The Joy of Housework ... no, seriously.

I have to laugh - I'm just rewatching the Clutterbug's 5 Speed Cleaning Tips (because, well, procrastinating) and I realized ... the last tip apparently stuck to my subliminal mind on the first viewing.

I live alone, which means I don't have to worry about anyone judging my housekeeping. And yet ... I *still* feel ashamed about that it wouldn't meet my mother's muster. Most of the time, I feign disdain, but that disillusioned feeling is triggered anytime I invite someone in.

But I think I finally found the cure. Last week when I was hosting a group meeting, just when I was starting to sink into the paranoia of juggling real meeting prep with reorganizing and sanitizing my entire house, it occurred to me that no one else was going to look at the floor. No one else was going to look into my kitchen sink and tsk tsk. No one else cares.

So I changed my rationale: I started cleaning to make myself feel relaxed and content in my own space. And because it was just for me, I focused on the things that turn my nose up.

Step 1: My bathroom sink looked so scummy that I didn't even want to stand there long enough to floss. So I quick-cleaned my spa from the top down, using one spraycleaner and one microfibre rag that went straight into the washer on hot. (And a bit of t.p. to wipe the under-lid parts of the toilet.) That's counters, sink, door handles, light switch, tub edges, baseboards and toilet all in 5 minutes.

Step 2: My stairs were collecting dirt in the corners, my entry is streaked with dried salt from outside and my kitchen floor could support a family of mice. So I swept and mopt (that should be a word) to bring out the shine of the stairs my Dad built with me, de-crumb the kitchen and de-salinate the lino in my entry. One soft broom, one damp microfibre mop pad sprinkled with a bit of washing soda. That's office, main stair, front entry (quick pass thru living room) to kitchen all in 5 minutes.

Step 3: My stainless kitchen sink—what a misnomer—is boring and stained. So I pulled out my new spray-snozzle tap, rinsed the crumbs into the drain baskets and emptied them into my compost bin, loaded the baskets into the dishwasher, and erased a bit of rust and scum with a quick pass from a potscrubber. The final touch: I dried the sinks with a quick swipe of the dishcloth so they looked shiny and new to me. Tops 2 minutes.

Now I feel content in my own home. And a little house-proud. I'm daydreaming out the window instead of feeding the critic in my head.

The guest review: "Your house looks like I imagined your house would look. It looks like you - quirky!"

That's seriously satisfying :-)

Finally, 10 minutes on youtube that actually improved my life. See, procrastination is good ;-)

The curated life

I'm walking up the stairs to meditate, part of my newly-reinvived (is that a word? revived, maybe) daily routine. As my foot disregardedly (that should be a word) lands on the next step, I find myself scrolling through pictures of laughing kids and a dog that my thumb has reflexively displayed before my vaguely-focused eyes. (Some day this will trip me up, literally.) Android notifications: the incessant, spasmodic metronome of my tireless pocket monster.

Someone just shared an album of photos of their trip. I want to drop in a note of humour, but the comment icon doesn't launch. Which means I'll have to try again from my desktop (note to self). That's if I can remember what wit I intend to pen by the time I descend. (Sure enough, some part of my brain troubles itself to keep firing a neuron (that is so a word!) so that would reappear again, not when I am conveniently at my desk and call for it to refresh, but randomly as stale repetition.
It sprays the scent of a forgotten intention,
    lightly and automatically formed,
        now tinged with guilt and a continuous sense of dropped balls and missed connections
(unabashedly judged "incomplete" despite a vast repertoire of unacknowledged comments whose sentiment may not even have reached the eyes of the intended audience, that interrupter among many who just dropped a random byte onto my crumb-covered plate). One obsessed neuron. One email + one notification of the email + 1 Google Photos notification of a shared album = One obsessed device.

Like the drip of a faucet I feel compelled to acknowledge its ominous existence, another contact with one of a (lately uncounted) collection of loose connections. Endless drips seeping in from email, facebook, texts. Drips that fill minutes, hours of my day like a tub (with the plug in), the tub that I will drown in (since I am, by nature, an introvert).

I am about to put a wrench to it: do the unthinkable and turn off all notifications. "Do not disturb": my powerful impassable pocket monster, now butler.

Silence.

15 minutes of guided mental stasis.

A fresh start. I stand mindfully. I stretch consciously.

Now I know what I intend for today.

And now I hack into my pocket monster's settings to turn off every last notification source. Silence, timeline! Silence, inbox!

(except for text messages ... because, well, that's 1 degree-of-freedom from human contact and could lead to a voice in my ear or a hand resting on a teacup across from me ... on better days)

Think this'll cur(at)e my so-called life?

I see a delivery driver on my neighbour's doorstep. She's feeling poorly, and I try valiantly to notify her that I can run down before ... too late. Still, I let my invitation land on her pocket monster. A brief repartee, a tidbit of empathy, the promise of a home-cooked meal at some undetermined hour. Dinner for 1 or even 2. Curated socializing. One day, one person.

new word of the day: de trop
"But talking that way now, when the whole internet is swollen with people talking like that, feels de trop." - Sean Nelson

Truly, I don't need to hear anymore, as Mr. Olbermann doesn't need to produce sound anymore.

And I don't need to respond to every drip.

FEASt map icons

Numbered map icons for linking to FEASt Open Garden Day map.

very strange shape-shifting puzzle

There is an original John Evans jigsaw on my desk. It has 2 sides with different patterns. There are no edges - each piece can "walk" from one edge to another or diagonally or reflect across the mid-line ... the trick is figuring out which way. I should be able to move the pieces so that eventually I see the other side.

We'll see how long this takes ...

Snow Day!

Just cozying up with home-made cookies and hot chocolate in the first blizzard of the season here in St. John's. You wouldn't think I had laundry hanging on this line yesterday. Today, I need snow boots to get to the composter. I tried to walk to the grocers but, after slogging a couple blocks into the driving snow with no view of the curbs and a near miss with the snow plow, I turned back.

In St. John's, if they can't open the doors at work, it's a Snow Day - we'll see how fast they clear this up by morning ...

a walk in the park

A quail startles from the bush and disappears across the path before I can move.

The season for Sunday strolls through the Botanical Gardens is ending here in St. John's, but as long as the gates are open, there's undisturbed paths to explore.

Bright red dogberries festoon leafless branches around Oxen Pond. They taste like coffee beans - I'm told they make excellent jelly and wine.

The bogs and fens around the lake are fresh green, even though the predatory pitcher plants have all curled into crisp sentinels of fall. I forget what this hardy sort is.

puzzled

"A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas." -- G.H. Hardy, from my favourite calculus text.

I finally remembered to go to the Farmers Market while it was still Saturday ... and ended up with a puzzle!















I went for rutabagas and came home with a contract to supply some mathematical inspiration for one Old John Evans whose passion is making puzzles. His work is so entrancing I ended up finishing one with him while we discussed Escher and Gardner and interconnecting patterns.

Together we finished his latest invention he calls the "strange puzzle" - similar to this one, it looks like a puzzle with no edges. Because of the way it's made, you can walk the intricate filigree pieces across either horizontally or diagonally (some flipping over to reveal the reversed colour scheme, some translating directly across). It's mind-bending to figure out how it relates.

He needs someone to sort out the mathematics of what he does and give him some new sources of inspiration, I'd like someone to bring mathematical functions like cardioids and mobius surfaces to life with some aesthetic.

He insisted on giving me the Strange Puzzle; I insisted I can't have it till I come up with some patterns for him to work on next :-) So I'll have a real conversation piece for my coffee table and something interesting to do with math for a hobby.



Ooooh - tilings, fractals, topography ...