Blood, Sweat, and Tears

Well, we knew there'd be sweat, but I didn't think we'd have blood and tears already! We spent yesterday cleaning out the attic. Oh, the attic. I love that we have this attic, because in a year or two, we plan to finish it and have another bedroom, bathroom, and bonus room. But yesterday morning, all it was was a huge space filled with really old, really dusty stuff. As I said in the previous post, the sellers left us pretty much everything they owned, which included basically everything in the attic, including, but definitely not limited to: really old furniture, lamps, mattresses, stained bedding and clothes, a pool table, old Christmas decorations, and boxes upon boxes of random, dusty, STUFF. We sorted out anything that was yard-salable, and trashed everything else.

These pictures don't even do justice to how full of stuff this attic was.

Guys, we completely filled our minivan to the gills and took it to the dump THREE TIMES. So. Much. Garbage. We had to wear masks and use gloves. And we haven't even brought the yard sale stuff down in to the garage yet, because our backs are already to the breaking point from the last week of moving furniture and boxes (remember, we not only moved our stuff in, but we also moved all their old stuff out), so we're going to do it slowly throughout this week. 

And then there was blood. I was the first victim, and slashed my arm on a wire hanger while throwing a bag full of them into the van. A couple butterfly bandages, a couple tears (it wasn't that bad, I'm just a total wimp when it comes to injury), and I was good to go. Mike apparently didn't want to be left out, so he cut his knuckle really bad on a piece of glass while at the dump. We considered going in for stitches, but in the end decided just to bandage him up good and make sure he doesn't bend his finger for a couple weeks. I cried when he got hurt too. Note: You don't want me around in an emergency situation; Mike's your man. I'm a total basket case when there's blood involved. Mike took good care of me. 

We started at about 8:00 in the morning and got done around 3:00, so then we showered and headed to Home Depot, which is our home away from home lately. We picked up some blinds, a couple ceiling fans, light fixtures, a new kitchen faucet (yay!), and a couple other odds and ends. While we were getting into the car to come home, the kids were like "Ah! There's ants in the van!" We had put the booster seats in the garage while Mike was making the dump runs, and the ants hoarded to the kids' completely crumb-filled car seats and went to town, and I guess Mike didn't notice when he put the seats back into the van, which is similarly crumb-filled, because car cleaning is pretty low on my priority list right now. 

Well, I lifted off their seats and the seat cushions of the van were literally covered in ants. I freaked out, brushed off as many as I could, and decided to clean the van when we got home, regardless of how tired and sore I already was. Because ew. 

Oh, and did I mention it was raining the entire day? Yeah. At least the attic wasn't flaming hot while we were cleaning it, so it was actually a blessing. But in order to clean the van in the pouring rain, I had to back it up to the garage (which is full of yard sale stuff) and haul the vacuum in through the back. I vacuumed out the van (a huge job, since there was not only all the standard crumbs and mess, but also all the remnants of taking 3 loads of trash to the dump), and then got to work on the booster seats themselves, which I'm embarrassed to admit, I have never deep cleaned, only given a cursory wipe from time to time. And we've had these for years, because they're just the bottoms of the convertible seats the kids have been using ever since they were out of infant seats. 

Why, oh why, do they make car seats with so many little crevices?? Every little screw hole and indent was jam packed with crusty old crumbs. Don't judge me, just go out and look at your kids' car seats sometime. Lift up the fabric and really look. Unless you're a mom of steel who doesn't let her kids eat in the car (a great decision), I guarantee yours look the same way. 

Anyway, that's a hour I'd rather not relive, but I got it all clean with the help of a bunch of cleaning wipes and a little flathead screwdriver, which was great at poking all the junk out of the crevices. I threw the covers in the washing machine (wow, so that's what they used to look like!), and now our van is ant-free. I then put the kids to bed, did our weekly budget, and then collapsed into a heap. 

And that was my Saturday.