Spring Cleaning...

I like to do my Spring cleaning in the Fall. 


Saturday was my Fall cleaning day.  I opened up all the windows in my little studio apartment to let the autumn breeze in, and cranked some Christmas music from Pandora.  There is just something about Christmas music that makes me so freakin happy.  I love it! I love it! I love it!  However, I can't listen to Christmas music or watch any Christmas movies unless it is after Halloween and before March.  Anytime outside of that window, watching anything to do with Christmas just seems depressing to me for some reason.  Is that just me!?  Probably.  (The only caveat to this rule is the movie The Holiday.  I watch it way way way too much.  But I love it, and I'm not much of a rule follower, even when it comes to rules I make myself.)


But I digress....


Since my studio apartment is small (and adorable) it's pretty easy to keep it clean and picked up.  I am not a neat freak by any stretch of the imagination, but my soul always feels more settled when my residence is in some state of clean.  I hadn't done one of those "moving furniture" type cleanings in quite some time (I am making this statement vague on purpose), so I decided that yesterday would be the day. 


Growing up, we cleaned our house from top to bottom every. single. weekend. (and in between as needed).  As soon as Kirk and I were big enough to carry a dust rag, we were expected to participate in child labor house cleaning.  I was usually responsible for cleaning the bathrooms and dusting; occasionally when my dad was able to weasel his way out of vacuuming, I would have to do that as well.  (Something about having job....I don't know...it sounded like a cop out to me.) 

What I'm about to say might sound weird, but I'm just gonna say it.....I love cleaning bathrooms!  Seriously, I love it.  I especially love cleaning bathrooms when I am stressed out.  Maybe all of the scrubbing releases some tension, or perhaps its just the fumes from the mold and mildew cleaner....but after I clean a bathroom, all feels right with the world again.  So, if you see me arm deep in a toilet bowl, you'll know...Katie must be stressed out.  Don't get me wrong, cleaning bathrooms isn't just for when I'm stressed.  Sometimes when I'm super stoked and loving life, I'll just feel this need to take a toothbrush to my shower grout, or maybe even attack some hard water stains or lime deposits....who knows!?  It makes me happy just typing that.  If you no longer want to be my friend or read this blog, I understand.  But just know, that if I lose friends and/or readers it's only going to send me right back into my bathroom to scour for hair stuck on the tiles and moldy shower liners.  If you are still with me, thank you.  For your dedication, I would like to offer to clean your bathroom.  I'm coming into a really busy season at work, and I'm going to need more bathrooms to clean or I'm not going to be able to relax. 

What's really sad (or awesome, depending on how you feel) is that I don't get grossed out by cleaning bathrooms at all.   For example, one time I cleaned a guy's bathroom that I was dating without asking him or telling him I was going to do it.  Let me explain...

We had only been dating for a few months, but every time I came over to hang out at his place I would dread going to the bathroom.  The rest of his place was really clean, but his bathroom was just....it was just wow!.  I grew up with boys, I know about their innate ability to pee all over the entire bathroom even though there is a clearly marked target for them to hit.  One of the only times I can remember really cussing in front of my parents when I was a teenager was the 100th time I had sat on a peed-on toilet seat because my brother was too lazy to lift the seat.  I came running out of the bathroom screaming "I swear to all that is good and holy that if Kirk pisses on the seat one more time, I'll make sure he has a reason to sit down to pee for the rest of his life.  How hard is it to lift a freakin' toilet seat!?  He has the dexterity to flush the toilet, and yet can't seem to use his fingers to lift the seat!?"  But anyway, I'm getting away from the boyfriend story. 

So, I go in his bathroom one day and while I am enjoying a totally non-peed-on toilet seat, I move the shower curtain aside (my version of looking in someones medicine cabinet...which I also do, so never mind) to discover that his shower is covered in black mold.  It took all I had in me not to scream like I was in a horror movie and had just opened the door to a room in which the bad guy had been patiently waiting to hack me to bits.  I quietly sneaked out of the bathroom and into his hall closet where his cleaning supplies were, grabbed the supplies and brought them to the bathroom, shut the door, and started cleaning.  Seriously...I didn't even know this guy that well.  Who the hell did I think I was!?  Well, I was someone that cared enough to not want to see someone get pneumonia from the mold growing in their shower...that's who I was.  After about 15 minutes, he knocked on the bathroom door and asked me if I was okay.  I didn't realize I had been gone that long.  So, I reluctantly opened the door with the X14 in one hand and an unfortunate hand towel (I couldn't find anything else) in the other.  He was obviously a little shocked.  I mean, who would ever imagine that the girl they are dating would leave the comfort of cuddling on the couch watching Crash (yes....I was able to pull myself away from the movie Crash in order to clean a bathroom.  I completely understand if you are currently planning to stage an intervention for me....most likely in a place without a bathroom) to clean a shower (and sink).  He looked at the hand towel, then me, then the X14, then me, then his hall closet, then me, then his shower, then me.  Then he silently shook his head and walked away without saying a word.  Guess what I did!?  You guessed it.... I finished cleaning his bathroom.

There are things that I loathe when it comes to cleaning.  For example, I hate doing dishes with a passion so intense that it would put a Spanish Soap Opera to shame.  If I didn't love Earth so much I would use disposable plates and silverware for every single meal.  I would get rid of the sink altogether and just add in another little mini-fridge.  I would rather dust than do dishes and I HATE dusting.  This Saturday, I found some dust bunnies so big that Earnest P. Worrell would gag, you know what I mean, Vern!? (If you don't know what I mean, then I suggest you hit the Wikipedia, and I suggest you hit it hard.)  Seriously, I moved one of the chest of drawers in my closet to find a dust bunny that had collected all of the items that I had fallen behind the drawers and was holding them ransom.  There were hair ties, receipts, price tags, earrings, buttons, and other random items all balled up in this massive dust bunny.  I made a tough decision and just threw the whole mess away whilst screaming like a girl at the utter yuckiness of what had been living in my closet.  And don't even get me started on what I found under my bed.  It gives the phrase "Sleeping with enemy" a whole new definition.  I'm surprised I don't have the black lung after some of the dust bunnies I found under there.  Some of you are probably thinking, hey Katie, why don't you just clean under your bed more often and you would have that problem. And to that I say this:

1) I do clean under my bed, but living in downtown DC means that you are in a constant battle with dust and debris.  Even with the windows closed all the nasty dirt from the city somehow finds its way into my humble abode.  I blame global warming. Al Gore has me blaming it for everything anyway, so.
2) More importantly......I don't want to.

When you live by yourself, if you don't clean, no one else will.  I don't have any kids to con into clean it for me. Unlike my dad who would purposefully mess up all jobs given to him by my mom so that he would never ever have to do them again....I have to suck it up and grab the Swiffer.  (I am of course referring to the red t-shirt/ white laundry incident of 1994.  I'm sure you heard of it.  One of his lesser known evil genius plans was to somehow devise a way to melt all of the Tupperware in the dishwasher so that my mom would never let him near another dish again.   I have so much to learn from him.)

I hope you have enjoyed yet another random rambling blog.  There is a lot of awesomeness and craziness going on in my life right now, so instead of blogging about stuff that matters and could touch hearts and change lives...I'm going to skirt the issues and blog about toilets.

Love,

Katie, Queen of the Scrubbing Bubbles