Ten on Tuesday [Vol. 53].

1. What are your designated chores in your home?
Being that I still live at home, I am fortunate to only have a limited number of chores. For the most part, the things I'm responsible for are things that my mom doesn't want to do anymore. This means sweeping and mopping the kitchen and hallway floors, cleaning the shower and bathtub, polishing the kitchen cabinets, and cleaning the microwave. Everything else varies - sometimes my mom does it, sometimes she delegates to me.

2. What is your least favorite chore to do around the house?
Dusting. I'm a cleaning perfectionist, so I never do a "quick" dusting unless it's necessary. This means taking down every single thing off my shelves - dusting each of those things if needed - then dusting the shelf and putting everything back. It's a pain.

3. What was your designated chore growing up?
I never had one. Honestly, I didn't do any chores on a regular basis. Once I was old enough, my mom would ask me to dust or vacuum, but only in preparation of guests. Otherwise, she handled it. I never had to take out the garbage or do the dishes, nor was I ever really forced to make my bed (though I did anyway because I was a neat freak).

4. Did you get paid to do chores or was your allowance connected to you completing your chores?
My allowance had nothing to do with chores, as far as I remember. I was always a generally helpful kid - I thought yard work and cleaning were fun, so if my mom asked me to do something, I did it.

5. If you had a bit of extra money, would you hire a cleaning person or would you save the money for something else?
I don't think I would ever hire a cleaning person unless I was working a super stressful full-time job and the housework, for whatever reason, wasn't getting done. Cleaning is enjoyable to me (pick your jaws up off the floor), so I don't think I would ever find it that annoying or tiresome.

6. What chores will you make your kids do around the house?
I will probably be a control freak and not let them do anything. What if they don't get it fully clean? Yeah, I'm that girl.

7. How frequently do you do laundry? Wash your sheets? Dust?
My laundry gets done when one of the following occurs: I run out of underwear I like, the hamper is full, or there's one or more items of clothing in the hamper I want to wear in the upcoming days. That's usually every other week. I think I wash my sheets once a month or so, though I don't really have a schedule. I definitely don't dust as often as I should for somebody who has white furniture in her room, but let's say every six weeks. Basically, it's whenever I get fed up with the layer of dust I keep encountering.

8. Do you have a designated “chore day” during the week?
Nope. But that's because I live at home and I don't have much of a schedule in general.

9. What is your favorite chore–if such a thing exists?
I love what everyone else (typically) hates: cleaning the toilet and doing the dishes. Washing the bathroom sink skeeves me out more than cleaning the toilet, if you'll believe that. But like I said earlier, I enjoy cleaning and chores. Generally my favorite chores of all are when things are super dirty and you can see a really vast improvement as your cleaning. It makes me feel accomplished.

10. Do you do anything to help pass the time while doing chores (music, TV, etc.)?
Music, always.

These questions are a part of Ten on Tuesday which is run by the wonderful Chelsea of Roots and Rings.

why i hate brillo pads even more now.

Wow, this blogging every day thing is really starting to grow on me. Of course, it's also caused me to believe that every! single! thing! that I do needs to be blogged. That's probably not true.

Anyway, I've been in super cleaning mode for the past two weeks or so (I can't really remember, there were a lot of sleeping mishaps...) since Thanksgiving is being held at our house. Most of the duties fall to me, mainly because I have to do chores to "earn my keep," but also because my mom never got around to all of it herself. Which means I get to do everything. And we're not just talking about your regular dusting, sweeping, mopping, and cleaning the windows (although I have to do all that TOO). Oh, no.

Yesterday, for example, I had the wonderful pleasure of completely scrubbing down the bathroom, which only gets a full cleaning twice a year. Anyone who roomed with me in college can tell you that I love cleaning the bathroom. (Like, love. To an extent that's borderline unhealthy.) But I never had to do what my mom does, which is spend an hour and a half in a Chemical Cloud of Awfulness.

People. I was wearing an old wife beater as a makeshift face mask so that I didn't pass out from the fumes. I would've taken a picture, but my hair was an absolute mess.

You'd think this is the worst of it. But it's not. On Wednesday, I spent two hours in the downstairs hallway, taking a Brillo pad to the vinyl tile floor. Tile. By. Tile. If there's something that gets done less often than the hardcore bathroom cleaning, it's the hardcore hallway floor cleaning. It's a very high-traffic area, so the spots underneath the throw rugs are very yellow and dirty. Nothing gets the dirt up... except Brillo pads. I hate Brillo pads and now I have even more reason to hate them. If it wasn't for the extreme sense of satisfaction my perfectionist side gets from seeing all that dirt come up, I would refuse to do this. The things I do for cleanliness.

For the record? My future husband is going to haaaaaaate me.

~~

Super Serious, Day 3 - Friday.
6am - Small mug of instant coffee with Pumpkin Spice powdered creamer
Breakfast (8:30am) - Plain pasta
Lunch (11:45am) - Turkey sandwich with mayo and pickles on rye bread
Lunch #2 (3pm) - Pasta with tomato sauce
Dinner (5:30pm) - 2 slices of broccoli pizza
Snacks - 2 cookies; half a tangerine (it was gross); Sun-dried Tomato Wheat Thins

Vitamins - Multivitamin & iron supplement
Drink count - 3 glasses of water, 1 mug of coffee, 1/2 can of Diet Pepsi
Exercise - 1 hour of cleaning the bathroom; lots of carrying things up/down the stairs for my mom all day

Notes: My mother seems to think that my sleeping problems (and weird leg pains every once in a while) are caused by dehydration. I've never been one to drink a lot - I physically can't chug that much water at once - but it usually doesn't bother me. However, with my digestive system running on high all the time, I need to replenish at a faster rate than usual. My goal is to start drinking three to four glasses of water/liquid a day.

finally satisfied.

I am finally in the final stages of completely cleaning out my room, and it feels absolutely amazing.

For the past few weeks, I've had piles of random junk all over the place, waiting to be sorted through and put away. Projects like de-cluttering my closet, shelf, and desk were begging to be completed. I was desperately craving a new desk because the one I use now is too big for me.

Now, I have minimal random stuff left over - a few books I need to skim through before I give them away, some graduation gifts to hang up or put away, and a bag of clothes from Kohls that need to be returned. Over the holiday weekend, instead of enjoying myself at barbecues and lounging poolside (which, don't get me wrong, I really wished I was doing those things), I was gutting my closet, giving it a new coat of paint, and tossing out old clothes and shoes that I haven't worn in years.

Also, I just purchased my new desk from OfficeMax:



Don't mind the bright pink and blue, because I'm not planning on picking up those accessories. They make the whole set look very kiddish, although since it's called the "Darling Writing Desk," I'm assuming it's mean for kids and tweens. Nonetheless, it was a cheap, white, simple desk that fits in my room much better than this current monstrosity:



Granted, I have a moderately large bedroom, but this is just cumbersome. The door on the left-hand side is meant for a computer tower, and while I use it to store stuff, it just gets in my way. I also need a new chair, because folding chairs are downright intolerable, or at least this one is.

I think once I finally get my desk, rearrange my furniture, and clean up the remaining bits and pieces, I will be so completely satisfied. I've never been 100% happy with my room, for one reason or another. But I feel like I've finally made big decisions to replace crappy furniture and clean out unnecessary clutter, and you know, it was something I really needed to do for myself. Having a clean and organized environment always makes me feel more at ease and more productive.

This was the perfect distraction to work on while I battled my health problems, which are [fingers crossed] getting better day by day. I think now I can finally start regaining confidence and make up lost time in the job hunt.

some random thoughts

• Shopping is a cure-all. I was moping around the house after classes this afternoon, and since everyone abandoned me, my plan was to go to bed at around 9pm. As you can probably guess, that didn't happen. I headed out to go on a short shopping spree, actually got in bed at 10pm.. and couldn't fall asleep. Great.
  

• Our bathroom light is fixed! I've spent the first three quarters of the school year making the light work by twisting it a little. Or, as I like to call it, magic. Finally though, it went completely out. It was fixed as an afterthought - we put in a work order to fix the flickering stairwell lights, because we decided quickly that we do not want a rave in our townhouse. The bathroom light was an extra little request. Rumor has it that maintenance showed up at 10am (while Natalie was roaming around in her underwear) and realized they couldn't fix the other light without a ladder. They claimed they'd be back this afternoon. They never showed up.

• Mystique is tonight! Which is exciting enough, but it also means that my secondary high school crew is coming. I would call them my group of friends, but they're really Katrina's and Maddie's. You could probably figure that out when you see us together - a large group of Asians and about three white kids, including yours truly. Anyway. These kids are crazy and hilarious, and I can't wait to see all of them again.

• In just a week, I'm going to have a crazy two days. Friday night is Relay for Life, the one day a year that everybody is jealous of my ability to stay up until 5am. From there I head back here to sleep from about 6am until 1pm, and then LYNDSAY IS COMING!!!!!!111!!!11one!. I am beside myself with excitement, for no real reason, considering I see and talk to her all the time. I've also found myself wanting to convince her to come to my college. Who knew I was so attached? I certainly didn't. Along with being excited, I'm having these terrible urges to clean the entire townhouse and make it look tons more amazing than it already does. My Martha Stewart tendencies will never die.

t.g.i.f.

Ready for another example of my extreme lack of a social life? My exciting activity for the evening was vacuuming the common area. And yes, that's the exciting part of my evening, to be followed by watching Food Network, studying for a test on Monday, and going to bed early. It's a scintillating life I lead.

*

I've been having mood swings like crazy the past few days. For example, on Tuesday I spent a good half hour just laying on my bed. I wasn't trying to sleep, but I didn't feel like doing anything. It was weird. Then at some point on Wednesday, I was talking to Natalie about some stuff, and she was spinning it positive for me.. but I had the urge to argue the negative. Although I am innately optimistic, I tend to continuously assume the negative about my actions. We were discussing my internship from last summer, and I was explaining that I didn't receive any credit for it. Natalie countered by saying that it looks good that I got an internship without my school's help. Normally, I would've agreed wholeheartedly, with a "screw you" attitude to everyone who tried to minimize the accomplishment. But I didn't. I think I shrugged, and said "yeah, I guess."

Today I just felt down. I was angry because I had to come back for a group meeting that never happened and that I didn't get a chance to hang out with Lyndsay. There's also a third thing weighing heavily on my mind, and it's getting harder and harder for me to face it. It's just.. I initially sort of offered myself to take on this task, but now I'm regretting that decision. One part of it is my fear of confrontation. Another is the fact that the more I think about it, the harder I think it's going to be. And the sad fact is that it actually is going to be hard, and I'm not just exaggerating that fact.

Yikes.

*

Well then. I'm off to curl up on my bed and watch Food Network and wish I had the food they make at my fingertips. That would be quite amazing, wouldn't it? Yes it would.