCLEAN! MONSTER! UNCLEAN!" had nothing to do with it.

There are plenty of people who could tell you what a lax housekeeper I am. This came to fruition about my second year of being married when I realized that he was never going to pick up his own dirty socks -- and I detest dirty socks -- so my philosophy became "if there aren't any bugs, and it's not a fire hazard, then it's OK". Then I had another 18 years or so in which I perfected this way of living...although, any time anyone else (like, gee, that guy I was married to who was the father of these kids and who insisted I work fulltime, cook all the meals and do all the laundry) was willing to help clean, I was all over it. But if no one else was willing, why should I do it all?

Once I had my own space, though, it was better; but it was also worse. Better, because my attitude was better, but worse because I now had two children, two dogs, and a cat. And the kids were slightly worse at cleaning than the cat, and only slightly better than the dogs.

Throughout this whole leg pain affair, it's been Gavin, the dogs, the cat, and me. I couldn't do much, and if you've ever had teenagers, you'll know that in order to get them to do housework, they require either a) a lot of nagging or b) the ability on the part of the parent to enforce draconian measures.

I'm not good at either of those. While (mostly) the trash got carried out, and (mostly) the dishes got done, and (mostly) the height of the grass in the yard did not exceed 6 inches...well...nothing else was done except for the odd loads of laundry.

And just to set the record straight, Gavin's sister Alex was much, MUCH worse before she married. So I have to believe, for his future wife's sake, that it is strictly a teenager thing.

Both dogs have been shedding, and once I was finally able to vacuum, I think I acquired enough hair to make 5 more dogs about the size of Labradors. This is really impressive, because both of them still appear to have as much as they started with. In a couple of hidden corners, I found spiders had made homes and had started substantial graveyards of discarded insect parts. The patio was still covered in the last of the winter leaves, books covered every available surface (you can also substitute "dust" for "books")...and, well, you get the picture.

Plus my piles of tile are still waiting to be laid...and if I'm still feeling well in a week or two, that's next (I really don't want to get that started and have to quit in the middle).

There are a couple of really good things that happened because of this. One is that I really, really enjoyed cleaning over the weekend -- and it's been a long time since that was the case. The other thing is that Rog did not run away screaming...and over the past month has spent time with me in my house, despite the fact that he has allergies and drifts of dog hair were thick on the floor. He must be as smitten as I am.