I lost it today

...I cleaned! My parents left on the 23rd, and this house...well, Hannah (who is house-sitting with me and always has the car) hasn't been home except to sleep, getting home at weird hours of the night...and I've been sick. And not in the mood to clean. Today, my house just started to scare me too much.

Most of the living/dining/whatever room is reasonably clear on the floor, except over by the tree which has lots of boxes left from Christmas and a few presents left, but no other rubbish/trash. I can now SEE the table, and there is nothing mouldy on it. This is an incredible improvement, believe me. All the mail for my parents that we have received is now re-addressed and in a neat pile to be re-mailed tomorrow, a notebook and my cooking magazine (and cookie book) are on the table for me to do some planning with, and the table is wiped down. The kitchen...the kitchen is still scary. I have been putting things in the dishwasher as I have used them, and put glasses etc that I've found there...but there are things going mouldy. I can't touch detergent, but Hannah has promised me that she will fix them tomorrow, and do a washup of the things that can't be dishwashed. I started to work on the top of my sewing cabinet (where the dolls are) but not much progress has been done yet. At least there's no more dirty dishes or food. My little icon corner is neat and clean, but that's normal - I can be a total mess everywhere else (my room attests to this) but the icon corner is always pristine. I am neurotic about this. Even when it was in my bedroom (which usually looks like a bomb hit it!)

I also cooked. I've been living on McDonalds at 2am when Hannah got home/pizza that Hannah brought home also at 2am/tinned soup. We heated up some pasta sauce and made pasta the other day, which was at least something more human... anyway, I stole Hannah today and went food shopping. I didn't grab much - a tub of yoghurt (Dairy Farmers has a new line out that I wanted to try and will definitely be grabbing a big tub of when I'm next at the supermarket, it's delicious), some deli meat, a jar of plum&raspberry jam (for something different), a loaf of bread, a litre of milk and the fixings for what I was making for dinner. The recipe says feeds four, so I figured I'd make it up and stick it in the fridge to eat when Hannah wasn't around for me to get stuff to cook something else. Most of what was in the recipe (oil, chicken stock, couscous, minced garlic, curry powder) was at home, but I needed to pick up a few extra things (a capsicum, some baby spinach, two tins of tuna, a carrot, some hummus and some spring onions), which I did. I was supposed to add margarine, but realised I had none when I was cooking so substituted olive oil. It worked. I also realised, as I went to cook, that I only had half the amount of couscous. About then it dawned on me that I should halve the recipe, which I duly did. Good thing, too! Feeds four? The amount I made would feed three hungry people, I think! I ate three bowls worth of it and put the rest in the fridge to eat later. It is very tasty.

The plants are all watered too - we can't use sprinklers due to water restrictions, so buckets/watering can it is. Our watering can is AWOL, so buckets! We have quite a few potplants too, and it's been HOT. It means I have a lot of watering to do at night.

Hannah laughed at me and said I'd gone all domestic...I guess I have, I spent the time I wasn't doing the above stitching on Mystery X (which is growing nicely, I have more than half of the west house's part done now, and progress on the others) and plotting making cookies. I got an awesome cookie book for Christmas, and I'm tempted to make a huge batch of cookies as gifts for everyone I know (we get to celebrate all through the twelve days, yay!) partly because it's fun, partly because I want to and mostly because I am bored with not a lot to do.

I also read some more of For the Life of the World (A. Schmemman) and am halfway through chapter 2 and enjoying it immensely. This is my current 'read this' book, this time assigned by Jeremy! I've been reading and noting The Orthodox Way (Met. Kallistos Ware) for Pater/Father, but Troy's stolen it and I was re-reading it, so I think he needs it more. Besides, I'm having so much fun with this one! Dad would like it, I think.

So...night owl Kyrie should probably go say her prayers and go to sleep, but I'm not that sleepy yet. Maybe taking my sister's (very mopey) cat to bed will help me want to sleep, she is very insistent that I should be in bed asleep and keeps trying to round me up into bed. Mrrrrp???

G'night all :)