Hazmat Suit, Check. Shovel, Check. Housecleaning in 3, 2, 1…
These past couple months have been… well…
Around Christmas, I walked into my apartment and stared at a big white box. My first thought was to wonder who sent me a present. My second thought was to wonder how it ended up in my apartment, since I didn’t put it there. A couple minutes later, I looked at it again and realized it wasn’t a box or a present at all. It was the package of toilet paper I’d bought the night before and hadn’t put away yet.
That is what the past few months have been like for me.
So today, since I had a bit of a breather from things, I decided to put away all the things I hadn’t put away yet.
First the toilet paper. Then the brand new box of kitty litter that was hiding behind it. Then the stack of saddle pads one of the guys at the barn gave me—they finally made it over to the washing machine. Then I put away another brand-new box of kitty litter. Then I piled up the pile of papers I need to go through sometime, since they had fallen off the table. Then there was another brand-new box of kitty litter.
This explains one thing, at least: I’d thought I’d been going through the kitty litter awfully quickly. It turns out I just kept forgetting where I put the boxes after I bought them.
On the plus side, I found almost $100. People who know me know I never carry cash, so that’s a small miracle in and of itself.
I also found my stall guard. I’m kind of glad and a little annoyed—I just ordered a new one, since this one was AWOL. Turns out in my last cleaning spree, I got clever and put it in my bridle bag. Who puts stall guards in bridle bags, anyway? This is why I hate cleaning. You can never find anything later.
As long as I was being productive, I brought in my old saddle rack from the truck, where it has been sitting for the last week or so. With my extra saddles sitting on that, I now have a tub I can use for other stuff—good timing, since I have saddle pads coming out my ears and need someplace to put them.
And so on and so forth, all day long, much to the cats’ amusement. I found all their toys, too, and they decided this was a game: drag the toys out so I could put them back again.
But I think I am just about done. There are a couple loads of laundry to finish up, and next weekend I need to do a thorough spring cleaning, but at least my apartment no longer looks like a small and very localized tornado struck it. I even waved a dust rag around and shamed some books back into their dust jackets.
My life may just be getting back to something approaching normal. Finally.
And I won’t have to buy kitty litter for months.