Tuesday 22 April 2014

Adult in training: How to Spring Clean

Wot I done this Weekend. 

Where else but here will you find cleaning, tartan and Peacocks in one place? (If you can actually answer that I want to know about it)
My very own tartan butt. More tartan pictures a-coming.

This is time-travel writing, Peeps. I wrote this yesterday*. Heck, I feel like I'm on the edge of being organised. I'm not - there are boring adminny things that are being neglected in favour of waffling at the internets. I'm staring down another jam-packed week of things I specifically wouldn't miss, but would perhaps rather not have to squeeze in to a single week. I'm a busy little bee - and probably wouldn't be me any other way. Wednesday and Thursday of this week will see me at different Scottish Country Dancing classes for different groups. Teaching, in the main. So I ought to get my weekly fix of bossing people around.

Next week will see three classes for three groups. In a moment of glorious diary confusion I was convinced this was the three-class week. It's not! Night off will be spent being a boring old fart and going to a supermarket. Maybe we'll take Squiggle to liven things up.


This has been written and scheduled, and then left alone (Ed: alone-ish). Scary biscuits. This is a change from what I have been doing recently, which has been to (1) publish, (2) post to facebook, and (3) hit F5 repeatedly to watch the pageview number go up as you lovely people read this crap, doing a little dance for each new number. This time I'll be out and coming home to check up on you. Stick the link on facebook and don't look back. Happy reading, folks.

Saturday sees the Aberdeen University Scottish Dance Society host their annual dance, which for me will see a full-ish day of walk-throughs and trying not to interfere too much. Any of you dancy-types reading this please shout if you're further afield and fancy a jaunt to Aberdeen and a place to stay.

Less Waffle, Kiddo

So this weekend we achieved a huge degree of cleaning. That which any normal functional grown-up might manage as a matter of course, along with having children and making roast dinners. I must admit, for us it is an achievement. We have managed that magical degree of clean which is also tidy. Stuff has homes, hallelujah! One day I might achieve that "Place for Everything and Everything in it's Place" utopia. Even better if I can do that by making "Everything" less. I have a blog in mind about how I love tiny houses. So this is going to be the story of how we made the house tidy enough to go out and have a happy weekend.

Number 0 - Motivation**

Invite all your friends round for something that will need space, like, say practising Scottish Dancing. I don't need any more hobbies - the one I've got has taken over my life. Voila, we have a deadline.

Number 1 - write a list

This is a job for who ever has the nicest handwriting.
This is a list of tons of tiny little jobs. Stuff you can tick off really quickly and feel a sense of achievement about. 

What helped was being able to write a list, eat breakfast and have another little sleep before getting cracking. My style of weekend morning.

Number 2 - Toooones. 



If you go with the radio you can move from room to room and have the same song follow you. No need to bother wasting time turning on a computer or changing CDs. Fling the windows open wide to (1) save stripping out your own lungs with the chemical warfare you're employing, and (2) share your poor taste in music with the new neighbours. 

Number 3 - split 


I'm not very good at cleaning in company. It's one of my flaws. But leave me alone and I'll make stuff shiny. I don't understand it at all, just about learning how to channel this strange thing I do. Besides, that way you can wander through to another room and find that cleaning has happened without you.

Kitchen - my domain. 

Number 4 - fuel your workforce


We set an alarm for lunch, and another for tea stops, with a couple of chocolate stops in there too. If these things were on the list all along then you can tick them off. Boom, another pretty little tick on there.

Number 5 - Add More Stuff to the list


But here's the magic - add jobs as you discover and do them. Tick 'em off right away. Superstars.

Number 6 - Celebrate the little stuff


Washing up zero. Do a little dance. What, you dusted something? Deserves more chocolate. Rebel and leave some stuff on the list unticked - you're an autonomous adult in the end. I've managed to fill a nice big bag of stuff for a charity shop drop. If you want dibs on anything in it before it goes, invite yourself round for a rummage pdq.

Number 7 - Stop and go out


Having a shiny flat to return to is nice, but having fun is better. Saturday night for us was an Indian Language Conference, of all things. Seven of us, all dressed up in tartan, rocked up to be the after-dinner entertainment. We helped ourselves to dinner too. All manner of gorgeous regional Indian grub. Spoilt, we were.

Pictures, you ask? Oh ok then. 


Levitation. Love the shadows in this one.

What my highland looks like from the stage, apparently.

Number 8 - Get on with the rest of a Long Weekend. 

Yes, Jesus died for my eternal salvation, but a three-day weekend is a nice by-product. I do feel the standard 5 days working:2 off is a terrible ratio and we're all being conned. Then I remind myself how much this kicks the butt of my old three-job-at once situation, and how it means I can save those precious pennies for that future camp site dream.

Easter Weekend. There was Church. I forgot about how grown-ups are meant to dress up for Easter, and was the only jeans+hoody combo in a sea of suits. The lovely L was the most visible part of the Church singing group, in a Church I'm beginning to feel at home in. I sat at the back and pulled faces during the serious bits. The Minister had all the adults fooled with a rattling hymnbook, and the kids ate too much chocolate. I was both fooled and sugar-high. I ate my first creme egg brownie, for I am a child of my time.

So holy they were on facebook before we even finished the service.
Today (that would be yesterday to you) there were castles, and Peacocks, and a trip to this freaky-scary-amazing junkyard, which was too overwhelming to take pictures of.



We talked about philosophy and politics and how we like blue.

So my house is cleaner than it was. I know what my bedroom floor looks like. Please invite yourself round nice and often so we have an incentive to keep it that way. Yes, I know it's good to think of keeping a place nice just for yourself, but my terrible pride means that I am just more likely to get things nice for others. We have plans for a few more tweaks and additions to this place to make it really funky. If they ever reach fruition, I have a notion of putting together photographs for a house tour.

I leave you with this epic picture from today's adventure. Enjoy.

Kudos to the photographer. L again.



*Most of it. I then popped back in at lunchtime today to edit, because I managed to get my own life wrong. Two dance classes this week. Three next.

**Too lazy to renumber when I though of adding this line after I'd written the rest. 

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