First date…with the housekeeper

After a long search, we have found THE ONE. We finally have a housekeeper! Her name is Lupe and she is amazeballs.

About three months ago, V and I finally accepted that we were terrible at maintaining even a modicum of tidiness at our apartment. We’re both just too busy and lazy. Since we’re still trying to live frugally, it took us a while to find someone we could afford. But we finally found one and she came this past week for the first time.

First, I had to “clean” the place a bit so she could clean. We had unfolded/unhung laundry in the living room, unwashed clothes spewing out of suitcases on the floor, scraps of wrapping paper, ribbon and other crafting materials strewn about the house. I pretty much threw everything in the bedroom to clear up the spaces I wanted her to work on.

She doesn’t speak English and I don’t speak Spanish so I pretty much just pointed out the problem areas, took out my cleaning materials and let her do her thing. I would sneak a peek once in a while and I realized something – her way of cleaning is so much more superior to mine. She was doing things that we would never ever do on a regular basis. I’m going to share the list of things with you even though you might judge us for it. These may be things that everyone else but us does. But it’s okay, we excel in other areas of life. In fact, watching our housekeeper has shown me that it’s worth it to spend money on an expert who will do the job excellently than attempt to do it myself poorly.

Lupe’s amazing list of cleaning feats:

• take food out of the pantry/cabinet and wipe down each shelf. Confession – I saw spilled panko in those shelves a few weeks ago and did not clean it. I’m so gross, I know.
• wash the dish drainer
• wipe down the tops of the cabinet
• wipe down cabinet doors
• clean behind the toaster oven. clean the crumb catcher.
• remove discoloration in the bathtub with ammonia. I don’t even know what form ammonia cleaner comes in. What is ammonia and why is it better than bleach?

But just so you don’t think we’re cave people, I should tell you about some of the cleaning-related things we do on a regular basis:

• do laundry
• disinfect the toilet
• spray down the shower after each use
• disinfect kitchen surfaces

Hmm, that list seems pretty short…maybe we are cave people.

Clean house

Over the past two weekends, V and I have spent a good amount of time cleaning the the apartment. Floors have been mopped, furniture rearranged, surfaces dusted, carpet vacuumed, laundry and dishes washed…and we’re still not done! Keeping a house tidy is just not a strength for either of us.

The housekeeping task that I really hate though is dusting. I hate how you have to clear everything off the surface first then put it all back again after dusting, it’s like three tasks in one.

But this past weekend, I made something that made dusting fun – dusting mitts! I was actually trying to make regular mittens per Martha’s tutorial but they weren’t turning out pretty enough so I turned them into dusting mitts.

Put one on and swipe your hand across the surface, so easy. I made the mittens with wool so the dust clings to it and it doesn’t get pushed off to the floor. I had so much fun with my dusting mitts that I even cleaned window ledges. I wanted to post photos but I’m embarrassed by the amount of dust I picked up.

So if you’re looking for a DIY gift idea for that special someone, a dusting mitt would be a great craft to try! All you need is an old sweater, a sewing machine and a hand tracing.

Just kidding, do not EVER give cleaning materials as a gift.

Floral theft

I stole more flowers from our complex. I’m living a life of crime.

These flowers lasted for a week!

Flowers!

Somehow during the move, I ended up without any flower vases. I had several when I lived in San Francisco, but those were “borrowed” from my sister and I was forced to return them. V bought me flowers on several occasions and it was sad that I had to put them in a beer stein from Uno’s.

But I finally bought vases! Check out my snazzy flowers.

The flowers were gathered from the courtyard in our condo. I’m not actually sure if I’m allowed to do that but I don’t think HOA will hunt me down.

The vases are from Crate & Barrel. I live near a C&B outlet store so I like to go there every month or so to find the newest discounted items.

I also bought a bubble vase for when I want a single centerpiece.

Bathroom design

I added a small decorating touch to our bathroom today. Our lease is up in 6 months and I’m not sure if we’ll renew so I didn’t want to paint (but I reeeally want to paint our next place).

I first learned about wall decals from That Wife. But as it turns out, I think I may have been the last person to not know about decals. My sister told me she had been planning all along to use decals at her house, V knew about the sports decals from Fathead and there are literally thousands of sites that offer decals.

Since I’m not at all experienced in home decor, I wanted to start out small. Our walls are slightly textured and I wasn’t sure if decals would adhere nicely to our walls. So after browsing through hundreds of designs on Etsy, I finally found one that was small, attractive and didn’t require any composition skills on my part (because I lack those). It was difficult to choose though, there are so many great designs available.

But I decided on a water lotus design. I thought it would be funny to evoke pond imagery in the bathroom where people are doing things that they could be doing in a pond. Since I picked a conservative design, I went bold on the color with aqua. I was really nervous about my choice but I’m happy with it.

The designer also sent along some butterfly decals, so I put them above the trash can. Get it? Our trash can smells like flowers so butterflies like to be near it.

I like the design and the color, but I think ultimately, the white walls are just too stark. And/or maybe I need to add other things to make it look more pulled together because right now, it kind of looks like the pop of color comes out of nowhere. But we’ll probably only be here for just another 6 months so I’m going to leave it as it is. It looks good enough.

Mini makeover: bathroom

Our bathroom doesn’t have any built-in cabinets (just a medicine cabinet) so when we first moved in, we used one of V’s plastic shelves to hold all our bathroom stuff.

It wasn’t pretty by any means, but it was what we had on hand and we didn’t want to start buying furniture until we really knew what we needed. We had double the bathroom supplies and we wanted to whittle it down to just one set of supplies.

So six months after we moved in, we finally got rid of the plastic shelves and bought some real cabinets.

Our HTPC

V and I spent some quality time at Fry’s this past weekend. I love Fry’s. It’s so much better than not so Best Buy.

We were looking for a TV capture card for our home theater PC (HTPC!) and we are a few steps closer to figuring out what exactly we need. There’s no guide to setting up an HTPC, or at least we haven’t found one, so we have to figure out a lot on our own.

I’m going to write about all the things we learn because I like to document our geekery.

Q: What is an HTPC?
A: It stands for home theater PC. It’s basically a PC-based home theater system. An HTPC is usually linked to a TV, that’s what makes up the “theater” part of the system.

One has the option to buy an HTPC but we’re DIYing ours because we’re on a budget and we like to tinker with computers.

What we already have:
a quiet PC – you don’t want a loud PC because you don’t want to hear the hum of the computer in the background
a TV with HDMI, S-video and VGA ports – you can set up an HTPC with any TV but the quality is better with digital connections. It’s also better to to have several port options so you don’t have to bother with converters.
wireless mouse – so you can control the PC from the couch, woo!

What we need:
a TV tuner/capture card – this allows you to record TV shows (similar to a DVR) and watch TV shows on your PC
a wireless keyboard – to go with the wireless keyboard. We’re actually looking for a keyboard with an integrated mouse or a wireless trackball so we don’t have to have a flat surface to use the mouse.
better speakers – I want better sound. Good speakers are kind of pricey so this might have to wait.

A Splash of Color

Last week was dreary in the Bay Area. It rained heavily and I didn’t even get to play in the puddles because it was too cold. And I didn’t get to enjoy the fresh powder in Tahoe either because we had weekend plans (karaoke with the family and the NFL conference championships).

I wanted a little something to brighten up my mood so I decided to change my “tablescape.” I have to put that in quotes because it’s not pretty enough to be considered a real tablescape. I didn’t have a specific vision when I put it together, I just grabbed the brightest colored things I had on hand.

The edges of the circles are a little bit bent but it will flatten over time.

Someday, I will learn how to come up with tablescapes like this:

Q: How come you always use the same candle and hurricane lamp in your tablescapes?
A: The romantic answer is that that candle is actually our unity candle from our wedding. It was housed in the hurricane lamp during the ceremony. The practical answer is because I have nowhere else to store these items! We have too much stuff and too little an apartment.

Q: Um, there are no plates on the table…
A: I was alone in the house so I ate on the couch in front of the TV

Q: Your tablescape looks really feminine, what does V think about it?
A: He doesn’t mind. I have an awesome tablsecape in mind for our Super Bowl party. It’s going to be uber manly.

Kitchen Tools

I was chatting with a friend last month and I was shocked to find out that she didn’t have a mixer. I had thought that a mixer was a kitchen staple for most households. I’ve never not lived in a house without a mixer, which I guess isn’t the norm. Now that I think about it, it’s actually the one kitchen gadget that I have always had. I brought a mixer with me when I moved for college, and I brought a mixer with me when I moved out on my own.

I think V and I might have more kitchen gadgets than the average newlywed couple. This is not to say that our kitchen is filled with Slap Chops and Redi Set Gos though. We only buy gadgets that we actually use.

I Didn’t Give V a Christmas Gift

V gave me lots of awesome gifts for Christmas (My favorite are the super soft snowboard socks. I’m excited about socks!). But I didn’t give him anything, not even a Christmas card.

I had planned to give him an HD TV for Christmas/bday/graduation/wedding anniversary. I wanted his help researching it so I told him about it. Since college, he had always said that he would splurge on a TV when he got first real paycheck. Since his first really paycheck won’t be coming for a few months, he was ecstatic at the prospect of getting a big TV before the Super Bowl. And I was giddy knowing that I had come up with the BEST GIFT IDEA EVER.

But I got gift-blocked.