Author: Stacy Horn

The window cleaners and upholstery cleaners come this morning! Soon my apartment will be sparkly fresh and spring clean. And now, a Spring photograph. These are cherry blossoms at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. Which reminds me, can someone tell me why flowers don’t smell as strongly as they used to? We walked through a row of lilac bushes and the smell should have knocked us unconscious, but I could barely smell them.

– Bathroom painted, everything in the room washed, replacement wall shelves ordered.

– Bedroom curtains washed, blinds cleaned, rug shook out on roof, pad underneath the rug replaced.

– Plants dusted, pruned, soil added.

– Bus tickets to Boston ordered for June 2 (my reward/birthday thing). Along those lines, started picking up what I need to give myself a little sprucing up, starting with good scissors to cut my bangs.

– Arranged for upholstery cleaning guys to come in tomorrow to do the couch and my office chair.

– Tomorrow and Thursday will be the major cleaning days. The window guys will be here to do the windows (while I hide the cats and myself, I can’t bear to watch, their balancing act while washing the windows is too scary).

… in my adult years I should say (years after 30). I had some pretty bad ones in my youth. Okay, this one is really tame, but still. Spring cleaning has begun and I started with painting my bathroom. It was looking so dingy. Oh God, if ever there was a more miserable, tedious way to pass the precious few hours we have in life–I’ve painted plenty of rooms in my day, but I’d forgotten what it’s like.

The main thing is I couldn’t reach everywhere and the room is so small the ladder only fit inside in one way, so to get all the other spots that needed to be painted, I had to teeter on boxes (filled with all my Duke research) and stretch and strain and push, and one coat looked like hell so I had to do that all TWICE.

Oh God, this post is not capturing the horror. Oh and the off-white color I selected looks too yellow-y on the walls. The one good thing is the pretty new sparkly looking shower curtain I put up afterwards.

I found out there’s a bus to Boston that leaves from Chinatown every hour and only costs $35 round trip!! (I’m the last to know.) I was going to go yesterday, but then I decided it would make a fun birthday thing to do so I’m going next month.

But I bought these books Thursday night, when I still thought I might go yesterday. Three were from an NPR list of great science fiction books, and one, The Brief History of the Dead, was from another NPR list by the same person, but I forget the theme. But any book that imagines what it’s like to be dead is for me!

I weaned myself out of carrying pocketbooks years ago, but sometimes you need to carry stuff and backpacks don’t look very professional. I got this bag for those times.

I didn’t buy the candle because it was yellow, I bought it for the honeysuckle scent. The fact that is was yellow was just a bonus.

In other, non-yellow news, I’ve been taking a mini-vacation, but somehow I’m not really making the most of it or enjoying it. What should I do?? Maybe I should just go back to work until I can figure that out.

Sigh.

Well, tomorrow I’m going to see both Ironman and Made of Honor. So, there’s that.