Zatera Ul

I’ve spent most of it just trying to survive the heat–anything over about 75 degrees is uncomfortably hot for me, even without being pregnant. The temperature yesterday was well up into the 90’s; today’s not looking much better. MFH thrives on the heat–he spent a summer in Florida once. As for me, the Twin Cities is about the farthest south that I would care to live.

One thing I like about Alexandra Stoddard’s books is the space she devotes in them to the art of puttering around the house. Puttering is one of my favorite things to do. I was planning on doing a lot of it this weekend, but it turned out too hot to do much. On Saturday, though, I took the kitchen blinds outside, and hosed and scrubbed them down, taking no care at all to avoid getting wet. I think I’m going to replace them with curtains–easier to wash.

Also, I’ve discovered my new most-despised cleaning task, which I hate even more than scrubbing blinds: cleaning nonwashable curtains. Specifically, the dry-clean-only velvet curtains in the living room, which came with the house and are now pretty well covered with dust and cat hair. I’m very reluctant to have them dry-cleaned. If they were mine, I would throw them in the washer and take the risk, but they’re not. Vacuuming doesn’t work very well–one vacuum has too much suction, and the other too little. The best thing for the cat hair was a lint roller, but I ran out of sticky sheets for it. I think the cat would object to being dyed to match the curtains.