Well, I didn�t have any night terrors last night that resulted in the police making a house call, which is good.
I slept like a babe.
It was nice.
The following is embarassinng to admit, but if I can spare even one of you the plague of fruit flies, I've done my job.
I never said I was a great housekeeper, so sue me. I live like a bachelor. Between working full time, being a single parent to Jackie, watching Max every weekend and taking care of my Grandma and cleaning her house, there�s not a lot of me to go around.
To spend some quality time with my daughter certain things I have to let go once in a while. Like leaving dishes out with food in them out for a night. I know. Bad me. And the issue of the dried fruit roll-up on the coffee table that�s been there for a week. And the dried fruit roll-up on the floor next to the trash can in the bathroom, where Jackie accidentally dropped it, 3 feet shy of the trashcan. And the bottom of my kitchen trashcan is not the cleanest. I�m no Martha Stewart.
Well, it looks like all this has come back to haunt me via the fruit flies. It looks like I�ve nearly won the battle. I�ve sprayed the buggers all to hell. I�ve fogged them. I�ve put up sticky traps that I bought for $1.99 for 4 at Walgreen�s that work fabulously.
My daughter and her stupid fruit roll ups. I will never buy another pack, because they melt onto whatever surface and it takes an act of God to get them up. I must�ve messed up somewhere in my parenting if Jackie thinks it�s okay to leave that kind of mess behind.
To make up for it, well, poor little Jackie spent some time last night scraping fruit roll-up off the coffee table with a butter knife. It scratched my table, but she got it up. Next, she scraped the fruit roll-up crap off the floor in the bathroom. Then, I gave her 3 baby wipes and told her to go get the congealed soda off the top of her entertainment center. I read on a website yesterday that fruit flies LOVE soda. I told Jackie that from now on, if you are drinking something, you must pour it out before you go to bed. No more leaving cups in the living room full of soda.
She was pissed at this point but the kid�s gotta know you cannot leave sticky food on the table or on the floor. No more lazy attitudes concerning food and storage of it.
Last night, since I first bought that kitchen trashcan, I cleaned it. I pine soled the hell out of it. Once I got the paper and dried (apple?) crap that was stuck to the bottom of it, I then put some hot water in there. I took out a brillo pad and scrubbed the bottom of the can. Then, I swished the water around and dumped it. Then I put more hot water in there and put some bleach in it to soak overnight. My kitchen smells clean!
After I did that, I got to work cleaning gerbil cages. I used to clean their cage every week. Now, it�s been about two weeks or so since I last did it. But gerbils don�t really smell and they�re pretty clean. I didn�t see the point in doing it every week.
I think that my rat, Chedda, might�ve been hoarding some food, which is typical for rats, so I made sure I cleaned her cage out good. After I dumped out her bedding, I used pine sol on her cage as well as all the other animals. I made sure I rinsed out all of them really good with hot water, so that the chemicals wouldn�t bother them.
After I cleaned the rat cage, I reached in and picked up Chedda. That�s how I found out she has a tumor on her side. Rats often die of tumors. I was hoping she�d live longer than 3 years, since she is almost 3 now, but it looks like she�ll die soon. I was sad. I stroked her little head and gave her a little kiss. She is really the sweetest rat I�ve ever had.
I really do love my animals.
I�m sick to death of messes. I�m sick to death of clutter. Something�s gotta change in my house. I�ve got a pile of 4-year-old yellow pages taking up space in my bedroom. There�s a jumper cable next to my bed (insert joke here). There�s a dead, dusty, non-working, fountain in there. There�s another dead fountain in my living room that I always stub my toe on. I�ve got Mary Kay stuff strewn about my house. I�ve got 6 or 7 empty boxes so that I can ship my sister necessities in Italy. I�ve got bubble wrap out the yin-yang.
I really do need some help. I know this. Funny enough, while at my Mom�s on Christmas Eve, she suggested I get someone to come in and organize my house. She said, �Why don�t you pay Toni to do it?� Toni and I had a good snicker over that one. Toni�s more of a pack rat than I am! Why my mom thinks Toni is more organized than I am is beyond me. It�s ageism, I tell you. She thinks that because she�s older, she�s more organized, or something like that.
If anything I learned from the fruit fly experience, is that certain housekeeping things have to be done right away. Some things you just can�t let go for a few days. Because a few days turns into a week, a week turns into a month, and next thing you know you got slimy, smelly black moldy apples in the bottom of your trashcan.
Not good.
And sort of smelly.
Gross.
By the time I�m done with all of this, my house will be close to sparkling. That would be very nice.
10:23 am - December 30, 2004
Recent entries:
What you missed - January 16, 2012
%%older_entries%%From hell - October 19, 2010
%%older_entries%%a rant from a few weeks ago - August 17, 2010
%%older_entries%%Tired - June 20, 2010
%%older_entries%%A beautiful lie - March 11, 2010
%%older_entries%%
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