Today was a day spent both lounging and cleaning in fits and spurts

 

This picture was taken a while back, when my desk was neater than it is now.  The clutter on my desk should give my readers an idea of what I let happen in my apartment since the pandemic started.  The rest of the bedroom was in worse condition, but I took some time today to clean things up a little in fits and spurts.

Cleaning up this apartment post-covid has been an exercise in frustration.  It seems like I take 2 steps forward while taking 1 step backward.  Thankfully, RQS has been with me to help on occasion, and things have gradually started to look better.  While straightening things up, I was able to clean up space in my dining area and make the area around my air conditioner much more accessible than it has been in a dog's age.  The same goes for the bedroom, as I've taken the time to throw out more stuff and sort through things that need to find better homes.

RQS notes that we have both accumulated a lot of stuff over the past 30-40 years, and that we don't have enough room to move about in our apartments.  Yet, neither of us likes having accumulated as much as we have accumulated.  We are not alone.  At least, we can gradually eliminate much of the unneeded stuff in our apartments by giving much of it away.  Hoarders can not and will not do so. Hopefully, we will continue the gradual clean out of unneeded stuff from our places, so that we have the option to merge our households sometime in the future.  Only time will tell...

Doing almost nothing until....

 

Lately, RQS and I have gotten into a routine.  In the mornings, we tend to stay up late, and then start to get moving in the afternoon.  This week was no different.

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We only had two things to do this Saturday - pick up a couple of books from the local library, and then drop off some donation bags at the local charity receiving center.  So, by 3 pm, we got ourselves moving and took care of these errands.

Once we were done with the mandated tasks, it was time to pick up some storage containers I could use to reorganize the refrigerator. And that meant a trip to Target, and then to Walmart.  If we weren't planning on a trip to Shoprite to pick up some lobsters, we would have driven North on Route 22 and explored Eastern Dutchess county.  But I digress.  

After getting home from Shoprite, I started to put water in the stock pot I use for boiling lobster, and let it get to a nice rolling boil before starting to put lobsters in the pot.  Then, I took care of the pot I used for cooking the corn to go with our lobster dinner.  Once the lobsters were ready, I set the food on the table, and we proceeded to have a tasty dinner for less than we would have spent going to a  restaurant.  Yum!

Next, it was time to reorganize and clean the refrigerator.  And this is where a couple of minor mishaps occurred. First, RQS knocked a glass off the counter, and we had to clean broken glass off the floor.  And then, she broke the crisper at the bottom of the refrigerator.  (I'll replace this with an OEM part when I get around to is.)  I eased her mind a little, then fixed the crisper for use until I can replace it. At this point, it was time to throw out stuff which has already gotten too old for consumption - including 6 bottles of white wine which have sat in the icebox for 10-20 years. In addition, there was 1 bottle that had to be over 25 years old, as I know it was a gift from my late wife's employer.  (As you can guess, I don't drink much wine at home.)

Buying storage containers for use in a refrigerator is a hit or miss thing. (At least, it is for me.)  I can eyeball a space and have a good idea of what fill fit in that space.  Yet, sometimes, I make a mistake and buy things that won't fit.  Today's trip was a little bit of both, as I was left with 2 containers which wouldn't fit into the spaces in which I wanted to use them.  When RQS made her first pass at refrigerator reorganization, she didn't pick up on the nuances I planned to use in reorganization.  So I sat on the floor and started to organize what was on the shelves into storage containers that made things easy to get at.

The two of us are a couple who have been working well together.  Unlike my relationship with XGFJ, I'm finding that we talk to each other more about the important things in the relationship.  Yes, there are elephants in the room, but we seem to be able to talk about the beast and how it has to be handled.  It's a nice feeling....