#not the beatles

[pennielane]

different but same

[i-am-the-oyster]

How I learned to stop worrying and love cleaning

Watch youtube cleaning channels (eg The Carla Project, A Beautiful Mess, Midwest Magic Cleaning). I learned so much from watching these: cleaning techniques, but also just watching things go from dirty to clean made certain jobs feel surmountable.

Get yourself a set of products and tools. The grease around your extractor fan is a different chemical than the white deposit on your toilet rim, and a brush can reach corners a cloth can't touch. I can go into specifics in a separate post if anyone wants, or you can just follow point 1 and learn the way I did.

Don't try to blitz a room unless you're working with a team. Blitzing is the crash-diet of cleaning. You exhaust yourself, the effects don't last very long, and your lasting memory from the experience is bad enough to put you off doing anything about it. Chip away at your housework, and allow your mind to fixate on the thing that's annoying you most today and deal with that.

Set a realistic goal and stick to it. Assess your energy and time, and set yourself a goal that's doable. If you don't have the time or energy to do wash the floor and put the furniture back in, don't take it out. Ignore the voice that says "while you're here, just ..." because you might run out of energy or time, and a job half done leaves you frustrated and can be worse than not starting. If you finish the job you start and have something left, you can start another and get the satisfaction twice!

I grew up in a house that was not hoarded, but was very messy. (I often say it was the kind of house where you might say "what is that smell" for a couple of weeks before you find the source). My mother was always vocal about her hatred of housework so I never learned the skills of cleaning.

I'm also neurodivergent, and very prone to relying on the SHARP method of organisation (Stacks, Heaps, and Random Piles). Mac from Midwest Magic Cleaning in particular has helped me understand some of the psychology of my difficulties. And watching all these youtubers take homes from absolutely filthy to sparkling clean has made the idea of getting my house clean seem so much more realistic.

[dearwhack]

Happy Christmas to my favorite weirdoes! 😂

[eveepe]

Thaaaank you lovely @crepesuzette2023 for tagging me in this fun meme! I hope everyone on my dash does this because I am very nosy about all of you

Favorite Movie: withnail & i, dazed & confused, fargo, mad max: fury road. Can I add the substance to this already??

Favorite TV Show: succession 💛 bojack horseman, the thick of it, spaced

Favorite Musical Artists: bugs and related entities of course, but also björk, kate bush, ty segall, charli, rosalìa, fever ray, joanna newsom, sleater-kinney, sparks

Favorite Color: green 💚 I'll never get tired of painting every room in my house varying shades of lush and soft and springlike green

Favorite Season: spring!! I LOATHE winter with the power of one thousand suns and the first signs of spring (crocuses pushing up through the snow, little buds unfurling on the branches of my garden hedge) are a balm on my soul. The days start to stretch out. Cool, sunny mornings where you can start to feel the heat of the sun on your face. Spring!!

Favorite Book: oh, earthsea maybe? Or the shining mountain, which is a classic mountaineering book (my favourite genre!)

Do you have any Funko Pops? : nope

Do you play any instruments? : no, although I've tried and failed at many! Piano, violin, trumpet, chanter: all abandoned due to my general rubbishness and non-musicality

Do you have any pets? : I'm allergic to almost everything with fur so no, but I did used to have pet rats as a kid.

Do you read or write Fanfiction?: yeeesss

What song(s) have you had on repeat repeatedly? : all my songs are always on repeat but these have been particularly sticky

Tagging @aquarianshift @fkajohnlennon @big-barn-bed

[tavolgisvist]

With respect to the songs which come from dreams

[toovirgins]

election day! should i gouge my eyes out with a fork and drive a stake through my heart

[worksdotpm]

[lennon-gal]

i would like to share this because last night i looked up "baby pandas" at around 4am and started sobbing. i was BAWLING my eyes out. because of this one panda.

there were a bunch of baby pandas on a platform and this one fell on his face, but couldn't get up because he's a BABY, and his legs were just FLAILING

[exhausted-think-bucket]

Oh dear

here's a random word generator--whatever word it gives you is now the thing you are the deity of

[pennielane]

[i-am-the-oyster]

I know I'm late to this party, but Challengers is a great movie.

[mobgoblin]

Queued right up for it

[eveepe]

thank you lovely @tenderlady for tagging me to share a few little titbits

last song: the last song I added to my favourites was King of the Mountain by Kate Bush

last book: I just finished All Quiet on the Western Front because I love to suffer

last movie: rewatched The Blues Brothers for the nth time (and at the cinema it was Heretic which was both fun and stupid - my favourite things)

last tv show: last night's episode of bake off

sweet/spicy/savory: savoury - i'm always craving those delicious expensive perello gordal olives with the chilli in them

relationship status: we're only not married because neither of us wants a fuss

last thing i googled: 'aviemore weather warnings' because I'm supposed to be driving north on Friday but it's snowing and despite being in a country where it snows regularly we are poorly prepared

current obsession: you'll never guess!!! ok i'll tell you it's the beatles (shh)

looking forward to: will the end of this godforsaken semester never come??????

tagging @aquarianshift @scurator @monkberryfields @fkajohnlennon

[paintdoktahwho]

google it

[lennon-gal]

PUT A FINGER DOWN (SUPER FUN)

put a finger down if today you wanted to do your first Dumb Teenager Thing™️ because you've been a goody two-shoes all your life and wanted to do something that scared you so you walked .5 mile down train tracks (with an air cast boot) with 8 other 17-year-olds to an abandoned barge and climbed in a literal hole that has been rusted for 75 years (or close to it) and then someone said "i think that's a train" when you were about to leave so you said "that's not a train, idiot" and it was a train and they stopped in front of the barge and got out holding flashlights and searching over the barge so you hid huddled together under a ramp for over 30 minutes until you said "guys those are train conductors, not police let's just ask them if the train is going to move" BECAUSE the train was blocking your exit since the only way to get in front of it was to go across a 80° angled cliff that is entirely made of slippery rocks so you all CLIMBED the SIDE of a STATIONARY TRAIN where if you fell, the slippery rocks would hurl you into the freezing lake (where you would immediately drown/freeze to death) and then also got a lot of time with your crush because he was holding you close and calming you down while helping you FAULT the SIDE of a STATIONARY TRAIN

👆