wherein Liz cleans house

I am largely indifferent when it comes to cleaning my apartment for my own sake, but it's downright amazing how much housework I can get done when I know somebody is coming to visit. For instance, tonight I sorted through all the paperwork and magazines and general clutter that's been piling up on my counters and tables since... uh... probably last April? *wince* For previous visits, I'd just tidied it all into giant stacks, but by this point that was becoming untenable. So I have filled two thirds of a printer paper box with recyclables, sorted and filed a whole bunch of other stuff, cleaned out some older file folders whose contents had become irrelevant, and dealt with a handful of minor obligations I'd been putting off.

Also I cleaned the bathroom and put up a new shower liner since the old one had gotten mildewed enough that it wasn't really worth bleaching out for a third go-round.

(I have a lot of trouble with mildew in my bathtub, because the faucet leaks. It used to be one drop every four seconds, but it's gotten worse over the past six months and now the rate is one drop every second. Landlord Dude has been aware of this for a while, but didn't want to risk making it worse back when it was a slower drip. Well, now it's gotten worse on its own, so I have decided to call him every couple weeks until he caves and hires a plumber.)

Tomorrow evening I'm going to dust all my newly revealed surfaces (plus all my bookcases, god help me) and vacuum the whole apartment, which I've also been avoiding for far too long. Saturday will be for laundry and cooking. Then on Sunday I will get to watch my mom NOT make sad faces at the squalor I live in, and my evil plan will be complete. ;-)