I've got 42 days to clean up my act

Post-cleaning photo. I didn't think to take one before I started.

And by act, I mean my apartment. Brad's mom arrives in the islands in just 42 days and our place is filthy. I'm not exaggerating. Brad has been so busy at work and I've been busy being lazy — and sick — that the place hasn't gotten the attention that it deserves in, well, probably a few months.

The good news is that I put in for a week off in early February that the fam Pep isn't coming and I need to blow some vacation time, so I'll devote that period to hard-core cleaning.

In the meantime, I've set a goal of doing something, no matter how small, every day. Today, I took on the cupboard. OK, not something that had to be cleaned, but it was totally disorganized, the floor was dusty and I was pretty sure there were some canned items in there that were well past their prime. Everything came out, the shelves and walls got Clorox Wipes-ed down, and (surprisingly) only about a half dozen items got tossed. The discoveries that baffled me the most: 7 cans of chicken noodle soup (I guess I just keep buying it but nobody eats it) and 2 cans of Spam. Why do we have any cans of Spam?

Then everything went back into the cupboard in an organizational manner that makes sense to me. We'll see if Brad gets it. So that's done and for about 2 minutes I felt like I'd accomplished something today. Then I turned around and saw the giant baskets (plural) of laundry staring me down. Maybe later.

Today's other doings:
Bradley got me a cupcake cookbook for Christmas, Cupcakes Galore. It has a recipe for S'mores cupcakes that I'd been drooling over for 2 weeks, but was putting off making them until I felt better and was less likely to contaminate them with my germs. I felt I'd reached that point today, so I went for it. They were surprisingly easy. (I'm a cake mix girl, this from-scratch thing baffles me.) They called for milk chocolate chips and I had purchased the semi-sweet, so I went with those instead of going back to the store. Right now they are cooling and I'll probably attempt the frosting recipe tomorrow. They taste pretty good. They are very moist. However, the chocolate chips all settled at the bottom, which I'm not sure was supposed to happen, and I think I crushed up the graham crackers too much because they are barely tasteable (is that a word?). The papers are also pulling away from the cakes on their own. I've never seen that before ... wonder what I did wrong/right.

I'm a sucker
I said I wasn't going to buy Photoshop Elements after my 30-day free trial ran out. But I did.

Look at that
I didn't even do it consciously, but I only used the word "like" once this entire entry and it was in its proper form. Not my usual verbal (and written) tic where I use it every other word.

I was whining to Brad this morning about a certain person using the phrase "you know" all the time and how it annoyed me. (Not someone who would ever read this blog.) I added that I know that I say the word "like" all the time and it probably annoys people. Guess something must have soaked in. I'm sure it's temporary.