For the past week, I have been waging a war on dust. I always just considered dust to be a part of life. I could take it or leave it, and well, when it would get really bad, I would then take care of it. I have a rainbow vacuum, so I just assumed that this magical dirt killing machine would rid my life of all mal dust forms and extra effort was just not needed. Then I got sick, and all things that did not directly with dealing with that took a back shelf. So for just about a year, things really did not get cleaned around here...at all. My husband tried as best as he could, but there is only so much on person can do. And if you are a mom, you know what i mean when i say, some things only mom knows how to do really right. I think the house got vacuumed Twice in that year. On top of this you are told all of the horror stories of how important it is to stay away from sources of dust and dirt while on chemo etc., so there was legitimate REASON to not vacuum of dust heavily. The past year has been centered around my trying to make up for lost time, in my life, and in my house.
Well, I came across a dust atrocity last week that completely freaked me out. I decided to vacuum the mattresses, including a down mattress ... Omg, the moment the vacuum touched the down mattress, I felt my throat fill with stining dust which, as i learned, was probably all dust mite feces. Omg. And this is with a water vac that is supposed to catch, like 99 percent of air junk! I mean there must have been such a high concentration of dust that it overwhelmed the water... Well, now have a raging sinus infection a week later. Until I am able to rid this house of its copious amounts of dust, I have decided to add a heap filter to my vac. I would love to be able to afford an e-series vac, but until then, this will have to do! So this is how I did it.
The first retrofit worked well, but it was a total bitch to move the vac between tigh spaces, like between the sofa and coffee table...and through DOORWAYS. I worked well, but needed Improvement. I was concerned that the Horse Power needed to force air throught the bag properly was mores than what my vac proveded, and this would just cause the air to preferentially find a way out through a crack, rather than through the filter medium. So I decided to look for a HEPA filter that was designed for lower HP motors. I found this upright vac filter, more approrpiate Horse Power, for about 16 bucks. It was less than 1 cm too small to form am airtight seal, so silicon to the rescue!
Aside from going all ape on the dust, I have also become obsessed with doing my nails again. During the year that I try my hardest to forget, I could not do my nails because 1) I had heard that your nails could possibly come all the way off during Taxol .... That freaked me out and I wanted to be able to see it coming. 2). Because the oxygen meter would not work through nail polish, and they would take it off. F that.
Apparently it is a new discovery with the nail beauty world that a person can achieve different effects with their nails by layering different colors ... I Been doing this since the mid 80's, you know, back when it was considered freaky to wear colors other than rose blush, and nude...
I have always gotten compliments on my nails, I used to be a terrible nail biter, and my nails were quite soft growing up, but once I started keeping the painted, I stopped biting them, and they started getting stronger.
I would like to start documenting my nail exploits, and all of the wacky things I do to. Not only get neat colors, but the disasters as well, as there have been a lot! I will also show my different techniques to get my nail color to last,
Lately, I have been inspired by how every single thing has such an amazing life force. I try so hard to let every little thing have it's chance at living. From the stray seed I might find in a pomegranate, to a sprig of lemon grass that I am trying to water root on the window sill.
I have been feeling enormous pressure lately (from myself of course) to get things done, and keep up with everything. To not get behind at any cost. And in doing this, I feel like I am constantly trying to get up on top of the wave to ride it, I look around to enjoy the view, and then the wave crashes down, taking me with it, and then leaves me washed up on the shore, with sand covering my body, and leaving a mess of junk on the beach. I need to learn how to achieve balance. This constantly scrambling up to attain a five second breather to enjoy the vista, only to be dashed down into chaos again really makes me feel as though nothing is achievable.
