*sigh*
Where is a boy to begin in describing the past 3 days? It's just been non-stop cleaning for me. I came back to my apartment on Monday night (Mother's birthday, yay!) and the first thing I could just sense was the dust. Not just the physical dust that you could see on the surfaces, but the feeling on the carpet that each step would erupt in a tiny dust mushroom cloud. And sure enough, I got out my lamp and I confirmed this to be the case.
Thus began the great Vacuuming'010. There's a brilliant story Jo Brand tells on an episode on QI highlighting how when she does the vacuuming she just goes around the nooks and crannies. One day she tells her husband to do it and she heads to the shops. Upon her return she finds her entire living room out in the front garden. I basically employed that technique, everything moved into my kitchen and I went over each spot 20 times.
And that wasn't just being anal. My vacuum is stupidly weak, so it takes about 10 'go overs' to do a normal strength vacuum cleaner's once over. The extra 10 was because I was anal.
I started at about 11pm and I finished at 1:30am. For a room that must be less than 30m^2 (I'm assuming that's small) that was pretty darn epic cleaning (and that was just the carpeting ... so half of it). Next morning I began unpacking and moving stuff around to make room. Vacuumed my kitchen ...
Then my new bed arrived <3 Dunno if I've mentioned it, but past 2 years I've slept on a bed whose mattress was essentially inadequate and a bedframe that was worse. Chronic back pains have been a problem. Finally, upon negotiation of a new lease, I was able to convince the owners that I needed a new bed and thus they provided.
I had the guys bring my bed up here ... and I took a break for like an hour to arse about with the bed. It's a metal frame with wooden slats for a base. The front and end of the bed was bolted together and I spent about an hour trying to figure out how to unbolt it. I eventually realised I had to use physics and put it on it's side so I could use both my body weight and gain the appropriate torque.
Then came the hard bit. How to attach the slats without a drill? I sent out an urgent text for supplies! AJ, the ol' chum, came to my rescue and said he'd come over the next morning and help!
With that I moved onto my bathroom .. a small 2x2m room reminiscent of a bathroom on a cruise ship (in its claustrophobic feel and odd whiteness). Last year I neglected to clean it fully, thus this year I employed a great deal of Domestos to help. Bad idea. It ended up funking the room with a horrible chlorine smell and was slightly woozying. Several fans and open windows for like 2 hours didn't help.
But mother has the grand idea to prop open my door so I had actual air flow. Brilliant idea, almost within 10 minutes the smell went, though I kept it open for another good 2-3 hours to ensure I wasn't poisoned overnight.
The next coupla hours was spent individually cleaning all my novels and DVDs on my shelf.I had no idea I had much crap here until I individually handled them. That was nice and easy. I then proceeded to unpack my suitcase, store away my winter collection and take a long, hot shower.
That night I slept on the new mattress on my new bed.
AJ rocked up right on time to assist me. I pointed out to me how soft the wood was (???) and that I could've done it by hand the night before. We proceed with that method for half but then decide just to use the drill since he brought it along. And then we were done. We constructed the frame, put the mattress on it, and voila! A beautiful piece <3
I eagerly look forward to my sleep tonight. I'm especially tired from my 4 hours of lectures, so tired in fact, that I didn't bother to do any cleaning at all. I still have 2 shelves and 2 cupboards to fully clean, but after that I'm done. Lots more to talk about another time ... The orgasmically brilliant lecture I had this afternoon for one and the fact that I only met with bearded people...
*sleep*
