Domestic Interlude: When Some Things Just Have to Be Done

Hot today, but a number of things have to be done. Like wash windows, a job I’ve been putting off for weeks.

One of the nice things about living in a climate with dramatically different seasons is that for a good part of the year some of the tasks that life involves disappear. There is no snow shoveling from April to October around here, and you can’t do much lawn mowing from October to May, for example. You can wash the inside of windows for part of the winter, and I find that I am driven to do so at least a couple of times when it’s warm enough so that cleaning solution won’t freeze on the panes.

The outsides are something different, thank goodness. Professional window washers make the rounds of the shops all winter long: I’m not sure what they use but it doesn’t seem to freeze quickly. At home, though, I take the cold weather as a good reason to forget about the outside. But I have had no excuse for a good long time, so I should go do something domestic before I get back to deciding what my next non-domestic project should be…

The big question is: what do use to wash them? I've always used ammonia and water, wiped off with sheets of newspaper, but the buzz is that ammonia is an environmental no-no. Vinegar and water is supposed to be good, but it clogged up my spray bottle the last time I used it. I found a number of suggestions at an answer pool site. Maybe I ought to do a comparison like the one I keep thinking I ought to do with dishers and washing dishes by hand.

No, it's too hot to think about that. To work! And then to sit under the fan.