Dirty floors

I had a promising to-do list for this long holiday weekend. I was going to rev up today and catch up on all the housework I've let go recently. I had to get cards and collages into the shops before Black Friday, so my evenings and weekends have been fully occupied. Now was my chance to restore order. I could weedeat around the shrubs that haven't been trimmed all summer. I could weed the front flowerbed in preparation for winter. I could give the kitchen and bathrooms a good scrubbing. And finally...finally...I could clean my floors.

My carpet is still suffering from Peanut's final illness. I've spot-cleaned her various accidents and disasters. But weeks after Peanut's passing, I still smell cat when I walk in the back door. This is going to take a steam cleaning with pet-odor-formula cleaner and my little carpet cleaner. And, my back being what it is, my tile floors haven't had a good grout-scrubbing for quite a while. I bought myself an early Christmas present--an electric floor scrubber with grout brushes. Pushing it around may tax my back a bit, but it won't be nearly so crippling as getting down on my knees with a scrub brush. The new hard-floor scrubber showed up on my doorstep earlier this week, just in time for my holiday cleaning orgy. I was all set!

But Tuesday I went to Canon Grill with the Lunch Club and somehow, in just taking my seat, I sprung my hip. Yes, I managed to injure myself just by sitting down in a chair. Good grief. By the end of the day, I was hobbling. By Wednesday morning, my left leg didn't want to cooperate in getting me from my bed to the shower, much less the two blocks from our parking lot to our office. I spent the day sitting on a heating pad and taking Advil--and calling in every few minutes to drive my coworkers insane. I got out briefly to feed Buddy, which helped me to discover that it hurt my left hip to move my right leg to operate the gas and brake. How old am I? So I went home, sat back down on my heating pad, and sewed beads on felt for the rest of the day.

Yesterday, I was enough better to stand in the shower and drive over to my folks' for an incredible meal. (I'm so spoiled.) But when I stood to leave, my hip threw a new fit. More heating pad, more beading.

I'm finally getting around pretty well today. I keep looking at my new floor scrubber--still standing in the foyer in the box it was delivered in--and longing for clean grout. But it's just not going to happen. I'm scared that an hour or two of pushing an appliance around will set my hip off again, and I'll end up back on the heating pad--or, worse, missing more work. So it looks like I'm going to be forced to spend the rest of the weekend sitting and quietly crafting. Oh, darn! :)

Speaking of that, here are some of the fringe benefits of my latest stupid injury. Not such a bad way to spend a couple of couch days.

I think I'll go take a nap now.