First I spent some quality time whining at long-suffering Jeff about the state of my house. It reached the point at which he called me by my full name in like eighty-five point font (I had complained that I couldn't clean my house because the task was too overwhelming). Then he offered to help me divide the cleaning into manageable sections.
Except, then Em and Kristie came back. I told them what I was chatting about and they decided we really should clean the house.
So, we cleaned the living room. It's truly a very neat, clean room. There was dusting and vaccuuming and everything. Once that was finished, we reopened the "our carpet is nasty, nasty" line of discussion. Em called and got quotes and it was determined that the best course of action was to rent a steam cleaner.
First we ran some other errands, including meeting JV for some food because none of us had eaten all day long. Then we headed down to the Home Depot.
It was closed because someone hit a power line (so said the really, really hot guy who refused us admittance at the door). We tried to head over to Big Lots just to go shopping, but it was also without power.
Because we all know that when dealing with three Arieses, any break in the inertia may very well be permanent, we headed straight across town to the other Home Depot and rented the steamer there.
Three times over the carpet and it looks so much better. The first time around, the water coming out looked like what I imagine the insides of my lungs to be by now. The second time, it was more like dirt. The third time, much more like dirt. Em and I have very noble intentions of letting the carpet dry before we attempt any more steam cleaning.
The difference is really astounding. The carpet is not actually clean, there are still some orange and pink spots that were once fruity beverages, but the weird gray spots that we're pretty sure were there when we moved in are gone. An astounding amount of gross has come out of that carpet. We might not be finished yet. We would really like to go over it until we're not creating a used water basin that is simply revolting. We would like the carpet to actually be clean.
The cat found the steam cleaner to be at once terrifying and riveting. He found it absolutely necessary to be under a piece of furniture while it was running, but also, to keep the thing in his line of sight at all times. This was very stressful and meant that he had to take a series of very cute naps this evening. I consider this real progress over the time when he would attack a running lawnmower.
Yes, my cat did that. It's somewhere in the archives. The window was open (this was before he was a year old when we lived in the ghetto and he was a householyterrorcat) and the guy was mowing the lawn and the cat jumped out and on top of the running lawnmower. Y'all should have seen the poor guy's face. I ran out the door after my kitten... He turned off the lawnmower, I removed my cat, I shut the window and he didn't go by our apartment again without keeping one eye out for flying balls of orange fur.
Perhaps he really is finally growing out of the excessive agression thing like the vet suggested he might.
I also took all of the beer cans from the edge of the sink and put them in the recycling bin. Em ran a load of dishes the other day and I finished unloading the dishwasher as well.
We really are making some progress here. There is now one room of the house which I can sit in and relax and not feel stressed out.
The mess doesn't normally bother me more than one tiny bit. Normally, it's more like I don't even know that the mess is actually bothering me one tiny little bit until it's gone and I feel better. Being so competely, unheathily stressed out about my job has created a situation in which every little tiny thing I do not accomplish that I potentially could have accomplished eats at me.
But the bills are paid, the living room is clean, and Em is right, the kitchen really has been known to be a lot worse...
