SPT Challenge June 23

As per Lelly of Lelly's Musings, the self-portrait challenge for the month of June is as follows:

"your challenge for june is to find your way back. no matter what's been keeping you from blogging, each week you are going to find one small hurdle to overcome. one item to cross off of your to-do list. one pile to declutter. one meal to prepare. one (or ten) pounds to lose.

one thing each week that will bring you to your blog. too vague? don't worry. i have parameters!!

tuesday, june 9 meal-planning/preparations or other organized family time

tuesday, june 16 bringing the indoors outdoors for summer

tuesday, june 23 tackle a very unpleasant cleaning task

tuesday, june 30 i feel better already!"

Cleaning tasks, or cleaning in general, is what I consider a necessary evil in life. I don't like to live in filth, so I clean my house. Not as thoroughly or as often as other people might clean theirs, but enough that child protective services doesn't knock on our door to investigate rumors of squalid living conditions. Sometimes I've been known to invite people over for dinner just so I have motivation to clean, and if I get a hint of a whiff of news that company is about to drop in unexpectedly, I will hit the furniture with a Pledge wipe and fists of fury.

But overall ..... meh, its just something that has to be done. I feel no great sense of satisfaction or pride when the job is completed, and normally just want to have it done so I can move on to more fun things, like facebooking or scrapbooking or my guilty pleasure, watching Tim Hawkins videos on You Tube.

A few chores, however, that I *do* deem unpleasant:

Anything involving vomit, be it human or animal.

Anything involving poop, be it human or animal.

Anything involving blood, be it human or animal.

Anything involving bugs, period.

The past few weeks we have been victims of a particularly virulent ant infestation. Primarily located (but not limited to) the kitchen. Teeny tiny black sugar ants. (Is that what they're called? Sugar ants? Because that's where Blaine kept finding them.... in the sugar canister.) We've smacked, we've smooshed, we've drowned in the kitchen sink. Blaine has purchased bug spray and sprayed the kitchen enough times in the past month that we'll probably all grow a third foot or start to glow or something. And yet they return. And multiply.

The final straw came this week when we found them in our pantry. Specifically, in an open box of Corn Pops. And, crawling all over the bottom shelf.



I've drawn circles around all the little critters, to give you an appreciation for their number. And to give you an appreciation for the gasp of shock and outrage and disgust that spewed forth from my body when I discovered them. I mean, they're just ants, not those ginormous Amazon cockroaches or anything. But to find them in your food?? .... that you eat?? ..... with your own mouth?? ..... ewwwwwwwww.

And ps, I realize this is supposed to be a SELF-portrait, but you'll just have to imagine that you can actually *see* the shock and outrage and disgust, because that's the part of me that was oozing into the picture ....

Needless to say, the exterminator came yesterday.

But in the meantime, the unpleasant task of cleaning out the pantry .... fell to Blaine. Of course it did ..... would you expect any different?

*********************************************
PS. Lelly announced a summer (?) hiatus on her blog today ..... selfishly, my first thought was, "How will I get my SPT Challenges if she's not updating?" Let's hope she continues to update at least weekly, or I'll have to think up my own SPT Challenges and you'll wind up with weekly pictures of me taking one relative or the other to the oncologist, because that's about all I do anymore.