This week...29th March 2012...7 days I will never get back

It has been 7 days since that discovery.

So for the past week,

I have been doing little more than washing, vacumning, cleaning, washing,
checking, washing, vacumning and vacumning some more.

I have been breathing, sleeping, dreaming carpet beetles.

They have consumed my time, my energy, my thoughts.

(Besides being passive-aggressive,

I have obsessive-compulsive tendencies

which tend to manifest at times like this)

The whole thing really serves me right.

As a stay at home mum, I have been slack in my domestic homework.

I have been slack in my yarn and fabric storage.

I have spend the past months sitting around feeling very humdrum
and haven't achieved much in the way of living.

So really I am grateful for these little shits.
They have put a bomb under me
and I am feeling fresh again.

OK so they have also driven me from the heights of euphoria when I felt like I had them under control

to the dark depths of depression and stress when I would find yet another one in yet another place.

In case you ever come up against these things,

you might like to be aware of the following.

You will find a single one in a face washer on a shelf

and so manically clean out the whole cupboard to find no other sign of them.

You will also clean out a whole cupboard

and be about to high five yourself

when there will be a little larvae grinning (Yes. I swear. Grinning.) at you from that last little garment

that you pull out.

The grin was wiped of its face- literally- once it was a smear on my fingernail, let me tell you.

I have found things that I have forgotten that I owned.

(In the case of the bag of G strings, that is not a bad  thing.

It has been quite some time since I have worn them,
it will be quite some time till I wear them again- think hell will freezing over-
and now at least I have the bravado to toss them.
Anyone else hoarding bags of underwear that they wore 20 years ago?)

I have discovered fabrics that I forgot that I had.

(and apparently nothing, not even a carpet beetle larva,

is willing to consume some of those artificial fabrics made back in the 60s or 70s.

To do so would be to risk death or at least severe constipation)

I have helped the companies
who make zip lock plastic bags, plastic storage tubs, cedar balls and Imperial Leather soap
(which helps stave off beetle infestations from your wool stash)
reach their monthly sales targets with ease.

Incalculable numbers of innocently by-standing black lint fluff have perished

in my goal to eradicate these beasties from my house.

Neighbours are no doubt choking on the cedar and lavendar scents emanating from the house at #5.

The worst is over but the fight will continue.
Vigilance will be required (and probably chemicals too)
but I am hopeful that the long term fall-out from this will be positive.

I feel more energetic and happier than I have in a long time.
I have been feeling oppressed and flat...
and now I don't.

So while you, my dear readers, might possibility be interested

in photos of me vacumning (in a G string or not)

or the clothes line full, full, full of washing

or little hairy beasties (or lint) on skirting boards,

I will assume that you would prefer to see my new squishy winter jumper

that I finished just before the proverbial hit the fan last week.

White Light- Veera Valimaki