Category: Memes & Asks

Image from Pixabay.

Answers to this week’s questions at https://thefridayfive.dreamwidth.org/111769.html

1) What’s the most cluttered spot in your home?

Probably this one kitchen drawer which holds all my bigger-than-spoons-and-forks utensils. It’s hard to get closed because it’s so full. I’ve been vaguely thinking for a couple of years that I should go through it. But I haven’t because there’s no place to put them anywhere else, and throwing out isn’t an option because I need them. If I threw them out, I’d only end up buying a new one within a few years anyway. So yeah, that drawer needs de-cluttering but until I think of somehow to store the rarely used ones that isn’t too inconvenient to reach, it’ll keep on waiting.

2) What’s your method for de-cluttering?

I don’t have a method, I do it when it’s needed/things get on my nerves. But I don’t really de-clutter these days – I don’t have that much clutter in my opinion. When I was younger, sure, but I got better about it and now make an effort to put everything in their place right away or throw it out instead of keeping it “just in case” but then never actually need it. If something’s out, there’s a reason for it and it gets put away when the reason doesn’t exist anymore.

For the last year or so, I’ve been getting these weird bursts of restless energy after a migraine attack, so now I try to take advantage of that and de-clutter or clean something when it happens. But I have to be careful not to over-do it, or perform an action that irritates my head, because otherwise the migraine might re-start itself. But I like these bursts of energy a lot because they’re pretty much the only time I feel energetic these days. All the other time it’s a fight to do something.

3) What are your favorite cleaning products?

I really lvoe the organic, ecological cleaning soap (https://www.saarentaika.com/ekosiivous/) made by Saaren Taika, it’s very effective for all my kitchen needs and most of the other cleaning too. It’s for many uses, so I’m currently using it as well as finishing up the cleaning products I had bought before it. Saaren Taika shampoo has also been a life saver in another way – my scalp started to itch terribly and to get a rash when I used store-bought shampoos, but switching to Saaren Taika’s organic shampoos eliminated the itching almost completely. They’re all expensive but it’s worth the price, and also because with Saaren Taika shampoos I don’t need to buy hydrocortizone scalp solution from the drugstore to put on my scalp to help with the rash so it almost evens out any way. They also almost all the time have sales on, so I’ve rarely had to pay full price on the items I’m interested in. If I had more money I’d love to try more of their many, many products.

For the toilet bowl my favorite is Klorin liquid which is a bleach and disinfectant solution.

4) What helps get you motivated to clean up?

Getting that weird burst of energy I mentioned in #2. When people are coming over. Or when I just get fed up with something in particular and clean it.

5) What’s the most organized spot in your home?

My couch. It’s a two-seater, and the other seat holds my main notebooks (5 of them), a notepad for note taking, headache diary page and a small storage case where I keep the pens and fountain pens currently inked. There’s also a rag for cleaning my eye glasses and a spot for my smartphone.

My desk is also well organized – it might look a little cluttered for someone else, but everything is actually in it’s place.

17. July 17 is “World Emoji Day”. Do you use emojis?

🥰 I love emojies!

18. What is your biggest indulgence?

Fountain pens and fountain pen ink. I love them but I don’t really need them; other cheaper pens could take fountain pens’ place. I just wouldn’t enjoy using them as much, and I get frustrated when they keep drying out too quickly. That’s why I got into fountain pens in the first place.

19. What’s something terrifying that we’ve all come to accept as a fact of life?

Corporations having so much political and economic power. What’s good for a corporation is almost never good for a person/the employee.

20. Are you good at keeping secrets? Is it ever okay to share a secret?

I’m pretty good. If any person’s life and/or sanity is in jeopardy or somebody is being hurt, I think it’s not only okay to share a secret, but you have an obligation to do so.

21. If babies are considered innocent, when do people cease to be innocent?

When adults or adulting ruin them.

22. What would you genetically change about humans to make them a better species?

I’d either give men periods, or remove the necessity of women having them — this immediately came to mind. But I can’t decide which because a not-insignificant part of me wants men to bleed, suffer a lot of pain and discomfort once a month for a week for decades and have it belittled by a lot of doctors and nurses and by society at large. Because I’m petty like that.

23. Have you ever worked retail?

Nope! At least I don’t think so? Library work is customer service, yes, but we don’t try to sell products and it’s my understading that retail involves selling products.

24. A robot wrote this entire article. Another wrote and performed poetry. Should we be scared?

Maybe? If AI achieves self-consciousness, maybe.

25. Omnivore, vegetarian, vegan or something else?

Omnivore but a quite a picky eater.

26. Does anything hurt today?

My head. But only a little, and nothing out of the ordinary so no big deal.

27. Who was the last person to make you angry?

A right-wing politician.

28. When was the last time you properly cleaned out your refrigerator?

I don’t remember exactly when it was… so, much too long! I’ve done spot cleaning when necessary, but full wipe down… About a year ago? I’ve been thinking the last two weeks that I should do it, and de-freeze the freezer too.

29. Is there anything you regularly lie about?

Regularly? No.

30. Do you mostly do specific chores on specific days each week (e.g. groceries on Saturday, laundry on Wednesday, etc.)?

Nope. I do do groceries at regular intervals at the start and end of the week, the day isn’t specific but the interval usually is – it’s usually three days. It’s not so much by plan as that’s when I run out of certain things… I don’t have a car so I’m limited by what I can carry and that means grocery runs usually every three days.

31. Of this month’s questions, which was your favourite?

The emoji one!

1. How tall would you like to be if you had the chance to choose?

I’m 161 centimeters tall and I’d like to be a little taller – around 170cm, I think. All the clothes, cars seats, cabinets etc. are made for people taller than me so I’d really love to be a little taller!

2. How often do you change your sheets?

Probably not often enough. I don’t do it on schedule, more like feeling like changing them that night.

3. When is it time to repurpose an old towel?

The old towels dry me the best (the fabric is completely different than in the newer towels I have) so I keep them pretty much until they fall apart. I don’t repurpose them, I just throw them out. The oldest towels I have are at least around 40 years old and they’re still almost as new because I always use the same several ones until they fall apart before letting myself take another into use. I’ve never bought myself a towel – people apparently loved to give them as gifts in the 1980s. So we had dozens of them, and divided them between myself and my Mom when she moved out with her then-new SO into their new home and I stayed in my childhood home for a few years more in the 1990s. I’ll probably never run out of old, unused towels!

4. Do you need to make a trip to a secondhand store to drop something off?

Nope.

5. What was the last book you borrowed from the library?

I went to the library on Friday and actually borrowed three books: Hangman by Faye Kellerman; Hiljainen, huomaamaton murha by Lene Kaaberbøl and Agnete Friis; Pimeä jää by Tuire Malmstedt. They’re all thrillers and murder mysteries.

Image from Pixabay.

Answers to today’s questions at The Friday Five @ DW.

1. What is the sweetest thing you’ve ever done for someone else?

I don’t do sweet… the things I do are more on the practical side. But I’m always ready to help my family and friends with computer and phone and internet stuff – I’m the most well versed in computers and internet among my circle. My cousins’ kids are sort of better with smartphones, so nowadays they help the old folk the most with phone stuff but sometimes I’m needed to say setup transfering of files easily and quickly between smartphones and computers. I don’t mind having sometimes to do a lot of research to solve someone’s problem, or being asked to upgrade their Windows to the next version for them or to help them restore backups. They just need to accept that it might take me a few days or a week to figure out a problem if it’s a difficult one, and that I might take their laptop home for a few days to make it easier to work on it.

I also help them research subjects sometimes – like if someone gets ill and want to read more about their new disease, I’ll find them reputable, reliable medical sources online.

I did make a limit on what computers I help with when WFH became more common – only personal computers, not work computers. Unless it’s something that takes literally one minute and isn’t actually a problem such as changing wallpaper background or screen font size or chaning the speed with which their mouse cursor moves (surprising how many people don’t know how to do stuff like that!), their IT desk should help with it.

2. What do you wish people would do for you?

I guess… just be together without a particular agenda, chatting about nothing in particular? That not everything is always about computers, or worry about health/life/work etc? Sometimes it feels like either me or them is always having something heavy going on when we meet. We’ve had to learn to put a limit on how much we talk about that stuff, because obviously we want to support one another but that can’t be all it is.

3. What are your simplest pleasures?

Right now? Strawberries! But year around, visiting with my Mom. It’s just so relaxing being with her because she knows me inside and out and my history and doesn’t judge that certain things are important to me even if she doesn’t understand them or why. There’s no one else who knows me as well as my Mom and there’s freedom in that.

4. What makes you feel all warm & fuzzy?

Seeing my Mom, especially now that we don’t see each other as often as we used to. When Caro (our Beagle) was alive, I loved it when she curled up beside to nap while I watched TV or read – because she always liked be touching some part of me when napping during the day 🙂 That was so sweet.

5. How do you define love?

Huh, I haven’t actually thought about it… can’t put it in words.