Thursday, January 29, 2009

Household hints for lazy busy people

To celebrate finishing the artwork for the book currently known as Starlight Sailor I hoovered the lounge. When you live in a house with three dogs, six cats, two teenagers, surrounded by mud, there is a certain satisfaction in hoovering the carpet for the first time in a week.

11 comments:

Morning's Minion said...

No point in cleaning unless you can really see a difference! This philosophy caught up with me last year when the PC repair man informed me that my PC "tower" was inhabited by "dust rabbits" of uncommon size.

Anonymous said...

I have a vision of you standing in your room, arms outstretched, fingers wriggling saying....hover, hover, hover....cats flee to the sides of the room, the carpet gently lifts, floats toward the front door, slides outside, shakes softly, floats back in, you lower your hands quietly to your sides, the carpet slips down toward the floor...whereupon the cats once again take up residence on the newly cleaned carpet.

Hovering must be a particularly English word.

Jackie Morris said...

Well, it's like this, I can't spell, and what I meant was hoover! Oh dear. So am going to go back and magically edit post so no one will know that I ever messed up! Carpet looks great though!

Morning's Minion said...

I noted the "hovering" and was chuckling as a few years ago I worked part time at a "ranch" [think tax write-off for a billionaire!] which imported an English "butler." I was unwittingly locked out of the main house one day and went to great lengths to find someone with a key. Butler was most apologetic--said he had been "hoovering" and didn't hear me trying to get in.
My cats all take great offense to the vacuum cleaner [hoover] which seems a good reason not to use it too often!

Anonymous said...

I hope you don't think I was making fun, I thought that was the way it was spelled over there. I quite like the idea of hovering the carpet, like a magic ride.

Jackie Morris said...

Not at all! And I am with you on that one, though if housework was like that I would do it all the time.
I had intended taking Feb off to tidy house and sort out studio having given up hope of affording the building work I have planning for. I need to make sure i don't start with my studio because if I do that is where I will also stop, and settle, to paint owls and hares and bears that are demanding my attention.
And I have a book to write, about a little girl and a big wood and a wolf.

Morning's Minion said...

My cats have suggested that I send a photo of my work space--I haven't even the excuse of earning my living amongst the uproar. I figure clean bathrooms, good simple meals and tidy beds, the laundry done--what more could anyone want? Time to read and sew quilts, watch the weather, dream of things that will likely never get done. Enjoying the company of the cats is high on the priority list!

Glenna said...

If we don't hoover nearly every day--one room or the other--with six cats and three house rabbits, we fill the bag. When the rabbits run under the bed, it's hard to tell if they're bunnies or dust bunnies, although I suspect it's not the dust bunnies chewing a hole in the carpet under there.

Griffin said...

Well I didn't notice the hovering, I must have got here after editing! But I agree if it were that much fun and that easy it would be done a lot more than it is.

Still, illustrators are magical so who knows...! Cats do hate hoovers, our cats would give our hoover a filthy look and then run for it!

Jackie Morris said...

All the cats here hate the hoover, except Mr Kiffer. Yesterday he tried to jump through a window that was shut! If we had let him live here a little longer before he found his name (he was called Tango when he arrived) he would now be called Captain Jack, after a well known and handsome pirate, or Dylan as he is so very like the magic roundabout rabbit. And he sings too.

Gwen Buchanan said...

Oh how I know the feeling... funny, when you work for yourself as we do too that we reward ourselves by doing housework and it actually feels good!!! Funny!!!!!!