February Challenges And The House

 My original plan for February was to get the garden cleaned up and dug over.  I still have to do that but looks like adding other challenges to my month!  So this month I will start on the garden.  I would love to be able to grow some vegetables.  I've tried many times before but never seems to work out.  I want to say that I will go out every day and do a bit but I know that is difficult but at least a few times a week.

The other challenge has to do with the new reality of moving.  I've dedided to challenge myself to find something good about moving there.  Each month I'll try to add one more postive thing so at least I'll have 23 positive things.  But at the moment all I have is negative things,  I am grateful that we have a place to move to as renting another place seems to be impossible because of the cats.  Even rentals that allow pets only allow one or two animals.  

Today I'm not happy.  Spent the morning at the house.  It's a lot worse than I remembered it being.  I honestly don't think my mother in law cleaned.  I know when we moved in with her, about 15 years ago the house was dirty.  Took 10 liters of bleach to clean out the black mold in the kitchen sink.  She never cleaned the extractor fan over the stove and the windows were black.  When we lived there I cleaned all the time.  I know that she was ill before she went into hospital and the old peoples home and cleaning was not high on her list of things to do but she was offered home help, free, from the city but she refused wanting to do it all herself.  Only problem is she couldn't do and so now it's down to me.

Don't eat while looking at these photos.  There's no electrcity so the lighting isn't very good and I only took a few rooms.

Built in stove, how am I suspossed to clean that

View of the stove from the dinning area

Oven, this can be thrown out

There are loads of burnt pots and pans left out.  The draws are full of dead cockroaches and I couldn't get anything from under the sink, just opening it made my stomach turn.

Dinning and kitchen

All the stuff in boxes is stuff that needs to be thrown out.  So much waste.  Some things I can keep, new soup and rice bowls,  some other plates and dishes that have never been used.  

Bathroom

The floor tiles came up just a couple of years after the house was built but she never got them fixed. The edges are sharp and I cut my feet many times when we lived there.

The Japanese style room, again with stuff that needs dumping

Owl outside the front door

I don't know if 2 years is going to be long enough!

The garden is massive and needs cutting down.  The house behind is empty but the bamboo is growing like crazy and could be dangerous in high winds.

All I want to do is curl up and cry but that isn't going to help!