Tackling the Mess

[kevin_standlee]

Being the kind of person I am, it's very difficult to get started on a cleanup project; however, once I start, I tend to not want to stop. So it was today. The problem was that it had been so long since I cleaned up that one thing would lead to another, with endless "cleaning digressions."

For instance, wanting to pull the bed away from the wall so I could vacuum behind it led to needing my tool kit, which eventually (after several more steps through my van and to the storage unit off my patio) led to me needing to clean the patio, which was full of leaves and debris from my upstairs neighbor's deck refinishing project. About an hour later, I managed to get most of the leaves swept over the wall for the complex's landscapers to deal with. This was the part I dreaded the most, due to my fear of spiders. I stirred up a few, including one that might have been a black widow. *shudder* After getting things a little better out there, I liberally sprayed the patio edges with bug spray, which then meant that the apartment smelled like Raid for a while until the stuff finished dispersing.

Anyway, after several hours of this, I finally got things to a less-messy state. My bathroom still needs cleaning, and I still need to mop the kitchen, but the whole house is now vacuumed and sort of dusted. Wow, was there a lot of dust and hair in the vacuum cleaner's dust-cup!. A whole lot of cardboard shipping boxes have been smashed down and taken to the recycling bin. It is at least better than it was at the start of the day.

The bad part of this is that I was too tired (and hungry) after doing all this to cook a pot of pea soup, for which I'd purchased the fixings. Instead, I walked down to the small shopping center near my apartment and bought a lamb biryani from the Indian take-out located there. I was amused at how much the front counter reminded me of the Indian take-out in Glasgow near the dorm where I stayed, except that this one here in Fremont doesn't offer pizza or fish & chips.

Once I've done the kitchen, I think I'll call it a weekend well done. I think housecleaning counts as exercise. At least I hope it does, because I sure don't feel like going out for a walk this evening.

Comments

[marahsk.livejournal.com]

I was told that housecleaning counts as exercise.

Excercise

[thirdworld.livejournal.com]

I remember hearing that an hour of housework was more work than a round of golf, if you carried your own clubs and walked.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Not having played golf (other than miniature), I can't give a direct comparison, but it sure felt like I'd been exercising. Unfortunately, it appears that exercise before eating is not as good as exercise after eating for the purpose of burning blood sugar. Also, biryanis have a lot of carbs from the rice, so my blood sugar level went up to 153, which is higher than I would like. (Getting wrapped up in the cleaning work also meant not stopping for food at the proper regular intervals as well; part of my treatment program is to eat small meals more often so as to put less of a strain on my pancreas and possibly coax it back into a more normal production level.)