In Praise of Elbow Grease


My mother always extolled the virtues of elbow grease for cleaning (her daughters' elbow grease, that is, not hers!), but it seems to me that all I hear on the television are ads for products that will clean and polish the world and everything in it without the use of any elbow grease at all, so that we can all spend our lives lying around, eating bon bons. Unfortunately, a lot of those products are pretty toxic. And expensive.

Just the other day, as I was bemoaning the fact that my weight has been creeping (galloping?) up again, I thought, Hey! Could there be a connection? Could the fact that I don't have to put much of an effort into housework be contributing to my weight problem? I sit all day at work, my favourite leisure activities (writing, reading, knitting) are all sedentary in nature, and when I clean house, I expect my cleaning products to work like magic. Maybe if I worked a little harder, I'd burn a few calories.

This line of thought coincided with my discovery (on Facebook, if I remember correctly) of a recipe for an all-purpose cleaner that I could make at home for pennies. The ingredients were non-toxic.

Deep inside my I Hate to Housekeep personality, there's a Suzie Homemaker crying to get out. Or so it seems. I rushed out and bought whatever ingredients I didn't have, and I made some Green Cleaner. That was just the beginning. My daughter jumped on the bandwagon and demanded the recipe. The next thing I knew, she was calling to say "Did you know you can make homemade Febreze?" The two of us spent hours googling and YouTubing, finding ways to Do It Ourselves (whatever IT might be).

So now I've got spray bottles full of homemade cleaner which, in fact, I prefer to the commercial preparations. I can't find the All Purpose Cleaner video that I saw originally, but the interwebs are full of recipes. The one I've embedded here is similar to mine, except mine has more borax and vinegar, but no washing soda. I'm going to try them all. I haven't even bothered with the essential oil, because I love the clean fragrance of the solution. My mission now? to use up the commercial cleaners I have lying around, and from this day forward, to roll my own - and use a little more elbow grease.

I'll let you know how it goes.

I am Very, very full...

and grateful to my next-door neighbour, who invited R and me (and several other people) over for Thanksgiving dinner. She served -- and we ate -- turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, ham, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, cheese sauce, carrots,sweet potatoes, squash, fresh pineapple, apple pie, pumpkin pie, ice cream, whipped cream, and wine.

Oy.

It was delicious, every bit of it, and we even got to bring home some leftovers, which we might just be hungry enough to eat some time this week, though at the moment it feels as if I'll never be hungry again.


While we were there, I found out that this same neighbour hosts a Stitch & Bitch in her living room every Wednesday night. I think I'll check it out. There will be people doing crafts that are not knitting, which might be interesting, if weird.

It's funny. We've been neighbours for years, but it's only just recently that we've gone beyond the "Good morning, lovely day" stage and started to get properly acquainted. I like this.

Speaking of gratitude, I saw Mamma Mia again the other day, and I can't stop singing this song:

Friday Photo Shootout - Reflections

It's been a long, long time -- but I wandered onto the Friday Photo Shootout site this morning, just in time to take part in today's shootout -- and as it happens, it's raining here today, so my world is full of reflections.

I decided to head out in search of unusual reflections -- and promptly changed my mind because, well, it was (and is) raining.

So I lay down on the carpet and took this photo of me and my camera reflected in my faux fireplace. Shades of Dante.Hmmm. Back to the drawing board.

Later in the day, I really did have to go out, rain or no rain, to pick up the ingredients for dinner. On the way, I stopped to photograph these --  grapevines and assorted other greenery reflected in the  Turtle's window --

and this, the last rose of summer nodding good-bye to a reflected tree. At that point I decided that the warmth of home sounded really good, so I abandoned all attempts at photography and scuttled back to my den.

And speaking of reflections, I've recently given some thought to the fact that my faithful little netbook might not last forever, and all those pieces of fiction and poetry hiding in its files could end up at the recycling depot, lost to me forever. The sensible thing would be to dig them out, one by one, finish them, and send them somewhere --

But for me, writing is like knitting. I have knitting projects stashed all over the house in various stages of completion. The sensible thing to do would be to finish all those projects before I start a new one, but every time I see a particularly lovely skein of wool, my mind leaps to a new pair of socks, a new sweater, a shawl -- and off I go.

It seems I am addicted to yarn. And words. I am addicted to words. I love to watch them form on the page. Finishing a project isn't as important to me (barring a deadline) as the process itself. I could make all sorts of resolutions about finishing one thing before I start another, but I'm a pretty old dog now, and stuck in my ways, so maybe I'd better invest in  (1) more plastic tubs to hold knitting projects and (2) a whole handful of memory sticks.