Today, the cleaning muse came for a visit. I don’t know how else to describe it; just as a muse might come and inspire me to write or paint or create, I was inspired to organize and clean today.

Part of it might be psychological; I’ve felt more and more organized in terms of finances and other stuff lately, so it’s almost a natural progression to bring some of this outwards. Another part of it is necessity; I have mapped out a physical fitness routine and I need some space back in my room to do it. I have storage boxes for putting away winter clothing and stuff taking up many feet of footprint space on my floor. Once those are gone (or at least stacked up neatly to take up less floor space) I’ll have room for my yoga mat and even enough space to jump rope for a few minutes each day.

My cleaning progress isn’t immediately apparent, but that’s because there was lots of organization going on as a precursor to the massive cleaning effort that I will embark upon tomorrow and this week. I found room for the four two-foot tall stacks of books I had on my desk and bedside table. It meant clearing shelves of other stuff (decorative teapots, wine bottles, tins of tea) and moving them or storing them elsewhere. But now all the books have homes.

It’s dangerous territory, though. I might have to review my library and take some books that I wasn’t entirely jazzed about and give them away. There’s a bookshelf in the cafeteria at work where people can put books that they want to get rid of but don’t want to throw away. It’s a great place to give away books you don’t have the heart to throw away — just because you didn’t love them doesn’t mean they’re horrible. I can also release them into the wild per BookCrossing (I’d have to order some of the bookplates first) but I’d have to do that with books that I liked but wasn’t 100% enthused about. I wouldn’t want to fob off the real dawgs on other book lovers and make them hate me. If I felt lukewarm about something, chances are there’s someone else who’d love it (I don’t really operate on extremes).

So… uh… yeah.

I need to buy some stuff - like work shoes and shoes to wear to the wedding and shapewear to wear under the dress I’m wearing to the wedding and some more appropriate spring attire. I’m heading to some stores tomorrow night with my mum since she needs to do some pre-travel shopping.

The majority of my family is leaving for Poland later this week which means I’ll be spending the better part of two weeks home alone with my dad, avoiding the house so that I’m not drafted for what will end up being servitude. The scenario will be something like this (dialogue translated from the original Polish):

Me: (Returns home after long day at work and train ride home, shuffling through mail on the kitchen counter, wondering what to have for dinner.)
Father: (Hears noise in kitchen and walks in. Sees that it’s me.) Hello.
Me: Hi.
Father: So… did you just get home?
Me: Yup.
Father: That was a long day. Are you getting paid overtime?
Me: (With slight exasperation since we’ve had this conversation 8 millions times and he knows I’m salaried) Nope, I’m salaried but my boss is really good about giving me comp time off.
Father: Well, that’s good. (silence for a few seconds) So what are you going to have for dinner?
Me: I dunno. Probably cereal.
Father: That’s not a real dinner. (silence for a few beats) Why don’t you make some pork chops or chicken cutlets or something? I could go for something like that. I’ve only had a can of soup for dinner myself.

So, instead of figuring out how to prepare food for himself now that he’s totally retired and has upwards of 8 hours of free time every day, he will wait until I get home at 7 or 8 pm and try to get me to make him a dinner then.

Let’s just wait and see how that goes for him, huh?