Workin' Man Blues

I woke up at 5:30 AM on Sunday and couldn’t fall back asleep. So, I made a fresh pot of coffee and drank two cups sitting on the couch. But, I got bored sitting on the couch, so I went to work.

I stripped the bed and started a load of wash. I put yesterday’s dinner plate and silverware in the now full dishwasher and fired that up. Then I started sweeping and vacuuming the living room. When that was done, I moved the kitchen chairs and the rolling table into the living room. I put the bedding in the dryer, filled up a bucket with hot water and Pine-Sol and mopped the kitchen floor.

Since I was now trapped in the living room, the bedroom, the office and the main bath, I used the electric sweeper to clean the wood floors and the bathroom tile. When the kitchen floor was dry (about an hour and a half), I moved everything back. I remade the bed.

I refilled the bucket and washed the sink and toilet with a sponge, then mopped the bathroom floor. I took the drip pans off the stove and scrubbed them clean in the laundry tub. I went out in the garage and got the drill and took off the cover to the plumbing in the backroom. I turned off the outside faucet (I should have done that when I put the hoses away). I went outside to check that it was really off and it was. Since I was out there with boots on anyway, I went in the front yard and lugged off a branch that had come down in last weekend’s snow.

When I came back in, it was 3:30 PM and I was hungry. So, I opened and drained a can of tuna fish and ate it out of the can, topped with a little sea salt (I shared some with Caley and Scruffy). I decided I’d done enough, so I took the rest of the day off (except for one thing I need to do later).

I tried to take a nap, but that didn’t work. About 7:30 PM, I made my supper. I just reheated a Salisbury steak, the noodles and some gravy. But this time I added sweet corn and this time I read the microwave instructions first.

Then I did the last thing for the day. I put the stove grates into the oven, locked it and turned on the “Clean” setting. My theory was if I was going to use up all that gas anyway, I may as well do it at night and keep the furnace from running so much. And that part did work. The thermostat was set at 66 degrees F. and it was 72 in here!

I went back in and watch some of my Sunday night shows. However, about 9:30 PM, a spill or leftover or something in the oven started to smoke and stink. All the smoke detectors went off. The only way I could keep it on “clean” was to turn on the vent fan and crack the window in my bedroom (this also helped with the acrid smell in the house). I guess I don’t clean my oven often enough!

I went to bed at 11:00 PM and the oven still had two more hours to go. At my first bathroom break, it was done, so I turned off the fan, shut the window and went back to bed, content with the day.