Saturday morning I realized that this weekend was one of only three until we leave for Mexico City. We’ve done so much work, and the house looks really good, but there are still a few big tasks to finish and I haven’t done any work on the house in a while.
So this weekend I started doing stuff again.
I cleaned off some surfaces in the garage. They are right by the door so a lot of random stuff gets thrown on them, and I’m always looking at them and their mess when I come in and out of the house.
I replaced two door knobs and fixed the latch on the front door so now it catches all the time instead of just 25% of the time. The door knobs were high on my list because they required very specific handling to function properly, and if they these doors aren’t closed properly the cats can get into the garage, or escape outside. We definitely don’t want the grandparents to have to deal with AWOL cats, but I had never replaced door knobs and wasn’t sure I could do it. Turns out they really are quite easy to install. I was pleasantly surprised.
I swept the area behind the gate and pulled out all the weeds growing in the sidewalk, so the neighborhood dogs won’t pee (as much) on our house.
I took all the towels out of the hall closet wire basket drawers and organized them. That was a real pain point for me; clean towels never fit in them anymore, so I’d shove them in and then they wouldn’t close. It was frustrating.
I cleaned the freezer, which was truly disgusting. I even unscrewed the bottom and lifted it enough to get all the gross junk under the grates. I did not get to the fridge yet, but I plan to do that next weekend.
Oh, and a bonus task was sewing four patches on my son’s karate gi’s. you may remember that looking for the patches with our last name was part of what prompted me to start this decluttering project. I finally found them in one of the many junk drawers (one I’m sure I checked before!) so it was nice to get them on his new tops this weekend. I also ordered some new fun patches for the backs and arms.
Tomorrow the cleaning lady comes. I’m weirdly nervous about it. I hope the house is ready enough for her to get a lot done. I’m curious to see what it looks like when she’s done; no one has cleaned my house since before the pandemic. It could really use a professional’s touch.
There are still a few big things I need to accomplish before my in-laws stay here, but I got enough done this weekend that I’m feeling good about things again. It was nice to take a couple weeks off from this project, but we leave in less than three weeks, so it’s definitely crunch time. I know I can get it all done, but I have to keep working.
You’ve been so productive on your house lately, I bet it feels awesome! I hope you love having the cleaner there as well!
I always get a little stressed when my trips are coming up too! There’s always just a lot to do and I really prefer leaving the house “ready” (especially if someone is staying there while we’re away). I can’t wait to follow your trip to Mexico City. Do you have your itinerary all planned? I mentioned before but I feel like we barely scratched the surface, being a family trip and all. I think it will be even better being able to really devote ALL the time to sightseeing, etc.
We’ve never had anyone clean our house. We go back and forth on it… it seems like a big expense that is an area we can avoid, but, sometimes it sure sounds good!!! I wonder if we even hired someone to come once a month (and then we could do it ourselves in between, but maybe a little lower level, knowing a pro would be coming in the next time?)
If we do decide to have this person keep coming, I would do once a month too, working on the house myself in between. I just don’t think we need anyone every two weeks (which seems to be the more common routine for people). And honestly I kind of worry about becoming so dependent on it. I want to keep at least light cleaning a part of my routine, especially now that I can do it more easily because the “tidying up”
part doesn’t take nearly as long.
We do have an itinerary – created entirely by my husband who has been before and has been escaping from regular life by planning this for the past couple months. 😉 He just shared the document with the itinerary with me and I haven’t had time to look at it yet. I know it is very “food and drink” heavy, and that we’re seeing a Lucha Libre show (we love these and see them at home too). I know very little about CDMX except that it’s HUGE! So I’m sure we’ll only scratch the surface ourselves.
We were going to go to a Friday night Lucha Libre show too, but then it didn’t end up fitting in among some other family plans we had come up! Next time we go I definitely want to do it. My husband’s cousin was telling us how fun the shows are. 🙂
By the way, I commented a few hours ago on your most recent post too, but I don’t see it there… not sure if it bumped to spam? Hmm. I may have made a typo in my email address or something.
WOW! You did a lot and made it MUCH easier for the cleaner to to actually ‘clean’ surfaces! Hope they have the time to do the refrigerator shelves as well. Having cleared surfaces really helps them.
SUPER impressed, as happens frequently when I read about your accomplishments about all you have done in one weekend. Excited for your trip!!!