Monday, July 25, 2011

Things I learned "Bach'n It!"

Here I sit.  All alone.   Jared, Brandon and his two boys have headed to the coast for a week of scout camp.  Andrea is off enjoying waterslides at a hotel in Idaho, and Collin is on his way to spend a few weeks in Canada working on his grandparents farm....leaving me...all alone.  I figured I'd enjoy my down time in true bachelor fashion.  Maybe order a pizza and sit on the couch in my underwear watching a bunch of movies. 

But I couldn't.

The laundry was calling, floors needed vacuumed, bathrooms need cleaned, and I've been on a redecorating kick lately. So first I set out to spruce up the kids bathroom.  Until today it has sported a lovely beige shower curtain, some beige towels, and a beige rug.  Spiffy, eh? As part of my redecorating fervor I found the cutest "like new" bright tree frog set on Craigslist to jazz up the "beigeness". But before I could put my newfound treasures in their rightful places I needed to clean the bathroom.

I rarely set foot in there, and I don't think I've cleaned the kids bathroom once in the 3 years we've lived in this house.  Now before you shiver in horror and decide I'm disgusting I will relieve your distress by telling you the bathroom does get cleaned every week...but the kids do it. However, what I learned today (among other things) is that they don't necessarily hold themselves to the same cleaning standard that my Grandma does.  Luckily for them I will continue to afford them the opportunity for further practice.

As part of my cleaning process I learned where that foul, radioactive stuff comes from that they inject into Superheroes to make them lose their powers.  I think it's the murky liquid from the bottom of the toilet bowl brush holder in my kiddos bathroom. Ewwwww. 

Moving on from that vomit inducing visual....

At this point I ran out of paper towels (because I used A LOT of them to clean out the aforementioned toilet bowl brush holder) and I went in search of a rag to use to finish the less offensive jobs.  Now, this shouldn't have been a problem as I at some point had a plentiful supply of rags.  However, like unattended cookie dough left in the fridge, they seem to disappear at an alarming rate. Today I learned why.  My husband is a hoarder.  Not normal gross hoarder things like food and old newspapers...nope.  B hoards rags.  I'm not sure what troubling event transpired in his childhood to bring this on- and I can't explain why one man would need boxes, bags, and bins full of rags. He has a plentiful supply of shop rags to use for his assorted home and automotive projects- but that's not enough.  He requests rags for Christmas- tells the kids he'd like rags for Fathers Day, and now he has apparently decided that all the rags in the house belong to him- in his garage.  There lying at the back of his workbench was my latest supply of rags- fresh from the laundry and neatly folded.  Whatever....

Now the bathroom was clean and I could put on the finishing touches. This was the point in my day when I learned I was cheap. (OK, I actually already knew that, but had it reiterated to me) As I put out my Craigslist bathroom treasures I recoiled at the listed prices on the still attached price tags.  $54.99 for a garbage can?  $18.99 for that adorable- but plastic- frog shaped soap dispenser? *gasp* $41.99 for the tissue box cover??? Who really needs a tissue box cover?  All these, along with the shower curtain, 2 rugs, a switch cover, curtain rings, and frog shaped mirror clings was mine for the value price of $40.  Ya gotta love my good friend Craig and his awesome list!

After replacing the shower curtain, rugs, soap dispenser, etc. I went to replace the boring white switch cover with my new delightful tree frog cover.  That is when I learned that just because you CAN pry most anything off of a wall with a flat screwdriver doesn't mean you SHOULD.  (Hopefully I can glue the fan dial back together and hide it before Brandon gets home!)

Anyway, enough of my rambling on.  I think I just heard the pizza delivery boy pull up!