Rob and the California George Family

I had to go all the way to Toronto to find time to post another update! Unfortunately, this posting is all about cleaning and lots of nasty dust. I will try to find a better topic next time, but if you are feeling masochistic then read on...

The theme of our lives lately has been Spring Cleaning. However, this is not your ordinary cleaning process. We have lived in our house for 10 years now and we literally had some things that had not been put away since we moved in. For example, we have a small retreat area on one side of our bedroom. That was an ideal space to store some shelves from the old house until we found a place to put them. Fast forward 10 years and it was finally time to put them up.

To start the process, I took the entire week of Spring Break off from work. Bethany was in Europe on a school trip (probably a much more interesting story than this, but that is her story to tell). We took some time each day to find something fun to do with Hayley, but mostly she was on her own.

Our job was to dig into that retreat area, file or put away what we wanted to keep, shred or throw away the garbage, and do something with those shelves. The amount of dust that had built up was really embarrassing. I'm talking why-am-I-admitting-this bad! On top of that, we shredded literally YEARS of old records. We burnt out a shredder in the process (more on that later) and it felt like an early Easter as I went around the neighborhood leaving large gift bags of shredded paper in our neighbors' recycling bins. It's amazing just how much paper can accumulate if you don't keep up a system of taking care of it!

Regarding the shredder, it was a cheapo unit that I bought years ago for around $25. When it decided that it was done, we found an ad from Staples that included a $50 trade-in for any old shredder towards the purchase of a new one. So now we have a much better shredder that keeps eyeing our daily junk mail with a gleam in its eye.

Why were we doing all of this? You may have guessed: we had cleaning people coming. True story! I had purchased a certificate for 50% off from a local cleaning company and they would do what we wanted them to do. Celeste had specific jobs in mind for them after we cleared away enough debris for them to get to those jobs.

Beyond the cleaning crew, we also had a painting crew coming in next to paint the upstairs "hard parts" (we had done the bedrooms already). The cleaning was needed to get ready for the painting. However, the cleaning crew never showed up. Long story, but we got our money back. However, that left the jobs they were going to do up to us. However, we were out of time during our Spring Break week for that.

Last weekend we finished the job. That included packing things from the play room, taking pictures from the walls, getting rid of even more dust from hard-to-reach places, moving furniture, etc. We got it all done and ready for the painters. Wow was I ready to come to Toronto and get some rest!

While I am here this week, the painters have done their thing. Next weekend we start the process of putting everything back.

It will be nice to have a cleaner house, freshly painted, with a lot less clutter about to go back to.

P.S. Lee (if you read this far) - They do not have Sky News on the local channels here. However, my customer did comment on the major political shift to the right that happened this week that corresponds with your comment about this new conservative news channel.