It’s almost time for me to head to bed right now, but my feet are still throbbing from walking around all day on the dirtiest floor (despite some intense cleaning efforts the past few days). With all the hidden places dirt’s been accumulating, I’m gonna have to do my “shoes at the door” rule again when all’s said and done.

And I’ll enjoy it, because now that I’m not afraid of mice everywhere now, I can do what I love to do most on a spring or summer morning: walk around barefoot with my cup of coffee and enjoy the feel of the floor. I’ve been wearing my slippers all over because of fear of accidentally stepping on a mouse, and my new flip-flops that I sometimes wear around are great for traction outside (so I don’t bust my rear going down the steps on a wet day), but also trap a TON of dirt.

Yes, I want my happy feet back…

So, while I should’ve been writing or working on my continuing education classes, I was finishing up most of my office… and I’ve got another day to go on it at least.

My dogs were annoyed with me the past few days. Now that they see things are going back to some semblance of looking normal (if cleaner), they’re chilling out and dozing. I think my walking around and them following me wore ’em out. But my rugs needed a good beating yesterday, and they weren’t too happy with me hauling them all out one by one to hang over my porch railing and sweep and beat. Most are still on the deck, just folded and out of the way of any rain that might come (and tomorrow is supposed to have a lot of it). They actually pounced on the last one I was folding up like “you can’t have it!”

Well, that one’s the dirtiest, and will be the last one to get a good cleaning. But I’ve put down another one in it’s place, because honestly, when I move the coffee table out of the way, the living room is the perfect size to get the vacuum and go to town on it. I already got the one put back in my music room after dusting and mopping in there, which my retriever-mix is happy about because his sleeping-hole looks good and back to comfortable.

Honestly, the thing that needed the most cleaning in there was the side of my carpeted guitar rack. So much blonde hair stuck to the thing where he’d shed and rub up against it. I went through four sheets of lint roller sticky paper to get it mostly off!

I’d been thinking about the rugs for a while, but I wanted to pull and beat them all out in one swoop. That meant I’d have to tackle cleaning the office and get it out of the way, because it was definitely gonna take the longest. I had all this stuff that I was trying to figure out or that had shown up in my armchair, and the closet had fallen into disarray. I pulled everything out of there and put it on the couch to organize. All the totes I had sitting on the chair and ottoman came out to the living room so I could go through the stuff and make some decisions. I threw out three kitchen bags full of old papers and other things that I had no use for anymore. I also have two crates full of bills, old school lessons, and other things that need to be filed properly. Some of the stuff I’d thrown in a box in a hurry when I was moving out to live in my garage, and I hadn’t even looked in that box in two years. But I’m glad I did because it needs to be filed away properly… like everything else.

But those things can wait til later. I’ll set them aside for a future rainy day to sort out and put back into files, or take out of binders to put in hanging files to go in my “education” cabinet.

That’s the trouble with my office–I have so many teaching supplies I don’t really need right now, but don’t want to throw ’em out, either. This is why I was anxious to clear out totes and such–I’m gonna need them for the learning materials and workbooks I bought out of pocket ages ago. Next month one of my big plans is getting the shelves built in my gym/storage and that’s where my totes will go. I have one closet so full of stuff I can’t get anything out of it. Time to move things around.

I got one of those plug in air dusters with different adapters at the blower end. I’m sick of buying cans of computer duster and the garbage that creates. The price has gone up so much, and I’m also not comfortable with all that freon in cans just sitting around some damned landfill.

So, I plugged it in and turned it up high as I put a narrow nozzle end on. It worked great, and has just enough force to blow dust out of computer or tech equipment. I gave it a good go over my guitars, too, while I had it out because Swiffer wipes just can’t do everything! And I wouldn’t want those annoying little fibers getting stuck to the frets or in the guitar if I can help it.

But I was too tired to finish. I got one small tote with miscellaneous stuff in it that I can figure out later. I am hoping to get back into writing time tomorrow instead of jumping into cleaning first thing, and to leave time to get some coursework done and turn it in. The fun part is going to be going bookshelf by bookshelf, putting books back (and likely re-organizing ’em while I do so) and wiping them down to free them of dust. And of course, the electronics need a good wiping down, too. But at the end of it all, I’ll have a clean rug put back into place, better organization for my work desk and supplies, and my armchair and ottoman back to sit and enjoy a good book in a place other than the couch. I can already see the dogs fighting over the ottoman while I put my feet there. They miss that thing, and being able to lay on the rug or sit on it while I’m at the computer, typing and printing drafts in a quiet spot.

No wonder I was so anxious to get it done–I miss having that space. And I’m going to need it big time the next few weeks-months-years, etc. I want to make this life of mine work. It’s gonna come down to being able to focus and simplify as best I can… at least at the start. And all that’s missing in there is telling me I’m off to a good one.