Category Archives: cleaning

We Need a Cat

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So…we had a mouse in our house.

Maybe even more than one. Now before you start getting all “ewww, that’s gross, her house must be so dirty, blah blah blah etc.” let me just stop you right there.

Image courtesy of bug-central.com

Devil mouse

My floors may not sparkle every minute of every day, but we keep the house clean. There are no dirty dishes in the sink. There are no piles of crap. Okay well maybe a few piles but really, I promise, we are clean people. We just live in an old, old house (built in 1890) and it is difficult to know if every tiny hole is sealed up from the outside.

And last week, when the temperatures dropped and the snow started piling up, we heard a little noise in Saucer’s dog dish. A little clanging sound, the same noise Saucer makes when he’s eating. Only problem was, Saucer was sitting there on the couch with us.

So we creeped into the kitchen, and what did we see? A little mouse, scurrying right underneath the dishwasher. Cute little guy really.

I remained calm. John jumped up on the kitchen counter and started screaming like a little girl. Saucer, although he’s a small terrier bred to hunt rodents, stayed on the couch and blinked at us a few times.

Once I had John calmed down a little, I proceeded to formulate a plan. We needed to catch this mouse, and we needed to do it now. NOW.

So I did what any intelligent person would do. I googled.

After a little research, I found two ways to make homemade mouse traps. On involves a box, a ramp, a tunnel and a trash can, and one involves a 2 liter. We decided to start with the 2  liter.

The basic idea is to cut off the top of the 2 liter, invert the top so it creates a type of funnel, and then lure the mouse in with some bait (we used dog food since he seemed to already be into it). I was so proud of our little homemade trap.

It didn’t work.

We saw the mouse at least three times over the next two days, and at no time was he inside of the 2 liter bottle. The little bugger was not falling for it.

So we tried the other trap. That didn’t work either. John was starting to get frantic. He was hopping on the kitchen counter screaming at the slightest shuffle of the leaves, worried that the mouse was going to come get him. He couldn’t sleep. He was losing his mind.

We had tried the homemade, crafty, do-it-yourself mousetrap method and it was not happening. So we turned to a traditional, tried and true tactic. We went to the store and we bought a bright shiny mousetrap.

Not just any mousetrap. Yes, a rodent had infested my house, but no, I do not want to kill it just because it’s trying to get in on that delicious dog food I feed Saucer. I didn’t want to put down poison, I didn’t want a snappy trap, and I didn’t want to watch him kill himself on sticky tape. I wanted a kinder, gentler mousetrap. At least something humane.

We ended up with this Victor Tin Cat Mouse Trap and within a day, we had captured the little guy. Unfortunately I wasn’t home to see it all go down (I was out partying like a rock star like I usually do on Tuesday nights) so John took him to a lake about a mile away from our house and set him free.

We may or may not have his brother, wife or cousin hanging around somewhere, so we put the trap back down just in case.

For now though, John is calm, and I think we’ve all learned a valuable lesson. Sometimes homemade just isn’t good enough.

Scheduling Motivation

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My sister told me the other day that I’ve “gotten too used to being able to do whatever [I] want all the time.”

At first I thought, well isn’t that entire point of life? Just to be able to do whatever you want? That sounds awesome! So does that mean that I’m awesome? Why yes, I guess it does!

But in reality, it’s not like I can do WHATEVER I want. There’s not jetting off to France for a week of wine drinking in the world’s best vineyards. Sigh.

But it is awesome in the sense that I can create my own schedule. I CHOOSE when to do things. Anything I want (within reason of course). Whenever I want.

That doesn’t mean I’m free from all responsibility. It doesn’t mean I still don’t have to do things I don’t want to. But I do have more flexibility in choosing when to do those things.

Sometimes though, I think that flexibility can lead to stagnation. It’s hard to get motivated to do the laundry, or water the lawn, when there is always time to do it later. I could start that load of whites now, or I could start it later. I could turn on the sprinkler now, or I could do it later.

That’s why I find that even though I have what might appear to be oodles of free time, for those of us that are unemployed, it still helps to be on some sort of a schedule. It doesn’t necessarily have to be anything rigid, but having a schedule will help give a sense of structure to your day, and it will help you feel a sense of accomplishment.

You might want to use a calendar to help you organize your schedule. A day timer is nice, or you can be all crazy awesome at technology like I am and use Google Calendar.

The first step is to establish a good sleeping pattern. I realize that it may be tempting to sleep in until all hours of the day and then stay up late (just because you can!) but you are a grown up, and it’s time to get on a good, normal sleeping pattern. Try to get at least 8 hours a night, because that’s going to help you be your best, and you want to be your best don’t you? For me, I find that 9 hours is optimal, and I usually sleep from about 11 or 11:30 until 8 a.m. or so. You might find you operate better sleeping from 12 to 9, or 10 to 6, or even 1 to 10. Just find what works best for you.

After you’ve established your normal sleeping pattern, try to find the periods of the day in which you are the most productive. This is no different for those of you that are employed, so perk those ears up if you’ve been nodding off during most of this post (maybe time to evaluate your sleeping habits, no?).  I find that I am most productive during my first hours of waking, so I try to schedule chores, errands, job-searching, and any other activity that requires a higher level of motivation (read: things I don’t really want to do but have to) during my morning hours, leaving the afternoon for more leisurely activities such as reading, writing, etc.

Now that you have a basic routine to your day down, it’s time to look at the bigger picture. For me, a large job search Web site that I follow here in Denver comes out every Monday, so I dedicate a good chunk of Monday to researching companies, drafting cover letters, and sending out resumes. When it comes to the more mundane tasks of daily life, I try to schedule them into my calendar so they don’t get put off and build up.

Sheets need to be washed once a week no? So let’s add that to the calendar, how about every Thursday? Floors should be vacuumed at least every two weeks, how about on Friday mornings? If it’s housework your focused on, take a look at Flylady.com, she’s got a very helpful calendar for almost any type of housework you can think of.

After I’ve scheduled necessary tasks into my week, I find time for the things I WANT to do. For me, this includes writing, which I’m trying to do on a regular basis. However, I find that if I don’t make time for my writing and actually insert it into my schedule, the stuff of daily life can often come up and trump that time I thought I might spend on it. You might not think you need to block off two hours on your calendar to do things you WANT to do, but trust me, if you don’t, something else will come up . So schedule the time to go to the gym, to work on that craft project, or even just to take that bath. Calgon anyone?Because even though you can do “whatever you want, whenever you want,” sometimes life just gets in the way.

So does unemployment mean footloose and fancy free? Sometimes, yes. But working off a calendar can help you stay motivated and productive, and the sense of accomplishment you’ll feel after crossing those items off of your to-do list will reduce any guilt you might feel when it comes time to just veg out in front of the TV for a little while.

My Unchosen Profession

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I’m not sure when it was I decided I’d become a housewife. It wasn’t when I got laid off from my job. It wasn’t when we moved to Singapore, because we lived in a service apartment there and the most housewife-y thing I had to do was the laundry, and oh yeah cook, and sometimes clean but not all that often, but I mostly thought of myself as a lady of leisure. I wanted to be a tai tai, which is a Singaporean woman who spends all of her husband’s money, but we didn’t really have the kind of money you needed to be a tai tai, so I couldn’t really take it that far even though I wanted to. I was eyeing a Gucci purse though, let me tell you. I was eying that thing hard.

When we were back in the States I thought oh, I’ll get a job, and just go back to my life as a career woman (or a fake career woman because I’m not sure I ever really felt like a career woman either) but the problem was, there was no career.

Something about the recession? I’m sure you’ve heard of it. 2008, stock market drops dramatically, housing something, something about insurance companies, etc. etc. and all of the sudden the only thing on CNN is some blond woman telling me how I’ll NEVER FIND A JOB AGAIN.

Okay I think, maybe this applies to some people, but surely not to me. I mean, I will find a job. I mean, do you know who I am? I am a success! I look good in suits! I make jokes (appropriate of course) in interviews!

But fine, maybe it wasn’t so easy. So in the meantime I thought, I’ll just do things. You know, things around the house. At first I hated it. Actually I still hate it. But now, I think I’ve embraced it. I never made the conscious decision to go, okay, today’s the day I’ll be Betty Crocker, or whoever the hell the model housewife is – oh wait isn’t it June Cleaver? Oh I don’t know. Anyway, I never sat down and said to my husband, to John, okay John, since I don’t have a job job, like a real job where money comes in, I’m going to become the perfect housewife.  You know, a real June Cleaver.

But for some reason, maybe it’s my type A personality or maybe it’s just because I still feel like I’m kind of a phony in my own life, I’ve taken it upon myself to start to do housewife-y things. And I’m not even sure what the definition of a housewife is, although I’m sure I could find it on the good old Internet. Because if there’s one thing I do well, it is read things online.

I love reading things online. Blogs where the authors take pictures of every single meal they eat. Every day. Or celebrity gossip sites that detail who slept with who, what movie sucks that who is in, and why her plastic surgery went horribly wrong, and how are they going to make it work for the kids. Or reviews of restaurants that I might think about eating in but then never actually go to. I mean I could go on and on. There is so much to read on the Web. I spent an entire morning reading about fledgling baby birds back in June because we had a few in our garden. Now that’s the kind of thing June Cleaver could never do.

Anyway though, so regardless of the definition of a housewife, I decided to become one at some point in time. I even found a web site that gives me DAILY and I mean even hourly instructions on how to keep my house clean. Today for instance, I’m supposed to wash the baseboards in the bathroom with a hot soapy rag. You know, just to keep up with it all. I don’t think I’m going to though. I think I’ll skip that one today.

And that’s the joy of being a housewife, it’s that you are your own boss. I mean really, if I decide, as the head of house or housewife-y things, you know, that we’re having peanut butter and jelly for dinner, I mean that is what we are doing. But it’s kind of sad in a way, because I guess I have a tendency to abuse my own power. Over myself.

You wouldn’t think that would be possible, but it totally is. Back to the baseboards in the bathroom with the hot soapy rag – I’ve got that on my calendar. It is a scheduled item. Meaning in order to be what I would consider “successful” in my unchosen profession (that of housewife) I should complete this task. But as BOSS of myself in my unchosen profession (that of housewife) I have the power to veto that task and sit around and read The New Yorker instead. So I’m abusing my power as boss, but inside my own head I’m also railing against myself for not doing the things I’ve decided I would do as a housewife.

I mean is that a struggle or what? A sad, sad struggle. But that’s what happens to you when you’re a 29 year-old, married female with no kids, no job, and nothing to do with your time except pretend you are June Cleaver when really you see yourself as more of an intellectual, career woman (phony as that may be) who dresses like she just walked out of In Style but really your wearing pajama pants because you haven’t been out of the house all day and why bother, except to walk the dog and should I put on heels to do that or no, that would be crazy but I should dress like who I want to be and oh WHO DO I WANT TO BE AGAIN?!?

It doesn’t matter. Not right now at least, because my profession, my career, it chose me. Now I should really go wash those baseboards.