This is one of those “here’s what’s happening in my life and also dog pictures” kind of posts.  Feel free to ignore, it’s just a very busy day for me so it is easier to put up a post like this than a thinky post.  Oh, and it ends with my three most energizing songs, in case you are also laboring hard and need an energy boost.

I am celebrating Labor Day in my traditional manner, putting away all my summer stuff and then cleaning the whole apartment so it is ready for fall.  This is hampered slightly by it being a high of 100 degrees today.  So maybe not the best day to get all my sweaters out.  But if I never got them out, it would never be fall.  I believe this deeply.  My clothes shift brings on the weather, not the other way around.

(See how the seasons change?  And they are wearing all those sweaters?  Proof!  Sweaters bring on seasonal changes!)

Anyway, I do it on Labor Day partly because it is a three day process.  As is a really deep clean of the apartment.  So on Saturday I ran all my errands, watched Stree, and went to the laundromat and washed everything I owned.  Yesterday I let it all dry, went to church, and dusted the whole apartment.  And then when I couldn’t sleep last night around 1am, I did the Great Clothing Sort (pack away until spring, leave out for winter, and donate because I can’t remember the last time I wore it) and came up with a garbage bag full of clothes to donate and a suitcase full of clothes to put away until summer, and a closet full of heavy winter sweaters.

(Like Amitabh, I always donate my clothes when they stop fitting me or I just don’t like them any more.  Unlike Amitabh, my clothes are not custom made freakishly tall formal suits, so they are probably a bit more useful than his donations.  There must be one very very tall poor person in India who is always shockingly well dressed.)

Clothing finished, now I get to do the real clean.  I just spent an hour rearranging furniture in the bedroom and really really cleaning it, not just a desultory dust and vacuum.  I even wiped off my doorstop so it is all clean and shiny!

(Doorstop.  His name is Alfred and I made him in art class when I was 13.  I think he is friendly, other people think he is terrifying, but he works great as a doorstop either way.)

I put the bed in the middle of the room instead of against the wall so as to make it easier to vacuum under.  Or at least pretend I may some day vacuum under it.  This caused a problem, because I now have a big open wall space.

I am debating what to put there, do I move Chalte Chalte in from the living room?

Or do I frame one of my kitchen cupboard posters?

The bedroom was exhausting and I still have to do the living room and dining room.  No furniture moving there, unless I feel like vacuuming underneath things (but I JUST did that!  Like 2 months ago!  Surely it isn’t time again?).  But I do have to pick stuff up and organize the sewing area and stuff.  Oh, and move the dog.  Who has found herself a comfy bed in a pile of abandoned slipcovers and pillows which, eventually, should go back where they belong.  And be vacuumed under.

What I really want to do is take a break and drive my air conditioned car over to donate clothes and the extra TV that I mysteriously found while digging out the bedroom.  But all the donation places are closed today.  Don’t they know everyone is cleaning on Labor Day?

(TV.  I seem to be a person who attracts non-functioning televisions.  At one point I had 4.  It would be nice if I were a person who acquired FUNCTIONING televisions, or diamonds, or stock certificates, but I guess I should just be grateful for what I have, television shaped art installations that never really turn on)

Oh well, this was a nice break chatting with you all, now back to work.  I think I have to put these three songs on a loop and then I will have the energy to finish.

And maybe if it gets really hard, if I decide to actually move furniture to vacuum, this one: