Spruce-It-Up Sunday, Vol. 3

Mixed success this week. Our long-handled duster seems to have disappeared, so some of the cobwebs are still mocking me. And I was going to order a replacement, but Amazon is giving me decision fatigue.

I was also going to ease matchsticks into the stripped screwholes for the speaker grille so the screws would have something to grab, a trick I learned from The Tightwad Gazette back when my oldest was a toddler. Alas, my attempt to clean up my husband's clutter (the speaker grille) was thwarted by my husband's attempt to clean up my clutter (the matchsticks). It's like the cynical married version of The Gift of the Magi: Jim and Della, Twenty Years Later. (He says, "I love you, honey, but your hair gets EVERYWHERE. Want to sell it again?" She says, "I love you too, honey, and your watch is SO DAMN LOUD I can't get to sleep until it winds down. Want to pawn it again?")

Progress, though: I did smite some of the Blu-Tack stains and my husband and I are trying out a bold plan for dealing with the exasperating office chairs situation. And yesterday, when I wasn't prowling around in a vain search for the missing wooden matches, I tamed the stinging medusa. Every time I reached into our server, it caused me a little pang of despair. I have to reach into the server frequently, because that's where the placemats and napkins live. But they were in such a horrible jumble that things came spilling out all over the floor if you even thought about opening the door. This is not a House Beautiful solution, but it works. Placemats are in two separate and reasonably neat stacks, sorted by shape. Napkins are piled in a serving dish, with a different dish brought up from its basement exile for serving bread. (It seemed silly to store the napkins in the bread bowl if they were going to be tipped out every time I served hot bread.) We'll see how well it works.

For this week:

1. Overcome decision fatigue and buy a long-handled duster already.
2. Track down the product recommended by the Blu-Tack company, because life is too short to expend this much elbow grease.
3. Fix black shoes.
4. Fix a pair of handknit socks.
5. For real, reattach the speaker grille.

How about you?