Somehow I ended with a free 90 minutes on Saturday afternoon. How did that happen? We had friends in town who were running late with site-seeing at the Smithsonian. VERY easy to do! So, when I got the call that they were going to be late, Alex was still napping and Elizabeth was playing at a friends' house. Hmmmm.... I considered an hour and a half of blog reading, or internet surfing. I opted for something truly productive (no offense bloggers!), and decided to tackle the inch of pollen and dirt all of our screen porch.
It quickly looked like this.
A few weeks ago, I washed the curtains. Be careful if you have these Ikea Lenda curtains - they shrink in the dryer. In my case, it worked out fine because they were too long anyway. Puddling on a dirty porch floor is not a good look.
If hubby had been home, we would have taken all of the furniture out and scrubbed the floor. He was golfing in Myrtle Beach, so I took all of the cushions and anything breakable out and just started hosing everything else on the porch. Worked perfectly. Pollen and winter dirt and grime - gone. I did get the mop and vinegar out for a few really dirty parts.
I did finally get everything back together and changed it all around, but forgot to take a picture in the daylight! Sorry - this is an evil blog tease!
But, as I was cleaning, I started realizing how much work our porch needs - the support columns are rotting and termite-eaten, the screens are stretched out, lath strips are missing on several parts of the outside, the floor needs to be scraped and painted, and everything needs to be painted. Ugh. Some decisions are going to have to be made... soon.
What do you do when you find yourself with 90 minutes on a Saturday with no t-ball, scouts, or dance classes to shlep to?