Babyroom ready for decoration (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach

*phew!* It took me a few days, but the baby's bedroom is finally ready for decoration and the furniture.

As I said, it took a few days, mostly because I had to make a few runs to the city dump. There was all kinds of crap that we needed to get rid of, before we could even think about cleaning the room up. The storage room in the basement needed to be cleared out as well, in order to make room for the things that we were going to keep.

Some furniture went to welfare, a lot of stuff (among them old belongings of their father) went to Marli's brother and two car loads of "stuff" went to the dump and welfare.

Now that we're done, all we need to do is wait for the furniture to arrive. Well, that and order loads more furniture and other things for the kid, since we're not even half done yet. *panic* Ah well, one step at a time :)

In the meantime I spent most of the day cleaning the house and doing all kinds of household chores. I think a well-deserved shower is in order ^_^



Posted in: baby , babyroom , cleaning , decoration , trash

Closet straightening (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

I need a housework icon.

I tackled our walk-in closet on Sunday, which had accumulated a lot of crap in the last 4-5 years (since I last cleaned it out). What made it worse is Latte has this *intensely* annoying habit of sneaking into where she isn't allowed, and then getting trapped in some room or closet. Then she will freak out, and by freak out I mean she will just start tossing things everywhere. When she gets locked into my den, she knocks stuff off of shelves, tables, and my desk. She'll go through my closet and try and knock over boxes. Artoo used to do this, which is why he was banned from my den. Except Artoo would start climbing over things and knocking them over while I was still in there with him. Latte waits until you have left. So Latte has gotten trapped in the walk-in closet twice, and both times she went nuts and pulled things off of hangers, knocked stuff off the shelves, and generally decimated the order in there until our closet was like a huge pile that sloped up at the walls. We had some artwork stored in there, and she ruined a piece I had by Venora Hagen as well as one of my favorites from Mark Mandolia. I also found mummified cat poo, which wasn't so nice. I gave the floor a good vacuuming, too, since there were a lot of feathers in there (not from anything recently alive, most were dyed purple, black, pink, and bright orange). I decided to put some bulky, almost never used items (walking boot cast, crutches, luggage we rarely use) into the attic, and I moved some low Ikea shelves that have casters from my den to the closet, so at least I have some shelf space instead of old copier boxes to hold seasonal stuff.

So now my side of the closet looks very neat and orderly, but as I write this, I thought of all the ways Latte will ruin that the next time she sneaks in and hides. Crap. :( Posted in: cleaning , housework , latte

More housework (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

I started Father's Day with a decent scrub of the kitchen counter. Man, stuff had been there since, no lie, New Years, and possibly earlier. It was the "New Years 2008" decor I tossed (or saved for eventual use, like some paper plates) that gave me a date to go by. I need to clean my fridge. I have to take advantage of the fact we had to toss everything from the fridge and freezer due to the 50+ hours the power was out two weeks ago.

Then I finally tackled my e-mail inbox, which hadn't been purged and sorted since July of last year. Some of the stuff I saved were some corrections I had to make to my website. First was Joann Hankamer's actual outfit: the Army Reserve with the 1015th Maintenance Co. of Ft. Gillem, Georgia. Lisa Lee, married to the son of Jhoon Rhee wrote me and stated Michael Choe from my graduating class was NOT the small boy in the Jhoon Rhee commercials ("We don't even know who he is!"), but it was Chun Rhee, Jhoon's son (but the part about Meme was correct). Then there was a small type in my subnetting article, which wasn't a typo, per se, but a little ambiguous.

That reminds me, I want to get my Network+ cert in the next few months. My Network-fu is a little weak from disuse, and I want to shore it up. People, crazy people who I think have stared at the sun too long, say I should try for a CCNA. You people are funny. That exam beat me up so bad, I still can't poop right. I am also going to try for my Linux+ and LCPI 101.

I fixed all of these, plus some mail where people said I was a total asshole that I thought keeping small children leashed was cruel. I stand by my disdain to leash children, and none of the mail I got was very convincing. Often misspelled (more than I ever misspell), with poor grammar, they present their arguments with the kind of aplomb I'd expect from a parent who thinks of their child like some kind of animal. Some of it was so terrible, I wanted to post this huge mocking compilation, but I have decided against it for maturity reasons. Suffice to say, anyone who sends me this mail, the following arguments are invalid:

1. Number of children. stodgycat and cheesy_reads have 4 kids. None of them are leashed.
2. Children in crowds. You are tripping other people, and why can't you hold your kid's hand?
3. Prevent kidnapping. I would think a leashed child is further from you than one you are holding. One good knife can cut that cord, and give them a lead distance head start. Besides, kidnapping is most often a result of some known by the family anyway, and strangers snatching children are rare, and often target isolated children where a leash would be impossible (like walking home from school).
4. Hyperactivity. At age 5, my son had ADHD and was on Predisone for his asthma. Bitch, please. Don't tell ME what hyper is.
5. I must hate children. I have about 20 people right off the bat I can think of that will disprove that. I would also imagine if I hated children, I'd want them tied down as much as possible.

I also had a lot of e-mail I saved because I had to update addresses and everything. Many people have new e-mail addresses, new home addresses, and changed phone numbers. I also had massively purge all my old AOL contact list: what's it been, over 3 years since I worked there?

I again realized my website is so stale, even the Army would have thrown it out if it was a MRE. I really, really have to update it, but the LJ replaced a lot of what I needed a website for. It needs a massive overhaul from that late 1990s feel. Posted in: cleaning , e-mail , housework , leashes

My gold stars for this weekend (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

I spent most of today upgrading my central home Linux box. It was Fedora Core 6, and now it's CentOS 5. I was tired of Fedora always going out of date after 2 builds after the Fedora Legacy project died, and I wanted something I wouldn't have to re-install for a long time.

I also cleaned up our master bedroom bathroom, and it looks almost new! I stun myself when I go in there, it has a white counter top, and all the faucets and tiles are shiny. I also tossed out expired medications, which, if my bulk of labels are to be believed, I hadn't done a sweep like this since 2005. That's not good... :(

I also hunkered down and tried to improve my Swedish a little. I am happy to report that a lot of stuff I pick up sticks, but it's a slow process. I really wish I had insisted my mother speak Swedish to me; damn my father's rules on it, but I didn't.

Last night I was out with takayla and mysticpaws at Amphoras. takayla ate some chicken chili that wasn't cooked properly, so she's in bed right now, rather ill. Posted in: cleaning , computer , housework , linux

I am out of trash bags (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

That makes me sad.

I don't remember who first told me this, but I suspect it was on one of Nancy's buttons:

"When you throw something away, where is 'away?'"

Febreze is one of those new products that I think about with this phrase. "Locks away odors," it will say. "Eliminates odors in the air, rather than just covering them up." Okay... so what happens to them, then? I decided to look it up. Wikipedia says:

"The product's active ingredient, cyclodextrin, is a type of modified starch having a shape similar to a donut. The molecule binds or entraps various hydrophobic compounds within the donut shape. In this way, malodorous molecules are retained so that they are no longer detected as a scent."

So the odors don't really "go away," they sort of mask the scent so we can't detect it, rather than overpower it with a stronger smell. Like putting that bad odor in a nice hat, or more like putting it in an attractive inner tube pool toy.

"That's not cat pee, that's ... er... happy fun lucky yellow ringu! KAWAII!"

I wonder if that would work on other things? This is where I need my readers. I want you to take any spare inflatable pool toys and put them all over things you don't like: hole in the drywall, ugly bush in the yard, a coworker. See if it makes it better, or any less noticeable.

I expect photos as evidence.

Come on, it's my birthday week! Chop chop! Posted in: birthday , cleaning , febreze , housework

Carpet cleaners are here (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

And yiiiccch! Are my carpets filthy. I wish I was a better housecleaner. I keep meaning to keep the house and yard clean, but I can never seem to catch up. I am kind of trapped in my den while they clean the carpets. I haven't eaten yet today because we're low on food and I can't have anything delivered while these huge hoses go in and out of my house.

Thanks for the kind comments about CR, guys. He's about the same today, which is better than previous days. Some things I have found while doing research that might be of interest to others involved catching colds:

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_104.html

I have always told people that just being cold or whatnot does NOT make you more likely to be sick. They have done tons of studies since the 1970s, and still I hear people go on about this. Posted in: carpets , cleaning , cr , health , housework , medical

BOOM goes a box(?) of spoiled chicken broth (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

Okay, maybe it didn't go "boom," but I smelled something funky Saturday night and found much to my horror a foil box of chicken broth had split open. I am not sure if it blew open because it spoiled, or was just defective, but it got all over the top shelf of my pantry and spilled a little to the lower shelves.

Obviously, I had to toss a LOT of food out. I took this opportunity to continue my "shit that needs to be cleaned for the last few years" and toss out a lot of dubious crap. Lucky for me, a majority of the chicken broth got absorbed by two old boxes of Bisquick, two boxes of some bran cereal I don't think anyone was eating anyway, some pouches of "EZ-mix packaged" envelopes (like brown gravy, taco seasoning, ranch dressing, dip mix, etc), a bag of rice, two boxes of "No Pudge Fudge," a box of Lipton tea bags, and a round carton of generic iodized salt. I also tossed out a lot of spices we have had for so long, they no longer had any odor (which I assume means the spices were no longer potent). I don't know how we ended up with so many boxes of Jell-O or pudding mix, but I have enough to last a while. I must remember to make them all, because they make a very nice low-fat dessert (well, the Jell-O does). I also seem to be waiting for a disaster that requires making lasagna at any moment, because I have three large boxes of lasagna noodles.

Hey, how about Jell-O lasagna-- no, no... sorry I even thought that far.

Sadly, my contact with spoiled chicken broth made me a little ill on Sunday (even though I scrubbed my hands and made sure to clean up everything and such), but I am fine now.

Now my kitchen pantry, hall pantry, and fridge have been cleaned out, although the fridge needs a heavy steam cleaning (I have a pressure steam cleaner which worked very well on the fridge last time) and replacement of duct tape where the shelves are breaking. I know, I know... I need a new fridge. But the previous owners had the cabinets fit around a specially sized fridge, and we can't find a modern fridge to occupy that space without some major carpentry work. Posted in: cleaning , food , lasagna , pantry

What are you insecure about? (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach

Yesterday Willow blogged about insecurities and a dutch documentary called Beperkt houdbaar (which roughly translated as Contents liable to expire). This doc poses the question why women are so obsessive about their image, how the media and industry affect their self-image and to what lengths people go to be accepted. The title itself refers to the fact that apparently people don't keep indefinitely and that they became more and more unattractive with the years.

I don't agree with all of the viewpoints from the documentary, but there's one that I back fervently: An aging body has led a long life, has born children and has worked hard for years. An aging body should be respected for its experience and not be loathed for its looks.

The discussion with Willow also got me to thinking what it is that I am overly insecure about. Thing is, while I may not be a veritable Adonis, I don't feel bad about my body (with maybe one exception). For some reason I've never cared very much about what people think about my appearance, unless a certain situation calls for it (eg "formal dress" situations).

So... What -am- I horribly anxious about? Cleanliness. I hate a dirty or messy home and I abhore the thought of letting someone in my house if it's messy. So... In order to break through this insecurity a little bit, I present you our living room in all of its post-convention glory. Quite the disaster area, wouldn't you say? *shudder*

Thankfully, everthing was cleaned up again in three hours.

Posted in: body , cleaning , insecurities , insecurity

Preparing for a move: rigorous cleaning (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach

In a few weeks my department at $CLIENT will be moving into a new office building across the street. This of course entails that all of us will be packing up our stuff to take with us. Unfortunately this department has been gathering cruft since some of the colleagues have been with the company for over fifteen years. Our team was given six book cases to store all of our stuff (aside from the usual drawers of our desks) and all of them were filled with binders upon binders of documentation, some of it dating back to 1989! That's like the Jurassic Age of computing!

Personally, I love cleaning and there's nothing I like more than a tidy workplace. Since most other people usually can't be bothered with cleaning I took the task upon me to go through each bookcase and get rid of all the unneeded things. Most of the binders contained printed manuals from the 1990's or e-mail conversations about projects long forgotten. It's stuff like this that people in IT usually cling onto with the excuse that "it might come in handy" in the future; an incorrect sentiment in 99% of the cases. In the end we got rid of at least three big wastecarts of paper.

The only thing I regret is not waiting for one of our team's dinosaurs as he seemed genuinly hurt that I got rid of a huge pile of stuff. I repsect the guy tremendously (he's a nice and smart guy who has a lot of experience) and I hate the idea that I hurt him. I'm still sture that everything I tossed would've gone anyway, but it would've been better to let him sort through the pile with me. *sigh* Live and learn.

Posted in: archives , cleaning , dinosaurs , kruft , old documentation