Going Crazy

Yesterday, I thought I was going crazy.

I kept seeing flies in the house (remember those maggots? Guess we didn't get them all...). That wasn't the crazy part. They were slow and very easy to kill. Also, they were only by the back door, staring at the pretty light of the outdoors.

No, the crazy part was, after killing a couple, I couldn't find the flyswatter. There was another fly, and I wanted to render it dead, but the flyswatter was not where it goes. That was weird. I remembered getting it down from the top of the cabinet, taking it out of its plastic bag, killing the flies, and then putting away the swatter before dealing with the dead flies. I knew I must have at least put it in its bag, because it wasn't on the kitchen floor where I left it.

But it wasn't on top of the cabinet. I got out a chair to look. Nope. Definitely not there. I looked next to the trash can. Not there. I looked IN the trash can. Nope. I tried in the cabinet, and over by the back door, and all the various crevices in the living room and kitchen. Nope, nope, nope.

Where on EARTH did I put that thing?! And why couldn't I remember? Was I losing my mind?

So I gave up. I didn't know where else to look, and I figured I could do something more productive, or at least more interesting, with my time.

When Anthony got home, I told him about my adventure with the flyswatter. We both started looking. We looked everywhere (except Hazel's room, because she was sleeping when it happened. I'd like to think I'd remember going in her room...). Still no swatter. We decided to just leave it be, because we needed to go shopping before Hazel's bedtime.

What was HAPPENING to me? Was I really that scatterbrained?

Later that evening, after the baby was sleeping, Anthony tried looking on top of the cabinet again. Instead of just standing on the chair, he climbed on the counter catti-corner to the cabinet and actually got his head above it.

He said, "Denise, I found the flyswatter." (Or something like that, it's not like I have a stenographer recording everything that happens around here, okay?)

When this apartment was built, someone decided it would be a good idea to place a cabinet a couple of inches away from the wall. They thought, "hm, better wall that in on the front, so it looks better." However, they also thought it would be a great idea to leave a gap on the top of the cabinet.


Well, frankly, I don't agree. Not at all.

We still haven't quite decided how to try to get it out of the pit. The only thing we've thought of involves yarn and the hook part of a plastic clothes hanger. Any ideas?

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If you came here hoping to read about Hazel, don't go away!

Today I clipped her nails for the very first time. In the past I've just filed them, bitten them, or left them alone. She was very interested in my bright orange baby clippers. And I liked them a lot. They were worth buying!

Laundry

I have been saving up thoughts about laundry for a while, thinking I needed to write a post about the topic. I will share with you now.

My first week of college, I went to do laundry. I've been doing my own laundry since ninth grade, so I just did it. While I was there, I saw the funniest thing: a guy my own age on the phone with someone I can only assume was his mom, asking her how to do laundry. Thank you, Mom, for not letting me suffer that ignorant fate!

My first married apartment had a very tiny laundry room that served way more people than it should have. It only had two washers and two dryers, for an apartment building that probably had about forty people in it, most of whom would be doing their laundry separately. Also, it was used by a couple of other small buildings nearby. It's hard to not have access to laundry when you plan for it.

At my second married apartment, laundry was a pretty big hassle. We were on the third floor, and even though our building was very close to the (fortunately very large) laundry room, it is hard to carry a big hamper on the stairs. And then I got pregnant, and carrying laundry up and down stairs became even harder!

We moved to a new apartment in the same complex, and our situation was the same: third floor, near the laundry room. But in this quad, I quickly noticed that people noticed me, and I got many offers to carry my hamper for me. Being six and more months pregnant, I never declined. It was so nice to be offered this help!

Then our baby was born. Laundry went from once a week to twice or more a week (with just as many loads per laundry day, might I add!) However, now I had the added tasks of figuring out what to do with my baby while I went down to the laundry room and figuring out how to get poop stains out of lots of things. Baby poop does NOT just wash right out. I asked my mom, went online, and tried lots of things. I still don't really have a strategy. Shout spray works pretty well, and if an item still has a stain on it, I wash it over and over without drying it until I can't see anything anymore. Sometimes this means it's out of commission for a few weeks! Thankfully, she hardly ever poops on her clothing anymore.

As far as what to do with Hazel during laundry, I never totally figured that one out. If she's napping, that's great, but her naps don't often last the two hours it takes to get laundry totally done. So, I carry her with me in our snugli or sling, and if I feel like I just can't do that, I leave her, safe but sad, in her crib until I get back.

Now that I'm in Virginia, though, things have been different. It is SO NICE to have a washer and dryer in the actual place where you live! I can do laundry every day or every other day if I need to, because it's not a huge deal! I can do it while my baby is awake! I don't have to walk stairs! I don't have to rush to get things out of the dryer as soon as it stops out of fear that someone will steal it or move it out of the way! I don't have to look at the dried up, blackened stuff on the inside of the dryer and hope that it doesn't get onto my clothes! I don't have to look at the leftover sludge in the detergent area of the washer and hope that the person before me didn't use bleach!

Having a personal washer and dryer is everything I hoped for, and more.

Another thing I've noticed since getting here: I'm beginning to suspect that non-high-efficiency washers work better. It shouldn't be true, but I think it is. Washing clothes in lots of water just works better.

Also, I should add, I do most of the laundry, but not because I'm a beaten-down wife who does all the housework. No, it's because I'm at home more, so I usually end up having time to do it even with taking care of our baby.

Also, I'd rather do laundry than dishes!

Our New Apartment, OR Murdering Maggots in the Morning

So, I'm beginning to feel like Pharoah must have felt when Moses came and there were all those plagues. Okay, not really...but we have had some troubles with this new apartment.

Plague #1 Elmos
We have lots of Elmos. There are a whole bunch of Elmos of different types in the corner between the couches. It's a little bit creepy, but Hazel likes to look at them.

Plague #2 Junk
The apartment is a sublet, so the girl we're renting from left her stuff here while she went away for the summer. I thought that meant she was going to leave everything in her bedroom (which locks) leaving the furniture and the rest of the space for us. Well, I was wrong. When we got here, there was stuff all over the place. Every surface was covered in random junk. *sigh* So we sorted it, bagged it, and stowed it in the garage.

Plague #3 Alcohol Paraphernalia
When we visited to check the place out beforehand, I somehow overlooked this. Empty vodka bottles (maybe they thought they were decorative?) on the counter, a couple of drinks-mixy contraptions, a few bottles that still had the alcohol in them...

Plague #4 Filthiness
Also something I overlooked when we visited. I mostly looked at the living room, where we were sitting talking to our prospective landlady. It looked pretty good. I think she shampoos the carpets regularly. But, I didn't look closely at the edges (which may have never been cleaned, ever), or the kitchen floor/cabinets (ick!). And, when some things in a house are dirty, I feel like EVERYTHING is, and I can't rest until it's all clean.

Plague #5 Coins
Why would someone leave little piles of coins spread throughout the house? I don't understand this.

Plague #6 Air Fresheners
Every room had multiple air fresheners. Spray fresheners, automatic-squirt fresheners, plugins...why would you want so many? It made the place stink!

Plague #7 Unfamiliar Cleaning Products
As I was gathering up the junk in preparation to clean the surfaces it was all resting on, I looked for cleaning supplies. I found several, but almost nothing that I'd ever used before. On the upside, I discovered that the multipurpose Fantastik is quite good!

Plague #8 Untrustworthy Dishes/Disposable Dishes
Part of the deal is that we got to use her dishes and stuff. But, her dishes mostly worried me. Nonstick pots with the nonstick coming off, stuff that didn't look clean... Also, she just didn't have a lot of normal dishes. Some things there were a lot of, but others (like plates and silverware), we just couldn't find enough of. It seems like she was mostly using disposable dishes, which were bountiful indeed.

Plague #9 Sauces
When I went to clean the fridge (which was pretty gross), I found that they had tons and tons of sauces and condiments. We managed to relegate them all to the door and the bottom drawer, but the door was TOTALLY full, with a goodly amount of the drawer taken up as well.

Plague #10 Brown Decorations
It seems like most of the stuff she chose to decorate with is brown or beige. I think I'm just not classy enough for that. I like color too much.

Plague #11 Poor Lighting
No overhead lights, except in the kitchen/dining room.

Plague #12 Dead Clocks
I counted six.

Plague #13 Daddy Long-legs
Okay, this one isn't really a plague. But most days there is a daddy long-legs on the screen of the back door. And it usually stays there all day long.

Plague #14 Ants
Two days ago, we found ants in the baby's room. This was really disgusting to me. However, I found out that there are many ways to kill ants, and I so I attacked them with baby powder. I'm not convinced that it kills them, but after powdering them, vacuuming thoroughly, and powdering again, they've been gone for over one day. It's kind of cool that there's something that I don't mind Hazel touching that will keep ants away. :)

Plague #15 Maggots
Finally, the worst thing of all, and the thing that caused me to want to write this post. MAGGOTS. Gross! We have been battling maggots all day. Here's how it went.

This morning I went into the kitchen, and I was like, Anthony, there's a little white wormy thing on the floor. And he was like, oh, there's another one.

That's when we realized there were LOTS of them! And they weren't just any old worms, they were MAGGOTS. And I began to feel like this:

Then we began killing them. (Anthony did most of it, because that is the arrangement. Anthony kills bugs for me. That is one of the reasons I love him so much.) We discovered that the only way that actually works, is to squish them, one by one. These things are practically invincible! We used spray bleach, we dumped boiling water on them, we drowned them in rubbing alcohol, we moussed them (I read hairspray would do it; we don't have any), we used Raid, we sprayed them with Comet, and combinations of some of these things. Time after time, they crawled right out of whatever toxic chemical we had just put all over them.


Well, the maggots are gone now. I hope.

After all this complaining, I should give you some good news. How about:

Hazel is still the cutest thing ever. :)