i may not know how to clean my house, but i'm pretty handy with a power drill

amongst my friends and my family, my house has become some sort of a legend. for one, no one's allowed inside for the simply reason that i cannot bear them to find out exactly how poor i am at keeping my immediate surroundings in order. in fact, there was a time when a couple of brothers helped me lug things from my house to the hospital when my brother had dengue and i left them very clear instructions that they are to stay in the garage and are not to set one foot inside the house.

thankfully, they complied. although i must say that the more i try to keep people out, the more curious they are as to how the inside looks like.

the rumors regarding my house escalated when i had two people clean my house for a full day. friends asked if they could now visit knowing that i had actually paid people to professionally fix everything. when i said no, they can't, since the cleaners didn't finish cleaning the entire place they were like, "grabe, it must be really, really dirty."

*insert rosa blushing furiously here*

anyway, two saturdays ago, fueled by the bright red "sale" signs at SM, i finally bought curtains and new curtain rods for the living and dining areas. that same night (or should i say early, very early, sunday morning), i took down the old curtains. then a little bit at a time, i unscrewed all the old rods and what-nots. thursday evening, armed with a power drill, i drilled through a concrete wall and finally attached new curtain rods in the living room. and, the saturday after that i drilled through another stretch of concrete wall to attach the curtains in the dining room. by lunch last week, i had beautiful, gorgeous, lovely curtains billowing in the breeze.

that, and very dirty living and dining areas.

and so, i put aside my lack of talent in the cleaning department. armed with a big canister of household wipes (like wet wipes, but only for the house. they disinfect too!), i slowly plowed through cleaning my house as much as i could. i used glass cleaner for the glass surfaces, "pledged" all the wood surfaces, and vacuumed the floors and rugs. i threw away those things which i hadn't used for eons and left at my house's curb all those things which could still be used but i couldn't use anymore. by saturday evening, my house - or at least the dining and living rooms - looked like a home.

throughout the entire week, i cleaned all the remaining spots in the said areas. i dumped all of my brother's remaining trash in his room.

by friday night, i had invited over my first guest.

and you know what? it felt great being able to show off two weeks worth of laboring at home.

i still hate cleaning, and i still would rather work the power drill than whip out the broom and dust pan. but there's a certain exhiliration that comes from cleaning a home that i could now finally call my own.