Freeze Frame

The state of apartment 934 at the moment is somewhere comfortably between appalling and spectacular. The meter always points a little more toward appalling than toward spectacular, but not nearly as much so as in past working-woman years. Hooray! (Or, "Ray! Ray!" to put it Ava's way.)

There are cardboard boxes waiting to be broken down (Progress!) and taken to the dumpster. The Diaper Champ on the front porch is full and waiting to be emptied into the dumpster. The trash can is approaching full and waiting to be taken to the dumpster. (Trash is Britt's job.)

Only two bags of groceries from Monday are still waiting on the dining room floor to be given good homes in our cabinets. The dining table looks like I just opened a propaganda bomb on it, as usual. But at least we are keeping spaces available for placemats these days. The ironing board is still waiting to be put back into the utility room after we had to unload it for maintenance to come replace the air filter. Ava's placemat and one of her bibs is still waiting to be picked up and cleaned after being thrown overboard during a bitter spell at supper the other night. We are all too lazy to walk around to that side of the table to pick them up.
The dining room floor holds the vacuum cleaner, several books, a baseball, a blanket, plastic keys, scattered animal parts for a puzzle, a stacking cup, a shape sorter, four cardboard boxes, a bag of packing peanuts, a toy drum full of toys, a package of rick-rack, a dumped basket of plastic eggs, a ladybug xylophone and accompanying caterpillar sticks, and several little pages from my page-a-day calendar. All in all, not half bad! The worst part is HUGE, frightening, black ants that show up in my dreams are somehow finding their way into our home! EEK!

The kitchen counters are clear of clutter today, save one lone can of mandarin oranges which are eagerly awaiting addition to the chilling Jell-O. Wet laundry awaits a dry spell. Dry laundry is ready for hanging and folding. Wet laundry can't get dry until dry laundry gets out of the way. Wet laundry is getting testy over it. Oh, and there's a live ant still not drowning in my morning cranberry juice, which is still sitting in the sink making me a nervous wreck.

Most of our DVDs are scattered around the living room amidst the shapes for the shape sorter and the rest of the scattered stacking cups. Other toys and books are remarkably in their places, due in large part to Ava's Barney obsession. I only see four wayward garments right now. Amazing! The big blue rocking dog is keeping watch over all, so we are safe.

Ava's room is tidy and actually doesn't smell like poo right now...that I know of.

Our room is a work in progress, as always. But at least it looks more like progress than like work to me right now. The shelf unit I put together yesterday (with Ava's "help" of course) is waiting for placement and filling today.

Everything's dusty. But at least the filthy air filter has been banished, so I can dust without feeling defeated this week. I think the floors were all vacuumed within the week, so that gets a CHECK! Same goes for toilets and tub. CHECK! CHECK! Kitchen floor needs to be swept and mopped, but when doesn't it?

Wow, I'm feeling better already! If in a given moment, we are at a 6 or better on the scale, then I'm feeling pretty good about things. Now if I would get off my blog and on to those chores, I could make another nice, long TODAY'S ACCOMPLISHMENTS list to feel good about.