Cleaning the cat boxes - only takes 5 -10 minutes but I really have to drag myself across the house to do it. Three cats, two boxes, and more than I want to know about the my dear pets’ bladders & digestive systems.
@stolicat AMEM to that, I have one & it’s a chore & sone times That wonderful aroma that it leaves behind after it does number 1 OMG, you can take your breath away!
@mycya4me@stolicat I got a Shark Air Purifier from here a while back and put it by the litter box and it does help. Especially with all the litter dust, which used to coat everything in that space; it’s not nearly as bad now.
Shoveling out the chicken coop. The chickens are actually my wife’s project, but I wind up doing the shit work (literally). The things you do for love…
@macromeh@mycya4me
Since eggs were well over $4 a dozen (at Aldi!!) a couple of days ago I wish my chickens hasn’t become raccoon fodder last summer. I miss the fresh eggs and the ready built source of compost … Used grass clippings/leaves for the coop litter and just raked it into the pen for them to scratch into the soil every 6-8 weeks or so. Tilled and shoveled out the pen annually before I planted in the spring. Of course, I only had about 8 chickens.
@Kyeh BTW It should have read How about the 1st three!
I Really like Howard the Duck! He even try to run for Prez of the US. He would have been better than Most of the ones we had in the past 20+ years!
The other Howard I could leave him more than take him!
@meeberly I started folding the laundry as I take it out of the dryer and piling like items together so all I have to do is stick a pile in its drawer. If I didn’t, I’d constantly look like I slept in my clothes because the laundry would never make it out of the basket.
@meeberly@lisagd For most of my life someone else has done the laundry. Now that I’m retired, I’ve started pitching in - my wife usually does the initial sorting and moving it to/from the machines; I carry the basket of clean clothes upstairs to our bedroom and fold/put them away. I actually don’t mind it - it’s sort of a low effort/zen task.
@Kidsandliz@lisagd@macromeh@meeberly
Since I use a 30-foot solar clothes dryer (AKA clothes line) I usually group things as I hang them. T-shirts together, socks in pairs together, linens together etc etc. As I take things off the line I pair the socks, fold the pants and linens, then usually throw the t-shirts over the top of the basket to hang when I get inside. Most permanent press comes out great especially on a breezy day.
@chienfou@ybmuG Yup sublimation is a real thing. What I’d not recommend though if it cold enough for that to work is hit your clothes against a tree to try to knock the ice off. Once I knocked the leg off a pair of blue jeans that way. It was only about 20 below too, not all that cold all things considered up in NW Ontario that winter (nights were 40-60 below).
Also you can “cut” your hair breaking the icicles that form on your your hair either when you walk to school with a wet head or your breath freezes on it. Don’t ask me how I know that. Learned that in grade school (which was 3/4 of a mile walk).
@Star2236
Same here… I did do an emergency cleaning of the bathroom today though.
The damn cat (Bandit) brought in a blue jay and when I tried to take it away from him it flew into the bathroom spewing s*** all over the place. It was not pretty!
To add insult to injury the bird got out of the bathroom and flew through the house with the cat in hot pursuit. He leapt onto the kitchen counter, carreened across the bay window (knocking things hither and yon) then across the dining room until he pinned the bird into a window space. I was able to get it away from him and take it outside where it seemed to be none the worse for wear (though much lighter after the shitshower in the bathroom).
Yeah. Bathroom cleaning sux!
@Kyeh@Star2236
yeah… “you shoulda seen it!”
Started out with Bandit trying to get a 6ft vertical leap to catch it again in the guest bath. It has several windows (so light - which the bird thought was an exit) and the cat was all over the place leaping up and down, off the vanity and linen cabinet, off the bathtub edge, even onto one of the window ledges about 5 ft off the ground. I was in the doorway when the damn thing buzzed by my face. Thought I was going to have to clean up after myself at that point.
Then the freaking cat went batshit and ping-ponged around the house. Luckily (more like miraculously) he didn’t manage to break anything.
yep, you definitely shoulda been there…
@chienfou Well, at least he probably burned off some of that extra weight he put on while you were gone!
I adopted a 3-year-old this time around so Toby’s not a wild thing like that anymore.
On Nextdoor here though, a man who has a trailcam near a dry creek bed posted the most enchanting footage of a bobcat playing with a rubber ball the he left for it! It behaves just like a house cat, chasing it and leaping in the air - so funny!
@chienfou
That’s hilarious. But I’m sure it wasn’t for you since you were the one cleaning up after everything. At least the bathrooms clean now though lol
@lisagd@macromeh My kid hated cleaning the toilet and so when she owed me hard manual labor as a consequence for certain behaviors I always made sure the toilet was on the list for her to do. Sometimes it took her 2 or 3 tries to do it “right”. A great motivator. She cut way back on the behavior that prompted that known in advance consequence.
@macromeh One year, my then-husband asked what I wanted for my birthday. I told him a maid. He laughed and asked what I really wanted. I told him I really wanted a maid; I worked 6 days a week and didn’t want to spend my one day off cleaning. He hired a cleaning lady and made me very happy.
Cooking. I’d sell my soul to never have to cook. When I still had a kid in the house she once asked me why I cooked dinner if I hated to cook so much. I told her that DHS takes a dim view of not cooking for your kids.
Actually she liked to cook and had chosen, off of the daily chore list to do dishes so when she cooked I did the dishes that day. She made an unmitigated mess and I had to hide all the hot spices as she dumped a ton on the food.
Cayenne pepper was her favorite. She’d shovel it on food by the spoonful. In fact if i buried things she didn’t like all that well in that she’d eat it without complaint. Our deal was she’d only put it on her food after she dished hers out. To me even black pepper is too hot.
@pskemp2 It’s good for your yard soil to let the leaves compost, I know if you’re doing a green yard thing it doesn’t work, but we enjoy the crunching when out in the yards, grasses come up nice and green in spring and visiting kids like to kick their way across the yard.
@pskemp2 You should try pine needles. We had enough pine trees for about 50-60 or so 55gal bags full of 7" pine needles. Then one year I had a good idea. I told my kid we could sell them on craigslist for $3 bag (back then that was half the price of what the store charged which is why I priced them that way) and whomever raked them up, picked out pine cones, sticks and regular leaves could keep the money. That kid not only raked them all, she went door to door to rake for free other people’s pine needles and then dragged the bags home. She’d sell about 150 bags or so (and cost me a fortune in bags) but no more arguments about raking them.
Also we had a landscaper who dumped out a couple of bags, about 40 bag sales into this, liked what he saw and bought about 60ish bags each year (which is what prompted her asking neighbors if she could rake their yards for free - they had trouble believing she’d be doing it for free until I explained why ). I advertised it as a kid money making project which increased interest.
@Kidsandliz such a great idea, and good way to instill entrepreneurship in the kids! I have a chipper shredder i use for the leaves that don’t get mowed (and @werehatrack ones that land on the deck and patio ) i mix manure with it for a compost mixture for the garden; not enough to sell though
@Kidsandliz@pskemp2
It’s amazing how kids can get motivated by money sometimes. When our daughter was seven she picked up pecans and sold them at a friend’s rummage sale. She made enough to buy a bike from Sam’s that year.
@pskemp2 PS I forgot to include it would take her about 8-10 min to fill a bag, so say 6 bags an hour and she’d be earning $18/hour. She graduated from high school in 2011 to give you an idea of just how much money that was for her. I made sure she figured out how much an hour she was earning and asked her what other job could she work when she wanted and earn that much. Made the point.
@chienfou@pskemp2 I forgot about, pre kid, I paid young kids in the neighborhood 25 cents a papre grocery bag to fill it with monkey seed pod balls (they really don’t rake up due to the spikes). They were thrilled. This was in the 1990’s so that was worth more than it was now.
Anything that’s the result of my own negligence or carelessness - like cleaning up when I knock a jar of something onto the floor, or cleaning out spoiled food from the fridge. That one really bothers me because I feel guilty about wasting edible stuff.
@Kyeh The late/great George Carlin said: Leftovers make you feel good twice: first, when you put them in the refrigerator (“I’m saving money!”) and second when you take the spoiled remains out and dump them in the garbage (“I’m saving my life!”).
@pakopako Ugh, yes. It’s currently 8 degrees here!
Although - these are great conditions if you want to defrost a freezer! You can just put all the food in a locking plastic tote outside your door in the shade, and they’ll stay colder than they were when you took them out.
I did that a few weeks ago in our last cold spell.
Cleaning the pond pump/filter in our front fish pond.
Having to disconnect the plumbing going to the waterfall, remove the pump and filter, flush out all the crap (literally) that’s in the filter then put everything back together, stick it back in the pond, reconnect the tubes etc. is a pain in the ass - particularly when the water is cold early spring or late fall. .
(On the other hand the plants LOVE the water I collect from cleaning the bio-balls etc.)
All of them. I got better things to do.
Deciding dinner
Laundry, dishes, deciding what’s for dinner… life I guess lol
@ragingredd good ones!
Getting out of bed
@f00l
Waking up…
Cleaning the cat boxes - only takes 5 -10 minutes but I really have to drag myself across the house to do it. Three cats, two boxes, and more than I want to know about the my dear pets’ bladders & digestive systems.
@stolicat AMEM to that, I have one & it’s a chore & sone times That wonderful aroma that it leaves behind after it does number 1 OMG, you can take your breath away!
@mycya4me @stolicat I got a Shark Air Purifier from here a while back and put it by the litter box and it does help. Especially with all the litter dust, which used to coat everything in that space; it’s not nearly as bad now.
@stolicat This, plus locating and cleaning up the barf from 10 cats each morning. And scooping three huge (30-pound) litter boxes.
@stolicat @werehatrack Yikes! When did pets become penance?
Waking up in my comfortable chair and realizing it’s way past time to go to bed.
/giphy sleeping with the internet
Vacuuming because it freaks all the animals out that I live with. Much anger and barking.
@Fuzzalini but some Time Hugh can use it to take revenge on those furry critters!
Sweeping and mopping the whole house.
Shoveling out the chicken coop. The chickens are actually my wife’s project, but I wind up doing the shit work (literally). The things you do for love…
@macromeh awe……
@macromeh @mycya4me
Since eggs were well over $4 a dozen (at Aldi!!) a couple of days ago I wish my chickens hasn’t become raccoon fodder last summer. I miss the fresh eggs and the ready built source of compost … Used grass clippings/leaves for the coop litter and just raked it into the pen for them to scratch into the soil every 6-8 weeks or so. Tilled and shoveled out the pen annually before I planted in the spring. Of course, I only had about 8 chickens.
/showme a Cat that’s Angry with a vacuum cleaner
Howard about the 1st three!
@mycya4me Howard?
@Kyeh BTW It should have read How about the 1st three!
I Really like Howard the Duck! He even try to run for Prez of the US. He would have been better than Most of the ones we had in the past 20+ years!
The other Howard I could leave him more than take him!
@mycya4me My favorite fictional ticket is Vorkosigan/Naismith, the real split ticket!
Folding and putting away the laundry. Washing is fine, but getting it out of that basket is dreadful.
@meeberly I started folding the laundry as I take it out of the dryer and piling like items together so all I have to do is stick a pile in its drawer. If I didn’t, I’d constantly look like I slept in my clothes because the laundry would never make it out of the basket.
@meeberly @lisagd For most of my life someone else has done the laundry. Now that I’m retired, I’ve started pitching in - my wife usually does the initial sorting and moving it to/from the machines; I carry the basket of clean clothes upstairs to our bedroom and fold/put them away. I actually don’t mind it - it’s sort of a low effort/zen task.
@lisagd @macromeh @meeberly
And likely gets you favor with your wife.
@Kidsandliz @lisagd @macromeh @meeberly
Since I use a 30-foot solar clothes dryer (AKA clothes line) I usually group things as I hang them. T-shirts together, socks in pairs together, linens together etc etc. As I take things off the line I pair the socks, fold the pants and linens, then usually throw the t-shirts over the top of the basket to hang when I get inside. Most permanent press comes out great especially on a breezy day.
@chienfou @Kidsandliz @lisagd @macromeh @meeberly definitely preferred, but can’t do that here now!
/showme laundry frozen on the clothesline in a snowstorm
@ybmuG
thankfully sublimation is a thing… or so we learned in International Falls many moons ago.
@chienfou @ybmuG Yup sublimation is a real thing. What I’d not recommend though if it cold enough for that to work is hit your clothes against a tree to try to knock the ice off. Once I knocked the leg off a pair of blue jeans that way. It was only about 20 below too, not all that cold all things considered up in NW Ontario that winter (nights were 40-60 below).
Also you can “cut” your hair breaking the icicles that form on your your hair either when you walk to school with a wet head or your breath freezes on it. Don’t ask me how I know that. Learned that in grade school (which was 3/4 of a mile walk).
Most of those I don’t mind doing, it’s getting off the couch to do them. But the one I really hate and always put off is cleaning the bathroom.
@Star2236
Same here… I did do an emergency cleaning of the bathroom today though.
The damn cat (Bandit) brought in a blue jay and when I tried to take it away from him it flew into the bathroom spewing s*** all over the place. It was not pretty!
To add insult to injury the bird got out of the bathroom and flew through the house with the cat in hot pursuit. He leapt onto the kitchen counter, carreened across the bay window (knocking things hither and yon) then across the dining room until he pinned the bird into a window space. I was able to get it away from him and take it outside where it seemed to be none the worse for wear (though much lighter after the shitshower in the bathroom).
Yeah. Bathroom cleaning sux!
@chienfou @Star2236
Well, that’s EXTREME bathroom cleaning! It kind of sounds like a Loony Tunes cartoon; sorry!
@Kyeh @Star2236
yeah… “you shoulda seen it!”
Started out with Bandit trying to get a 6ft vertical leap to catch it again in the guest bath. It has several windows (so light - which the bird thought was an exit) and the cat was all over the place leaping up and down, off the vanity and linen cabinet, off the bathtub edge, even onto one of the window ledges about 5 ft off the ground. I was in the doorway when the damn thing buzzed by my face. Thought I was going to have to clean up after myself at that point.
Then the freaking cat went batshit and ping-ponged around the house. Luckily (more like miraculously) he didn’t manage to break anything.
yep, you definitely shoulda been there…
@chienfou Well, at least he probably burned off some of that extra weight he put on while you were gone!
I adopted a 3-year-old this time around so Toby’s not a wild thing like that anymore.
On Nextdoor here though, a man who has a trailcam near a dry creek bed posted the most enchanting footage of a bobcat playing with a rubber ball the he left for it! It behaves just like a house cat, chasing it and leaping in the air - so funny!
@Kyeh
That’s really cool!
@chienfou
That’s hilarious. But I’m sure it wasn’t for you since you were the one cleaning up after everything. At least the bathrooms clean now though lol
@Star2236
It is definitely MUCH funnier today!
PS found a poop spot I missed initially this morning on a cabinet… May be a long process!
I hate cleaning the bathroom, so I put it off until it’s really disgusting, which makes me hate cleaning it even more. It’s a vicious cycle.
@lisagd Just don’t let it go so long that the cycle gets viscous.
@werehatrack Easier said than done.
@lisagd Both my wife and I hate cleaning the bathroom, so Lina the Cleana comes every other Tuesday to clean it (and other areas of the house) for us.
@lisagd @macromeh My kid hated cleaning the toilet and so when she owed me hard manual labor as a consequence for certain behaviors I always made sure the toilet was on the list for her to do. Sometimes it took her 2 or 3 tries to do it “right”. A great motivator. She cut way back on the behavior that prompted that known in advance consequence.
@Kidsandliz @macromeh Maybe my only reason to have kids would be to have someone to take out the trash and clean the bathroom.
@macromeh One year, my then-husband asked what I wanted for my birthday. I told him a maid. He laughed and asked what I really wanted. I told him I really wanted a maid; I worked 6 days a week and didn’t want to spend my one day off cleaning. He hired a cleaning lady and made me very happy.
Cooking. I’d sell my soul to never have to cook. When I still had a kid in the house she once asked me why I cooked dinner if I hated to cook so much. I told her that DHS takes a dim view of not cooking for your kids.
Actually she liked to cook and had chosen, off of the daily chore list to do dishes so when she cooked I did the dishes that day. She made an unmitigated mess and I had to hide all the hot spices as she dumped a ton on the food.
Cayenne pepper was her favorite. She’d shovel it on food by the spoonful. In fact if i buried things she didn’t like all that well in that she’d eat it without complaint. Our deal was she’d only put it on her food after she dished hers out. To me even black pepper is too hot.
raking blankety blank leaves! i live among live oaks, hickories, magnolias, maples and pines, which gives me the hated job year round.
@pskemp2 It’s good for your yard soil to let the leaves compost, I know if you’re doing a green yard thing it doesn’t work, but we enjoy the crunching when out in the yards, grasses come up nice and green in spring and visiting kids like to kick their way across the yard.
@stolicat that’s true so when i mow i don’t use the bagger to do just that and to avoid the raking, hehe
@pskemp2 @stolicat Mowing a patio or deck can be hazardous.
@pskemp2 You should try pine needles. We had enough pine trees for about 50-60 or so 55gal bags full of 7" pine needles. Then one year I had a good idea. I told my kid we could sell them on craigslist for $3 bag (back then that was half the price of what the store charged which is why I priced them that way) and whomever raked them up, picked out pine cones, sticks and regular leaves could keep the money. That kid not only raked them all, she went door to door to rake for free other people’s pine needles and then dragged the bags home. She’d sell about 150 bags or so (and cost me a fortune in bags) but no more arguments about raking them.
Also we had a landscaper who dumped out a couple of bags, about 40 bag sales into this, liked what he saw and bought about 60ish bags each year (which is what prompted her asking neighbors if she could rake their yards for free - they had trouble believing she’d be doing it for free until I explained why
). I advertised it as a kid money making project which increased interest.
@Kidsandliz such a great idea, and good way to instill entrepreneurship in the kids! I have a chipper shredder i use for the leaves that don’t get mowed (and @werehatrack ones that land on the deck and patio
) i mix manure with it for a compost mixture for the garden; not enough to sell though
@Kidsandliz @pskemp2
It’s amazing how kids can get motivated by money sometimes. When our daughter was seven she picked up pecans and sold them at a friend’s rummage sale. She made enough to buy a bike from Sam’s that year.
@pskemp2 PS I forgot to include it would take her about 8-10 min to fill a bag, so say 6 bags an hour and she’d be earning $18/hour. She graduated from high school in 2011 to give you an idea of just how much money that was for her. I made sure she figured out how much an hour she was earning and asked her what other job could she work when she wanted and earn that much. Made the point.
@chienfou @pskemp2 I forgot about, pre kid, I paid young kids in the neighborhood 25 cents a papre grocery bag to fill it with monkey seed pod balls (they really don’t rake up due to the spikes). They were thrilled. This was in the 1990’s so that was worth more than it was now.
Anything that’s the result of my own negligence or carelessness - like cleaning up when I knock a jar of something onto the floor, or cleaning out spoiled food from the fridge. That one really bothers me because I feel guilty about wasting edible stuff.
@Kyeh The late/great George Carlin said: Leftovers make you feel good twice: first, when you put them in the refrigerator (“I’m saving money!”) and second when you take the spoiled remains out and dump them in the garbage (“I’m saving my life!”).
@macromeh
That’s a more positive spin on it …
Clicking the meh button
Cleaning the bathroom, especially the toilet.
Right now, doing anything in the cold.
@pakopako Ugh, yes. It’s currently 8 degrees here!
Although - these are great conditions if you want to defrost a freezer! You can just put all the food in a locking plastic tote outside your door in the shade, and they’ll stay colder than they were when you took them out.
I did that a few weeks ago in our last cold spell.
Cleaning the pond pump/filter in our front fish pond.
Having to disconnect the plumbing going to the waterfall, remove the pump and filter, flush out all the crap (literally) that’s in the filter then put everything back together, stick it back in the pond, reconnect the tubes etc. is a pain in the ass - particularly when the water is cold early spring or late fall. .
(On the other hand the plants LOVE the water I collect from cleaning the bio-balls etc.)