Homemaking Unplugged

        The filter cleaning was disgusting.  Truly disgusting. And for the first time, I feel a little annoyed with Martha. I mean, there are some things that one is better off knowing, and if not for Martha, I might have gone my whole life without knowing that my range hood filters were filled with a black, greasy gunk. And I might have died happier for it. Really. Learning about the filters and then seeing them was like being told that your favorite outfit makes you look fat -- and then realizing that it's true.  It's something you don't quickly get over. So, dear Martha, I can't say I'm grateful for yesterday's experience, in any way.  

       Still, as my month is drawing to a close, I did continue to look for other bits of advice that might not involve nauseating discoveries in the kitchen. And here is a simple one I am going to do.

       Martha suggests that when using a power strip to plug in various electric devices, one should attach tags to the various plugs to identify what device each plug relates to.  She even suggests using as labels the little plastic tags from bread bags -- after writing on them more pertinent information than the "best before" date.

       This does seem like a good idea to me -- the labeling that is.  As I am on a low-carb diet, collecting bread bag tags really isn't worth the cost, effort or carbohydrates.  However, I really should label our cords...

       Recently, when I was changing our sheets, an excess of static electricity in the bedding shocked my bedside clock into showing the wrong time.  For some reason, the same shock also made inoperable the buttons that would allow me to correct the time. I suspected that if I simply unplugged the clock, it would likely re-set everything and allow me to start afresh. But as the clock was plugged into a power cord with several other items, and the power cord was pushed behind the bed, I knew it would be something of a hassle to reach, find and unplug the right cord.  And I just wasn't up for it.  

       Instead, I simply adjusted my time expectations for the next several days. When I wanted to wake up at 6:30 a.m., I set the alarm instead for 11:07 p.m.  If I woke up unexpectedly at 8:49 p.m., I could comfortably roll over, knowing I still had over two hours left to sleep. This may sound like lunacy, but it did seem easier than hunting for the right cord.

       So tomorrow, I am going to label my cords, but without bread bag tags. Instead, after another trip to The Container Store, I now have a set of specially-designed, multi-colored tags that I can label and twist around the various electric cords -- not only in the bedroom, but also in my home office and behind my television.  

      

       Part of me wonders if the time I will spend labeling will truly  be worth it.  Wouldn't it just be easier to unplug the wrong cord now and then?  

       Maybe. But at least this way, I'll always know what time it is.

Ventilation Hood Filters?

       I have never claimed to be a mechanical engineer.  So perhaps I can be excused for not realizing that the ventilation hood above my range has removable filters.  

       Martha's Homekeeping Handbook advises that these filters should be cleaned monthly.  I had the hood installed nearly six years ago, and have never done this task, or even thought of doing this task.

       To be fair to myself, I don't use the ventilation hood as much as I should, preferring instead to allow cooking smoke and odors to waft throughout our home.  So let's say I use the hood five days per month, out of a potential 30 days.  Based on those figures, it would surely be wrong to say that I had missed 72 monthly ventilation hood cleanings. Rather, dividing 72 by my truly disproportional disuse of the hood, perhaps I am down to 12 missed cleanings. And I haven't had the hood for six whole years yet! So maybe it can be considered only 11 missed cleanings. And frankly, I travel a lot -- perhaps an entire month in total each year -- so that would reduce the missed cleanings to maybe only ten.  Ten is a nice round, clean number. How bad could it be?

       I removed the filters a few minutes ago, expecting to be able to quickly rinse them under running water and then replace them.  But they were a wee bit sticky, and the blackish gunk in them didn't seem to be coming off at all.  

       So now I'm soaking them in a sink with hot water and dishwashing liquid, as Martha suggests. I think I may have to leave them there for a few weeks.

School for Guys

       I have long suspected that at some point in his pre-Brenda past, Tom attended "guy school".  At this secret academy, Tom and other guys like him learned to be so spectacularly inept at simple household tasks that they would never be asked to do them again.

       I have actually inquired about the curriculum at this school, but Tom refuses to talk about it, just as he still refuses, even after 15 years of marriage, to tell me the words to his secret fraternity pledge. Perhaps the two are even related, and the lessons in ineptitude are part of the fraternity hazing process. However it happened, the training is evident, particularly when it comes to loading the dishwasher.

       When Tom loads the dishwasher, he randomly scatters dishes, glasses, bowls and pans across the interior. Glasses might be placed lying down on the bottom rack of the dishwasher, or hanging haphazardly over the prongs on the top. A single cookie sheet might be laid over the entire bottom rack, meaning nothing else can be placed there at all. And when I try to tell him there is another way, he just walks away, his actions telling me that if I don't like the way he does things, maybe I should just do it myself. Surely this is the ultimate goal of the Guy Academy program. But since Martha had had a positive influence on our life recently, I figured that her expert advice might finally override his training. Among other things, Martha advises the following:

• Delicate dishes and glassware should be placed in the upper rack
  
• Place everything in the upper rack facedown; everything in the lower rack facing the center
• Don't place items over the prongs on the upper rack.  Glasses and mugs should go in the rows between the prongs while bowls should be placed in the center.

      

       This picture shows the way things should look. 

       When I shared these rules with Tom last week, he walked away, showing his training remained highly effective. But when I told these rules to my father-in-law the night before last, as he loaded the dishwasher, he loudly exclaimed, "Martha says that?" He then yelled excitedly to my mother-in-law , "Hey, did you know that Martha Stewart says that glasses are not supposed to go across the prongs? They're supposed to go between them!" 

       I was pleased to have been able to impart this important life knowledge with him just prior to his 75th birthday...until I noticed that he continued to place the remaining glasses and mugs in the dishwasher at random, some across the prongs, some lying down, and maybe one or two in the rows between the prongs.

       I suspect now that in addition to ineptness lessons, guy school also teaches acting skills.  If anyone has more information on this secret training, kindly post it below. 

What Now?

       Someone I had formerly thought of as a friend, e-mailed me recently to ask where I was going next on my cleaning plan. She pointed out that I had spent most of the month dealing with the six issues Martha said should be done daily. Wasn't it time to move on to Martha's much longer list of 37 weekly cleaning tasks? 

       This list includes tasks like "vacuum upholstery and floor" in living room, "empty trash bin" in home office, "wipe mirrors" in bathrooms, and so on. I am pleased to report that I already performed pretty much all of the 37 tasks even before I started "going Martha". And ones that I wasn't doing -- wiping the inside of the oven and microwave, for example -- I am doing now. 

       Perhaps that is part of the reason Martha's book appealed to me. It isn't called a "Housecleaning Handbook" or even a "Homemaking Handbook". Rather it appeared to me to be a handbook for "keeping" a home a home. For me, the daily tasks were what was keeping my otherwise clean home from feeling that way.

       That doesn't mean there isn't more to learn from Martha's 744-page tome. Indeed, the book is full of advice on matters ranging from how to clean a computer mouse, to how to fold a sweater (for those of us who haven't yet worked at The Gap), to how to fix the float ball in a toilet.  So for the remainder of the month, I am going to share some of these additional tidbits of advice offered by Martha and her staff. 

Tomorrow: Loading the Dishwasher -- The Guy Way vs. The Martha Way. 

Injury and Lawsuit!

       It was a dark and stormy morning, but the dog needed to go out. So I stumbled out of bed, pulled on some jeans that had intentionally been left crumpled on the floor nearby, and cried out in pain as I felt my thigh being cut.  

       Now, I am not one to cry out, ordinarily. I can stub my toe, or burn my hand on the oven, without making a peep. But this morning, I was too sleepy, or perhaps too shocked, to hold back. 

       I reached into my jeans pocket to see what had stabbed me. A pin maybe? What I pulled out instead was a single tablet of Advil Cold medicine, in one of those small, hard "blister packs". 

       Then I remembered. Last night, while leaving the kitchen, I had looked back to take a quick look around, exactly like Martha had advised, to look for anything that "isn't where it should be." Seeing the lone tablet on the kitchen island, I had pocketed it before heading to bed. Looking down at my thigh this morning, I saw a long, angry line where it had scraped into my flesh. 

       Tom, normally not one for empathy (perhaps that's why I ordinarily don't bother to yell?) got out of bed to see what the problem was. "Jesus CHRIST!" he bellowed, when he saw my thigh.  By this time, blood was beginning to seep out of the full length of the slash. "That must be eight inches long!" he yelled. I showed him the tiny pack of Advil Cold medicine. "LAWSUIT!" he screamed.

       At this, the dog, who by now had been startled four times over, began jumping up and down. We knew this meant either that she agreed with Tom's demand for justice, or that she had to pee really, really soon. So Tom said he would take her out, while I cleaned and dressed my bloody thigh.

       With the two of them gone, I considered doing some shredding, but instead contemplated my lawsuit. Maybe if I sued Martha, we could come to an amicable out-of-court settlement, whereby she would autograph the front of my Homekeeping Handbook, let Olympia play with her dogs, and maybe offer some personal instruction on cake-decorating?

       In preparation for filing my complaint with the court, I re-read the advice that had led directly to my massive, gaping wound and the horrific pain and suffering I was now experiencing.

       "Take a quick look around for anything that isn't where it should be. Pick it up and put it where it belongs." Put it where it belongs? You mean Martha doesn't say to look around for anything that isn't where it should be and then put it in the pocket of your jeans? 

       Had Martha's highly-paid attorneys already got to the book and cleverly re-edited it? I mean, if I had known the pill was supposed to go back into the box from whence it came, surely I would have done that. I will put into evidence my long record of flawless housekeeping to show my pattern of direct obedience to Martha.

       Or maybe I'll just go downstairs and start the coffee. At least Tom is out in the rain with Olympia, instead of me.

Clutter's Last Stand

       Thanks to Martha, and a little personal effort, things are going pretty well around here.  The kitchen is staying clean, the mail is sorted, the bed is made, spills are wiped up when they happen.  Even the dog has had a bath. 

       The paperwork, in particular, is clearly heading in the right direction.  I still have some work to do, but I am beginning to sense a zen state, ohm-ing in the distance.

       The last major element I must address again pertains to clutter -- but not the paper-blob type.  Instead, I'm referring to the simple kind of clutter -- the coat left unhung, the newspaper left spread on the table, the dirty sock that didn't quite make it to the laundry hamper.  Martha says whenever you leave a room, "take a quick look around for anything that isn't where it should be. Pick it up and put it where it belongs. Insist that everyone in the household do the same."

        Yeah, good luck with that.

        But I'm going to give it a try. The difficulty will be explaining this rule to Tom without sounding accusatory.

        The fact is that this sort of clutter is as much my fault as his. Indeed, we seem to feed off each other. When our home is extraordinarily clean, Tom is extraordinarly careful to keep it that way. But as soon as I leave my coat hung casually over a chair (only for a moment, because I'll be heading out soon, and will surely need it again), he leaves out not only a coat, but also a suit jacket and some stuff he emptied from his briefcase. And then I leave some unfolded laundry and a serving platter that I can't put away unless I stand on a chair. And then he leaves his sweatshirt, two magazines and nine business cards. You get the picture.

       So we're both going to have to work together on this, starting today.  I wish Martha had a more detailed plan on how to make it work -- something with slots and categories and such, like she provided for the mail sorting.  

       But I guess I'll just have to wing it.  I'll keep you posted...

Shredding the Past, Doggie-Style

       My Dad called a couple of days ago to suggest that the purchase of a shredder might help address my overwhelming paper issue.  Indeed, a shredder can be useful not only to destroy unnecessary documents, but also to protect one from identity theft. And we have, in fact, had a shredder for years.  Our problem is using it.

       For the last five years, we have had the joy of living with our nearly perfect dog, Olympia. Despite her grand-sounding name, we have taken to calling her "Mouse" because she is frightened of many things -- vacuums, brooms, mops, skateboards, garbage trucks, buses, fireworks, thunder, rain on the windows, creaking sounds from wind, the movement of blinds in a gentle breeze, and, of course, paper shredders.  

       We have tried to overcome these fears in any number of ways advised by dog specialists, but to no avail. So we have adjusted our lives, instead. What this means is that not only do I have to keep a cautious eye out for garbage trucks on our morning walks and "hide" with her in a closet during thunderstorms, I also have to avoid shredding paper in her company. Martha would be pleased that I already have an organized system to deal with this -- a small wicker basket where I put all the items I want to shred. (Since I file nearly everything, this basket does not contain many full documents, but does include items like the envelopes those documents come in, credit card applications, and of course, the labels that come on our pizza delivery boxes. The fact that we live at our address and order double cheese on our pizzas is surely a matter some identity-thief would be interested in.)  

       So, when Tom takes Olympia for her night-time walk, I often try to shred some of these gathered documents, if I am not otherwise busy sweeping, mopping, vacuuming and airing out our home.  To be honest, I find it hard to keep up, and the basket frequently overflows.

       Now that I have several years of irrelevant bills and other paperwork to destroy, I fear my night-time shredding system will be entirely overwhelmed. And really, with possibly several thousand pages to shred, is my seven-sheet shredder really the most efficient way?

       A search on Google, and one phone call later, I have the answer. A local mobile shredding company advised that I can bring my papers to a suburban location between 8 and 8:30 a.m. and have my papers shredded in front of me for only $6 per box.  Six dollars for a standard sized storage box!  It may cost me over $6 in gas to get there, and I'll have to get up extra early to do it, and I'll have to drive through rush hour traffic for about an hour to get there. 

       But nonetheless, I have a plan that will protect both my sanity and that of my otherwise perfect dog.

       I love you, sweetheart. Yes, I do. Who's the best dog in the whole world? You are! Good girl...