Chilly impressionistic morning window view. It's still not freezing: 36F currently. But the sun is out, and it's going to be a glorious, sharp autumn day, with a high of 56F.
Today's agenda:
*wash hair
*walk dog
*finish essay begun yesterday and at least begin draft of next one for next week (I would be the lucky winner of a 3-essay week for Thanksgiving)
*maybe go ahead and make up beds in kids' rooms, though that could wait until Saturday at the latest --- they get in Saturday night sometime.
*pub night with husband and two other couples
I need to vacuum at some point, but maybe not today. The last three days have involved a lot of deep cleaning, and I'm tired. I'm pretty happy with it all, mind you, but the work does take it out of you. Still: to have done this much BEFORE Advent is notable. The house doesn't have to be perfect, and once twelve people descend on it, it'll be chaos, but tackling some long-standing cleaning needs feels good. I can deal with chaos, but clean chaos is better than dirty chaos.
If you were wondering who the manliest man on the internet is, let me tell you: it's this guy. Even the menswear guy doesn't touch the cleaning guy, as a person to follow to the ends of the earth. If he were anywhere around here, and I could afford him, I would hire him. As he is not anywhere around here, and I couldn't afford him if he were, the next best thing is to learn what he does and do it myself. A steam cleaner is cheaper than a cleaning team.
So is knowing what you can and can't live with. In this house, a modicum of dust is just inevitable. It's not great --- we have asthma and allergies --- but in a porous old house, you could spend your whole life dusting and still not be rid of it. We just deal.
Also, reality here is that we don't have moppable floors. If I had tile, linoleum, or (and I don't want it, actually) laminate, I'd own a steam mop. As it is, with old wood floors that would be ruined by a steam mop, what happens is sweeping, vacuuming, and the occasional spritz with some low-residue cleaner if there's an actual mess. It is what it is. We've never had sterile floors, and we're probably never going to have sterile floors (we are also a shoes-on household --- I tried, but I lost, and that's just the way that is). We also have pretty good immune systems. I don't need my house to be like an operating room --- we do the best we can here.
My priorities really are
*mold and mildew removal/prevention (especially in bathrooms, but obviously anywhere mold might grow).
*clean bathtub --- I give mine a quick scrub after every use, because soap scum is disgusting, and I do not want to bathe in what I washed off last time. My preference really would be to have a shower, but the only shower in this house is upstairs, and I like my ensuite bathroom with tub, so there you are.
*clean food-prep and storage surfaces --- the fridge is really my next big task with the steam cleaner. I'm also quite relieved to have degreased my cabinets. They look so much cleaner. I still need to finish cleaning the ceiling above the stove, because I could reach only so much yesterday.
*clean, fresh beds --- this is a biggie for me. Sheets changed every 7 days. I don't do this for other adults when they are resident in my house, but MY bed gets changed that often.
*general organization/tidiness: a place for everything and everything in its place, because life is too short to be tearing up the house every time I need my car keys.
It's taken me literal decades to learn how to have a reasonably clean and tidy house --- I did NOT grow up learning how to clean, which was a real deficit in my formation. And I've had to overcome some executive-function hurdles. Even now, my house still isn't pristine. I don't wash windows much, for example. There's usually a good bit of dog hair and the aforementioned dust. But it's okay. It's livable. It smells all right (though it can quickly smell musty, just because it is an old house).
Anyway, the prospect of having a lot of people here always spurs me to some kind of action in this department. I don't like to put out Advent and Christmas decorations on top of clutter and dirt. This time of year always prompts me to, say, wipe the mantel down and dust the tops of door frames. Make your house fair as you are able, goes the lovely Advent carol, and this year I'm getting a little jump on that, because I know how quickly the weeks will go.
So, I think I'll wash my hair now and contemplate the closet. I'd also like to get back on the wagon of planning my outfits for the week. The Texasgirl does this to great effect --- on Sunday nights she hangs her clothes for each day of the week together as outfits, with jewelry and shoes (she has little bags/holders that go on the hangers to hold jewelry, which is pretty cool). She has to be at work at 8:30 a.m., so just reaching into the closet and having everything she needs at her fingertips is a lifesaver. This is both a great executive-function hack, relieving decision fatigue, and a good way to make sure she wears all her clothes and doesn't forget about anything.
I don't think I need to go quite that far, but it has been helpful for me to make a list every Sunday of things I want to wear during the week. I do use my Google Photos "Style 2024" album to remind me what outfits I've worn and liked, and what clothing items I maybe haven't worn recently, so that things don't hang neglected in the closet while I repeat the same outfits over and over. This Sunday I might really try to sketch myself at least a loose plan, though. I fell off the wagon with all my travel and work in October, and now seems like a good time to clamber back aboard.
ONE HOUR LATER . . .
Wearing today:
*Wool& Brooklyn dress (S/Long) in Beetroot, bought November 2023, last worn November 11. Total wears this year to date: 21
*Secondhand Pure teal cashmere cardigan, bought spring 2024, last worn November 17. I don't think I'm going to bother tracking cardigan wears, because they're so seasonal. Also, I paid virtually nothing for every cardigan I own, so by now the cost-per-wear is really low, if not actually in the negatives yet. I keep and wear my cardigans for a long, long time, so it all does work out.
*Snag merino tights in Storm Cloud --- repeated from yesterday, after an overnight airing-out. They smell fine. Bought spring 2022, heading happily into a third season of wear.
*Secondhand Birkenstock Melrose boots, bought summer 2023, last worn November 17. Thought I'd give the Taris a rest today, since the weather's bright and dry. It's a good day for suede.
Today is a day when I might have benefited from an outfit plan. I changed clothes several times, actually, before settling on what I'm wearing, including multiple changes of sweater with this dress, tights, and boots. I'm still not 100% convinced that this is what I feel like, but it's fine, and with a coat on I'll be plenty warm when I go outside.
I love this intense magenta dress, but it can be tricky to pair things with. It's not at all a neutral, which I guess is the understatement of the year, but anyway, layering it can be a bit of a challenge. I think this teal cardigan is probably my favorite combination with my Beetroot Brooklyn dress --- the colors are good complements, in roughly the same saturation, so they balance each other. I'm not generally a high-contrast kind of person, and this is a lot for me, but the sense of proportion makes it work, I think, with the soft dark graphite neutral, rather than stark black, to ground it.
Anyway, this cardigan is very warm, without a lot of bulk and weight, which I appreciate. I started out with my green Connemara cardigan --- and I might change to that tonight, when it's going to be pretty cold --- but it felt too bulky and too much.
I could add a scarf, I realize.
This adds some pattern, but in the same color-saturation family. I'm always a little loath to lose the pretty surplice neckline of this dress style, but I do like the scarf.
Half-dry hair, which I will most likely pull back in a little claw clip later. I prefer it off my face, but it needs time to finish drying before I do that.
Now I need to go pack my husband's lunch (a.k.a. dinner leftovers) and eventually let the dog out and step into the wide chilly world. AND THEN write some essays, because that's what I do.