This is Ginny’s brain, not on drugs, at the end of the work day and on the way to Holy Moly to do some emergency cleaning. As you can see, she is not a happy camper.

This was the scene yesterday as I drove away (finally) from work after a long frustrating day trying to keep up with about 4 different accounts’ worth of niggling little problems, ticketing errors, questions, last-minute hotel group changes, and a couple of things that I can’t even categorize except that I now know that I had the information I so badly needed at the end of the day, but didn’t know it. It was a hell of a day, and then I’d planned on cleaning the church bathrooms. Was that ever a fun thing to anticipate? Strangely enough, it was.

I was angry at myself and angry at everything else that got in the way of getting things done at work, and there I was headed out the door to do, essentially, scutwork. The budget at Holy Moly doesn’t allow for professional cleaning services at the moment, so we’ve been making do with volunteer help. Inevitably, some things get skipped. So I had gathered some cleaning materials and a work shirt and threw them in the car this morning, because in addition to all the other junk going on this week at work, today we had to dress up a little owing to a client visit on another team. Before driving off, I took a picture of my grumpy but made-up self. It’s not just the amount of disparate tasks and people hovering at my desk all day and people sneaking up on me from behind trying not to disturb me and startling the HELL out of me. It’s also allergies. From bloody people who wear too frickin much cheap-ass nasty perfume. Yuck, not only does it trigger all kinds of uncomfortable reactions (itchy eyes, nose, tight chest, tight throat) but I have to TASTE it, too. And then everybody else’s much milder fragrances become annoying, too. Ugh.

Just walking out the door relaxed me, and I resolved to just let it all go (the work stuff, and the worry about the concert) and literally work it out.

Basically, I cleared out some clutter from the kitchen counter, because people will be bringing desserts and will need to set them someplace, and wiped the counters down. Then I attacked the restrooms.

They put up a pretty good fight, but basically, I wiped down every single surface and got cobwebs out of corners, scrubbed everything, polished the mirrors, and damp-mopped the floors. I also did disgusting things in porcelain fixtures. Just as I was cleaning the men’s room, Fr. Ted and Mark showed up to pick up some things for a rummage sale and startled me, but was happy to take a break for a couple of minutes and chat. They left, and I did a few more things, but really I got the bulk of the work done in a little over an hour and left about when I’d planned to leave. And although I was tired, I felt a lot less stressed out. So it was good that I did it, and satisfying, and I hope it won’t have to be done all over again on Sunday afternoon. I’ve got more to do then.

Tomorrow, we’ve got a family thing on the east side near the lake, then a charity thing back here, then another family thing that’s more a volunteer thing. We’ll be busy all day, and then Sunday is the concert.

Monday, I’ll be exhausted.

This image was sent from Flickr as a blog entry, email or cameraphone image.

Via: Flickr
Title: photo_0019.jpg

By: GinnyRED57

Originally uploaded: 25 Aug ’05, 11.51pm PST