Deep Clean, Christmas Tree

I have nothing exciting to write about today because all I did yesterday was clean the kitchen. We’re talking deep clean, though—I took everything out of the cupboards and drawers, washed it all, vacuumed and cleaned all the surfaces, filled a couple of boxes of stuff to donate, and finished by washing the baseboards and mopping the floor. The husband took down the pot rack for me so I could give it a bath in the tub. I still need to clean the fridge, but I ran out of energy by the end of the day.

We get a lot of dust here. The smoke from the fires in recent years has added to that with a lot of fine ash. I feel like I am forever vacuuming and wiping it up. The whole house could use the same kind of cleaning. The living room is next on the list, and then I’ll have to see how much of the upstairs I can get done before Christmas. My office could use a good cleaning, too, but that’s not critical right now.

I’ve still got two sewing commission projects to do this week. I am making a two weighted blanket covers for one person and some grocery bags for someone else. I also made a stuffed Christmas tree for my sister.

These are like potato chips. I asked her what color and she said, “Denim blue or ivory,” so I pulled this remnant out of the Christmas fabric stash. I made myself a template out of template plastic (AKA cheap plastic cutting mats from the Dollar Store). Cutting three pairs out of a double layer of fabric is quick and easy. Sewing takes another few minutes, and then I can sit and and stuff them in the evening. Joanns had Poly-Fil on sale this past weekend so I bought a large bag. And that stainless steel chopstick works perfectly for stuffing.

The husband happened to be here at lunchtime yesterday when our department was paged out for a fire call, so he spent the afternoon on a structure fire. It snowed all day, too, which meant there were a lot of MVA calls all over the valley. The UPS guy stopped to drop off a package and mentioned that someone had gone off the corner down the road from us. People seem to be having a hard time remembering (or learning) how to drive in this weather. I’ve been driving DD#1’s Acura RSX for the past week so the husband could work on the BMW. It’s a little sports car with a manual transmission, but with snow tires on, it handles nicely on these roads.

We’re hoping the husband has managed to fix The Diva. My 2007 Dodge MegaCab had a similar problem. Those diesels have a special emissions system on them that is supposed to collect all the soot from the burned fuel and then incinerate it at a really high temperature. That system never worked well on the MegaCab. The BMW dealer replaced the sensors on The Diva, but the computer was still throwing EGR codes. The husband actually took the EGR valve out and cleaned all the soot out of it. He also put a new gas cap on. We’ll see what happens when I drive it again.

I’ve been rendering lard and that’s almost done. The pigs go to the processor next Tuesday, so moving some things around and defrosting a freezer is on the list for this weekend, but I’ll try to find more exciting blog fodder than that.