Holidays almost gone

Well today is my last day of holidays. So far i have spent almost every day doing work around Julz' house. I have:

• - cleaned out her kitchen pantry (which included ditching pungent dried anchovies, which had almost become powder form because they were so old, spider-infested oolong tea, moth-filled flour and oats and all kinds of seeds and removing cockroach and insect carcasses, etc... ewwwww);
  
• - shampooed the carpets in her house upstairs (included four of the five bedrooms and the corridors) and cleaned her staircase carpet by hand.... after which i had such a bad allergic reaction from all the pet hair, that i spent about half a day recovering;
  
• - sorted out all her clothes, washed them, dried them, categorised them (jackets, dresses, skirts, trousers, shirts, underwear - all in different locations), hung them up and paired about 200 socks with their respective partners (there are still about 50 socks without a mate!). She had piles and piles of dirty and clean clothes mixed together at the bottom of five built-in wardrobes, not to mention in garbage bags in the laundry, in wash baskets in her bedroom, loose all around the house and in the garage! - i even found dirty underwear stuffed into the bookshelves and lounge room furniture!;


• - swept, vacuumed and mopped all the hard floors downstairs - which unfortunately are constantly being dirtied each day predominantly by her dogs, who swim, then dig holes, then bring their mudied selves inside;


• - re-arranged the rooms upstairs where her two indoor cats live, including emptying tray after tray of cat litter into the garden - apparently makes great soil conditioner;


• - employed a friend, Brett, from college to help me clean up her backyard. Together, we picked up dog poo, raked rocks, pulled out weeds, pulled the vines off her shed, mowed and wipper-snipped the lawns and threw the grass cuttings in the peripheral garden beds! - it took us three hours; and


• - moved a few car loads of boxes from her house to mum's house, about an hour away.... to clear some space in her wardrobes.
  

So yeah, it has been a very busy time for me. Pretty satisfying seeing the end results, especially the garden. I felt really depressed looking at the garden each day - it was such an eyesore previously with over a foot-high long grass and waist-high weeds, and the stench of dog poo (over a year's worth from two dogs) just hit you when you walked near the back door.

I was so grateful to have Brett helping me. He said picking up dog poo was nothing compared to some of his previous work experience, which included working as Funeral Director. In that role, he apparently had to collect dead bodies, counsel the families and arrange the funeral. He said one time, he was called to a house where an old lady had died in the shower and the water had been running for two weeks over her until she was found. Her body literally fell apart as he picked it up. In other cases, he has had to retrieve decomposing bodies, some of which were children. What a horrible job. Back then he took drugs just to get over the images he saw. I guess there is always work available, you just need to have a strong stomach or drugs.

Anyway, after we finished the garden, there was so much joy in Julz' dogs' faces. They ran around and around playing games. It was so lovely to see them. What a transformation.

There is still heaps to do - many of the walls in her house are really brown because the dogs have pushed themselves up against them when they've been all muddy, and the windows all need washing, having not been cleaned probably since she moved into the house! The garage is an absolute shocker with all sorts of creepy crawleys in the dark corners (that's my next big project, but i've run out of time). There's also a lot of garbage to throw out, but Julz needs to be there to decide what to ditch, cos she's gets a bit cranky when i throw away stuff..... I also want to organise one of those professional mobile dog washers to come by and bathe the dogs. No matter how much i try and clean them, the bath water is always black.

Man, i am a good sister to her. One day she'll really appreciate all the stuff i do. At this stage, she has been very unwell because she is preggers and working very long hours, so hasn't really been able to comprehend what i've done.