Day 19: Cleaning - Getting a little help from my cats

My Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompts.

Day 19: Cleaning – Write about doing laundry, dishes and other cleaning activities.

Cleaning? They want me to write about cleaning! In all my years, I have never come across anyone who likes to clean. Most, if not all people, do it because they have to, including me. Still, let’s see what I can come up with. Since today is international cat day, let's involve cats in this post.

Making the beds

In our house, the cats dictate when the beds are made. I never make my bed right after getting out of it. I believe that a bed has to air to keep it fresh. Unfortunately, while I shower, get dressed and have breakfast, one, two or even all four cats have taken possession of my bed. And I mean really, look at Charlotte, would you have the heart to disturb her slumber?

Dusting

Once again, the cats have to be taken into account. When I see Mickey sprawled out so elegantly on the coffee table, or Charlotte resting on the cabinet, I just let them be. There’s always time to dust the table and the cabinet later.

Window washing 

If there’s one cleaning task I like to do it’s washing windows. If I didn’t have such a fear of heights, I would have applied at a window washing company in Toronto. Unfortunately, I can’t imagine dangling by a rope from the 82nd, 43rd or even 16th floor.

Anyway, when I wash the windows here at home, I invariably have an audience. Mickey, Charlotte, Gabriel, and Holly sit on the other side of the window and watch the sponge go up and down and from left to right. While Charlotte, Gabriel, and Holly quickly lose interest, Mickey supervises until I’m done. He even points out places where I've missed a spot.

          

Vacuuming

Mickey, Gabriel, and Holly couldn’t care less about the vacuum cleaner, but Charlotte is terrified of the machine. Even though we paid attention to buying one that doesn’t make much noise, it’s still too much for Charlotte. When the vacuum cleaner gets switched on, she goes and hides under my duvet. 

 Meanwhile, Gabriel lies on the cat tree or sit on a chair and sees to it that the work gets done properly.

Dishes

I’m not a fan of doing dishes. Then again, who is? Not sure why I dislike it as I generally like working with water. I get at my most creative when I’m surrounded by water (maybe I should move to Hawaii). Occasionally though, Dieter volunteers and on this occasion (this was several years ago), Mickey was once again there to supervise.

Cooking

When I cook, I generally keep the cats out of the kitchen. When I’m working with boiling water and hot butter, I like to keep them at a safe distance. However, when the potatoes are being peeled, Mick is there to count them.

Now in case you’re wondering why there are no pictures of Holly ... Holly is a lady and stays far away from housework. She prefers sitting in her basket, relaxing on her cushion, lazing in front of the fireplace, or spending time with Dieter while he reads her a story.

Feel free to comment. I’d love to hear from you.

www.connymanero.weebly.com

Kitchen project - before and after

Plenty of people have lots of money and can buy anything their heart desires. Other have to make do with less and have to get creative when they want something. If you fall into the latter category, I’ll let you in on a little secret.

A while ago I wanted to change the kitchen countertop. I had a look at this item in home improvement stores and was in for a surprise. A granite countertop cost between $700 and $1,200 for the size that I needed, plus $100 to cut the shape of the sink in the countertop, plus $100 to have the granite slab delivered to my home.

This was ‘a little’ out of my budget. So, I went looking for an alternative.

The home improvement store also had faux granite countertops, made from chipboard and topped with some kind of plastic. I looked at a few slabs but found them still rather expensive. Between $200 and $300 to fit my kitchen.

And then, quite by accident, I came across vinyl. This vinyl gets smoothed over any existing countertop and gives a kitchen a whole new look. As for the cost $20 (two rolls of $10 each).

And the beauty is, if I want to change the look of my kitchen in a few years, the vinyl is easy to remove and replace with another design.

Before

After

 I didn’t stop there though. I also installed a faux window in my kitchen.

I had first seen a virtual window at the Princess Margaret Hospital. With its LED light and the sound of birdsongs, it was so lifelike that I immediately went looking for a window of my own.

Unfortunately, such a window was not in my budget. The price of a small window was in the region of $6,000 and the bigger size was priced about $10,000. Ouch.

Never mind though, I am creative, so I went looking for an alternative. Before long I found a window that I liked, it wasn’t as nice as the virtual light box I had seen in the hospital, but it would have to do. Price … $23.

When the window arrived, it was put in the kitchen, and while nice, it was lacking something. The background was wrong. So, the background was changed from paint to bricks (wallpaper, not real bricks). 

Before 

After

So, for all of you who don’t have pots of money … with a little creativity, you can get what you want.

www.connymanero.weebly.com

The price is ... wrong

Quite a few of us are familiar with “The Price is Right”, a TV show where contestants guess the price of various items, ranging from a car to a bottle of shampoo.

Everyone who watches the show invariably guesses along with the contestants. Some are quite good at it while others don’t seem to have a clue about retail. I’m one of those people.

With little things, such as groceries I’m pretty good with guessing prices, but where it comes to bigger items such as lawn mowers, cars, and real estate, I’m way, way off.

My latest miscalculation involves a window. Not an ordinary window, but a fake one. Let me explain …

I recently found myself in the basement of a building. Even though I was several feet underground, I saw windows everywhere, displaying lifelike images of a sun-drenched forest, a babbling brook, and a beautiful coastline. Since I was in the heart of Toronto, all of those scenes were quite impossible. But it was a nice idea to make the basement less claustrophobic.

Not only did the windows display clear images, they were accompanied by birdsong. Throughout the basement, I heard what I thought were finches, chickadees, canaries, nightingales and a few birds I couldn’t identify.

I was so smitten with the idea that I asked for the name of the manufacturer of these windows, and once home I looked up the website. Since no prices were listed, I contacted the seller by email.

“This won’t come cheap,” Dieter warned me. Yeah well, maybe not, but a window like this would look great in my bedroom and kitchen. Not only would the window make for a great look but the birdsong would help me fall asleep. If such a window cost $200 or $300 it would be worth it.

When the seller emailed me back the next day my dreams were crushed and I was once again reminded just how bad I am with guessing the cost of items. The window did not cost a few hundred dollars but … (are you sitting down?) $13,000. Needless to say that my idea of this beautiful window went out the window.

I’m not the only one bad at guessing prices. Where it comes to my son, the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree.

He recently had his heart set on turtles, miniature aquarium turtles. He guessed these little critters to be $10 or $20 each.

Before rushing out to buy these aquarium turtles he went online to research their ideal habitat. He would need an aquarium filled with a little water, some dry land, rocks, moss, and a special light to keep the turtles warm. All of this was doable, the miniature turtles, however, were not.

Dieter has grossly underestimated their cost. When he visited a pet store, he found out that these turtles cost $240 each. So that idea went out the window too.

Needless to say, neither of us are likely to apply to be a contestant on “The Price is Right”.

I'm baaaaaaack !

Happy New Year to all my readers. I wish you all a pleasant, healthy and fulfilling year.

Did you think I lost interest in my blog? Far from it. I am aware that my last entry dates back to November 2015, but in my defense … I have been very busy writing guides for eBay.

Some of the guides I produced are:

Best tile for shower walls

http://www.ebay.com/gds/Best-Tile-for-Shower-Walls-/10000000206370563/g.html

Best outdoor window cleaners

http://www.ebay.com/gds/Best-Outdoor-Window-Cleaners-/10000000206327831/g.html

Best ice cleats

http://www.ebay.com/gds/Best-Ice-Cleats-/10000000206302225/g.html

These guides are not to be underestimated. There’s extensive research involved, writing the guide, looking for suitable images to accompany the various paragraphs, adding links to make a shopping experience easier, and publishing the guide.

In future, I will share more of these guides as they become available as they might be helpful to some people. I will write the introduction, provide the link and then it’s up to you to click the link, be taken to eBay and hopefully learn something new or be guided in your shopping.