Thursday, September 25, 2008

Kim and Aggie and Jackie, my mom

Mom is obsessed with the show "How Clean Is Your House?", which she gets on the BBC America channel. I go over sometimes to watch it with her. It's a great show, funny and kind of sweet, where two women go to people's disgusting, filthy, horrible houses and help them clean, in hopes of them keeping the house clean afterwards. If it was an American show, the cleaning crew would paint and put down new carpet and stuff too, makeover style. Kim and Aggie, the hosts of the show, just clean, which is refreshing.

Mom watches it religiously now, two episodes at noon and two at 5pm. She's picked up a remarkably good Scottish accent and has started referring to her stove as "the cooker." And she's been cleaning like crazy. She blogged about it this morning here.

Anyway, today she came over to my house and helped me clean it. It wasn't all that bad, since we just did a deep cleaning last month, but Mom's now into the nitty gritty. I came out from scrubbing the bathroom to find her rinsing the trash can out with sudsy water and lavender oil. She poured baking soda and boiling water down the sink, scoured the bottom of my good copper pot with lemon and salt (actually lime juice and salt, since I didn't have any lemon--my good copper pot was cleaned with a margarita), and cleaned out the fridge. Me, I put up new fly stick strips to kill more of those damn gnats.

Anyway, if I can keep it this clean, I'm all set for November now, when NaNoWriMo gets underway. This year I think I'm planning to go to the local meetings, since I need to get out more and I have to work on the days my spinning guild meets. Besides, it'll be fun to hang out face to face with fellow writers. And it'll be nice to write in a perfectly clean house.

7 comments:

seaslug_of_doom said...

Oh I really like that show, as well. All it makes me do, however, is feel guilty when I look at the layer of dust on all my horizontal surfaces. Not guilty enough to actually remove said dust, however. Still, I'm nowhere near as bad as the schmoes on How Clean Is Your House. Am I? Hmm.

K.C. Shaw said...

I'm a slob, and that show makes me feel better about my house. So you're probably not doing too badly either. :)

Unknown said...

I'm going to have to try the baking soda and boiling water trick. Nothing I can't stand more than a smelly garbage disposal.

Cate Gardner said...

Oh I hate that show.

I've signed up for NaNo too - no meetings though, I'd never get any writing done.

K.C. Shaw said...

Jeremy--my mom swears by baking soda and boiling water now. It's supposed to be good for your pipes too.

Cate--I'm so glad you're doing Nano too! I'm not sure how I'll like the meetings, though. I'll go to the first one, at least.

Carrie Harris said...

Hmmm... I'm all about cleaning with a margarita, but I'd like to drink the margarita with one hand while scrubbing the pot with the other.

K.C. Shaw said...

That "Spoonful of Sugar" song? Should have been about margaritas.