Posted by jennifer kaski on May 27, 1999 at 17:50:38:
In Reply to: www.oprah.com Oprah's website posted by Don M. on September 15, 1998 at 15:37:47:
well, jim, you may be getting this. (I am a friend of jim brady''s) and i feel so geeky for doing this. but i am going to participate in this cleanup thing.
i am a freelance writer and my office was in the basement.
well, we'll get to that.
i feel like i clean EVERY day of my life just to keep from having the spca come and take the dog away due to poor conditions.
you know ---woman had 11 dogs and 50 cats and they were all drowning in their own ....well, you get the idea.
anyhow...
i clean every day just to keep up with stuff ---and my husband (who has his own
"hidy holes'', as my friend in Chicago calls them --anyway, he thinks my bad areas are just so awful.
well, i get tired of weekends being cleaning days.
NOPE. i will clean on cleaning day and take care of that "office'' downstairs and the office upstairs which is pretty bad.
My husband is a photographer and our upstairs office has also become the dirty AND clean clothes depository (we wash them then don't get em folded).
OH, the office downstairs. well, it is this closed off area my husband built for me two write when his daughter is here because she is a teenager and when i work at homje, i can only take so much SAVED BY THE BELL while i am writing.
but, when, in my limited time, i did the laundry, i would fold and put up everyone's but mine.
and there are tons of clothes down there oin my "hole.''
There are also cooking pans i tossed down there that still needed to be scrubbed because company was comming. you know, do a sauce reduction and the doorbell rings. they're here! run to basement, toss fryiong pan, run back up, answer door.
(my husband thought i had a "problem'' until we talked to this woman we know who does the same thing and she is a linguistics professor at UW Madison).
it is a mess down there. it has almost been a year, and I WILL get it clean during the cleanup days.
this is the only way it will ever get done, to participate in this cleanup days.
ALSO ---i have one cocktail every single day. well, almost. i drink a beer when i am done with my writing. well, kids are funny about that and i don't want my stepdaughter to think well, if she drinks then i can.
(lord, i dont take any mothers little helper drugs and my one beer a day is my dessert!)
so, id drink my one beer in my basement office and after about 65 days, i had a pile so big in a box that i was finally embarassed to put em in recycling bin cause they'd think we drank them all in a week.
so in my "hole'' they sit.
somehow i hope this cleanup days deal will give me the resolve to take care of this horrible upstairs and downstairs office.
myh father in law has terminal cancer and we are near the hospital and he may need to stay in basement for a while.
(the rest of the basement isn't so gross and there is a bed and stuff).
And i just PRAY that since that isnt enough motivation that a terminally ill neat freak is coming to live in our basement isn't enough, that this cleanup day will be.
that is so dumb, but my former basement office is a disgrace and i cannot face it.
i may get my husband in on this and get the whole basement clean (he is ultra neat freak so he will dig this).
thanks
]jennifer kaski
bapberf@aol.com
608-222-5756
madison, wisc.
whoever gets this ---tell jim brady hi and not to think i am too dumb for doing this. i havent watched the show in months due to my schedule and i just happened to hear the cleanup thing ---while sweeping the potting soil out of my hardwood floors.
l,ike i have time for that horrible mess downstairs!