One thing I like about this time of year is getting over the “dark hump” and realizing that though my plants look terrible, they are probably not going to die this year. I question my wisdom in having a potted ficus stand in as a Christmas tree, because it starts turning brown in places and dropping leaves, and doesn’t really stop until February. Maybe I should move Xmas to summer when it is lush and green.

I saw that the Saddest Rubber Tree in North America, which resides in my dining room, is trying to put on new leaves and then I ran around and pity-watered everyone, which I forgot to do last weekend. I knew this house was going to be challenging for plants. It’s on a great orientation for a sunny place, like California or Arizona. When we moved in I had a mass wave of deaths and then another when I was bedridden earlier last year. There is something so right about limping to the bathroom like a sadsack and seeing that you have lost yet another plant. Someone call Emily Dickinson, I think we’ve got a lead for her.

I usually get this weird sense of foreboding as we hurtle toward the solstice, and a great sense of relief when we get away from it. I guess that’s why humans invented Xmas and Snuggies and growlers anyway. Hide out from the forebodums.

“I’m so happy this year is almost over,” P. said a couple of weeks ago. I was really surprised. It’s very uncharacteristic for him to make dramatic Eeyore-esque pronouncements like that (the position has been filled by me). I had to ask him what he meant. “This year was TERRIBLE,” he said. And then I felt very dumb as I realized he was referring to the first part of it. March seems like a lifetime ago in some ways, though I still wake up almost every day like I have Quantum Leap’d or something and must check all my parts: “Nothing hurts; can think; am in good mood. WOW. Let’s do this.”

So last night I made a very boring secret plan. In honor of the fact that I am not working, and am finally feeling well enough, I have started cleaning the house from top to bottom. I would guess it’s been over a year since the house has been scrubbed this hard, since I starting getting really sick (hard-to-move sick) in October ’13. For a couple of years prior to me losing my grip I had to prop myself up on copious amounts of drugs and coffee to get my joints working and enough energy to clean, and it was miserable.

Today it felt easy and I didn’t mind it one bit. I listened to podcasts all day long. I used to have a SPOTLESS house, even with a baby and toddler. I maintenance cleaned once a week and it took me three hours in our old Fremont duplex. It was just what I had become accustomed to growing up. My parents built their house and they were going to keep it new and clean, at all costs. We had the kind of house where more often than not, there were vacuum marks in the rug, like a newly-mowed lawn. I really let that go when we moved into the big split-level rental in 2010. I was getting ill and that place was a pit, so it all seemed kind of hopeless.

Today I scrubbed cabinet fronts, and most nooks and crannies in the kitchen. I cleaned behind the microwave, and inside of the dishwasher door hinge. I did both of the bathrooms top to bottom (okay, I did not dust the pictures, but I will tomorrow) I had an inkling this tsunami of anal retentiveness was coming, since I cleaned kitchen windows and other hard-to-reach spots a couple of weeks ago. There was so much to do and I was moving relatively slowly so I abandoned the job halfway through before dinnertime, vowing to be back soon.

I was kind of thrilled that packages were arriving all day as well, because they contained needed kitcheny things that I could put in place as I put it back together: an electric kettle which I’ve been wanting for years; silpat for baking sheets; an LED bulb for a burned-out one in one of the heinous booblights in the kitchen.

I have come to a few conclusions after doing all the “wet work” today (dusting and dry floors tomorrow). First is, Fuck a Tile Counter. I love my tile counters, and the tile bathrooms, especially my pink poodle one. But I’ve realized that they look like crap 60 years on. There are cracks, permanent staining, missing bits. Not to mention the amount of time that it takes to clean between every goddam tile where the schmutz builds up. We’ve already decided to pull the counter tile in the kitchen and leave the yellow backsplash, which is perfect. Perhaps the same treatment is in order for the upstairs bathrooms.

The second conclusion is that every time I greedily think we should have gotten more house, I need to clean this one. There is a lot of real estate here. A lot of surfaces. Someone keeps cluttering it up with terrible old gewgaws from the 20th century and they all need dusting.

The third conclusion is that I am starting to trust that I am well again. It’s strange, I still feel like I am somewhat of a different person, as if I have been rebuilt out of old refurbed parts. But it’s all working better. I’m having some stiffness in the morning that I hope will be resolved with exercise, which doesn’t sound like an impossible undertaking now.

Franny’s coming back today. It sounds like her holiday with SeaFed was pretty fun, small amounts of drama aside. She called me whispering, hiding outdoors one day to vent her spleen about a mini-row that resulted in her being called “ungrateful” for not eating a “gluten-free” doughnut that had been produced in the bakery where they bake all the wheat ones. I made sympathetic noises and told her she did the right thing in politely turning it down.

I have a lead on a tech contract (phone screen tomorrow) back in the pit where I was before Xmas. Hooray/boo for work, but yay for being back to the gluten free food truck that is one of three restaurants I trust not to poison me in Seattle. I have to say, my long-time commenter “A.” made the penny finally drop on this gluten-free sauce business idea, but I don’t know if I would have considered it for more than two minutes if I wouldn’t have eaten at this gluten-free truck during my last contract. I know running a side business isn’t easy (my stepfather ran a coin-op amusement business in addition to his full time career) but I thought about the components and it looked possible.

And on Saturday I am taking a small food business class which runs all day, because that is the plan for this year. I am working on dressings bi-weekly now. I want to relentlessly tinker with sauce daily until I feel like I have some testers that I can shop out to my friends, but then I feel bad about pouring out perfectly good olive oil concoctions because there are too many and I don’t get to them. So we eat our way through the so-so and the pretty decent dressings and then I start again at a reasonable pace. I am trying to develop four in time for the summer farmer’s markets.

I’m feeling very grateful that I had all that experience in 2010 altering and experimenting with Victorian recipes. I was thinking that chapter of my life was something I would leave behind as a fun hobby and memory, but it really made me a better cook and a better recipe developer. I did not dream I would use those skills this soon–I thought I would be developing recipes for my b&b and some point in the way off, and I didn’t really have a concept about how I was going to go from working for random people in techworld to owning my own business. But I am really thrilled to have some practice at “opening” a small business now. The start-up costs should be pretty low and this is not a make-or-break operation, so this won’t ruin us if it fails. I will have to file for a license, so I am trying to think of a business name. Alas, I have ruled out ass-related ones. I will be very excited to fill you in on the details of this venture as I go this year.

Tonight after cleaning for seven (!) hours, I am going to treat myself to some sauv blanc and sleep in a bit tomorrow before my phone screen at 11 a.m. Happy new year.