While Leland was away in Puerto Rico a few weeks ago, I did a lot of house cleaning. For those of you who don’t know, I HATE cleaning and am allergic to the vacuum. But for some reason I was bitten by the spring cleaning bug. Every day after work I came home and cleaned.
We have a bowl in our kitchen that has every single chore written on a tiny piece of paper. All pieces of paper are folded up and placed in the bowl. Whenever we have to/want to do chores, we pull a piece of paper from the bowl and it tells us what to do. They are all small, easy projects like dust the piano or wash the bathroom mirror. Every day while Leland was gone, I pulled 7 chores out of the bowl. I ended up doing laundry, dusting the shelves in the office, cleaning the toilet…and I could go on and on.
Everything was going great until I pulled dust death shrine out of the bowl.
Leland and I live in an old house. The house has one narrow hallway on the main floor, and in that hallway is a little shelf that many people used to keep their telephones on. Since we don’t have a home phone, the shelf sat empty for many months. We just couldn’t decide what to put there.
Until Leland was unpacking some boxes and found a raccoon skull that he had been saving.
The raccoon skull was placed on the shelf, and soon it was accompanied by an otter skull and a bird skull. The death shrine was officially born. Now the death shrine holds those 3 skulls, along with two dragonflies and two cicadas. Whenever we have new people over to our house, Leland always makes sure to point out the death shrine.
Anycreepy, though I have walked past the death shrine a million times, I have never touched it. I am totally cool with the otter skull and raccoon skull, because they have both been bleached and clean. The bird skull, however, still has a feather attached to it. And though I am not afraid of bugs and have gotten over my fear of spiders, I still don’t want to touch the bugs.
No thank you.
But the chore jar gods wanted me to clean it, so I cleaned it. Touching the dead bugs and little tiny birdie skull definitely gave me a case of the hebee jebees. Because the bugs were so fragile, I had to pick them up by their heads and I was able to feel their eyeballs.
Several minutes of squirming and squealing later, the death shrine was back in order and I declared myself done with chores for the day.
When I sat on the couch with a glass of wine, I felt lucky that the squirrel head was still in the freezer.
Yes.
There is a squirrel head in my freezer.
I’ll tell you about that later.
43 comments:
Dust Death Shrine ... hey we're having a new washer and dryer delivered today- I can only imagine what's hidden behind and underneath the current ones- I think I will leave when they get here!
That is hilarious! We have a clean house for the most part, but with two kids it is always messy and we both hate cleaning. I am surprised I haven't found anything creepy in my son's room. He gets into some very interesting things. He is only 8 though right now so I am afraid of what is to come! Oh and if you ever decide to have kids they are great slaves..I mean helpers!
How cool is it that you have a chore bowl.....and a death shrine?
Though the bugs...yeah the bugs would be thrown in the garbage shrine at my place.
slightly different and a lot less creepy, my dad has a whole wardrobe filled with old tools.its his tool graveyard. even if they don't work, he has some form of attachment to them. even if they are hidden in the bottom of the wardrobe, where noone in the houseeven goes near, especially him, they are still there.
although if someone tried to get rid of them, he'd go crazy and overprotective.
haha, i happen to love cleaning. there's nothing more satisfying. well there probably is but oh well.
that's the worst thing about living with little kids atm, they are SO messy, SO unclean. drives me insane :p
ick, ick, ick. I couldn't do it! Plain and simple!
What an awesome post! I love your idea of the chore bowl - and you are super brave to have cleaned out the death shrine. Yay you! :o)
I'll clean the death shrine over the toilets anyway. Gah, I hate scrubbing toilets! I hate cleaning too. I'll cook and bake away, do laundry, do dishes but vacuuming, mopping, dusting and wiping down things are soooo annoying! Good for you in your seven chores a day. Maybe I should try something like that! It's like of like a chore lottery -- what will I win today? Oh, cleaning the cat's litter box -- Jackpot!!! Hahahah.
Lmao...death shrine! My ex used to keep a rabbit's "skin" (whatever you call it) in our freezer to train his dogs with! He'd come home from work every day and tie the damn thing to a string and then run through our yard with it and make the dogs chase him...that "skin" would thaw out and he'd refreeze it every day...it was disgusting!
The old owners left an indoor tree at the house. I went to clean out all the dead leaves from around the base, and there was a driad out puffer fish the size of a softball laying there! Talk about WEIRD...
And you may have the squirel head, but my brother likes to leave the skinned bodies in ziploc bags in the freezer until he gets around to cooking them up... This really freaked out a few of my girlfriends when I still lived at home!
Way to go on tackeling the death shrine, now you won't have to touch it again until next year!
Naturally Leland was unpacking and came across a raccoon skull :D you guys crack me up; who else would get the opportunity to write about uncovering the raccoon skull he was saving as it being just another ordinary happening. The way I vacuum those cicadas would have been in the canister months ago along with everything else that gets sucked up as I try to use the vacuum to dust everything.
LMAO!
:) I wonder if somewhere the spirit of the deceased raccoon is wondering where its head has gone - or does it know and is it flattered that someone has made a shrine of it?
And how would one ever find out... I mean this isn't something you can "google up".
My chore jar is my mind and I'm the only one who ever draws from it. LOL!
I've been slowly eliminating things I have to dust. I'm tired of dusting.
Yay for you! You did it! I woudn't have. LOL!
Leland owes you.
I loathe vacuuming the most I think. A chore bowl, what a great idea! Not for me because I'd just keep putting them back in the jar-lol.
ughhhh i dont know how you did it!!! I love cleaning but think it would take me hours and tongs to clean that shelf! lol I like the idea of the chore bowl though!
wait. WHAT?! hahaha.
OK, you lost me at "I was able to feel their eyeballs". I gagged. Then I frowned through the rest of the post to show my disgust.
Good for you though, I would have put the peice of paper back in the bowl and whistled and looked around to make sure no one saw me. Sure you were home alone, but those skulls are probably keeping watch and reporting back to Leland.
That is way too many heads for me. I'll allow a lot of things in my house, but I'm not too sure about a death shrine of skulls. Ick.
My mom has one of those family tree things that holds miniature photo frames - and as the years have passed she's put several deceased family members in there (deceased pets too). I call it her death tree and I don't allow her to put my picture anywhere near it. I don't need the omen thankyouverymuch.
the chore bowl is a great idea..especially if you put candy in there with them..
what did you do with the squirel meat?
I hate chores too, what a good idea to have a chore bowl, only problem is I'd be the only one picking them out. Think I'll stick to my way of doing them, do them when I feel like it!
I hate dusting as it is a thankless task, turn around and it's back again!
I could not have cleaned the death shrine! Yuck, wouldn't want to touch any of those skulls!!! I'm a wimp.
My brother used to keep a dead iguana in his freezer. I think I would have just thrown that slip of paper back in the bowl. Or into the trash. ;)
Oh no! That is too funny, and somewhat weird about the death shrine. Plus, my post today is about how much I don't like raccoons, etc.
I love your idea of the chore bowl but the death shrine and feeling the eyeballs....sick!!!!
Oh GROSS!!! You are braver than I am.... there's no WAY I could have touched any of that stuff, even the clean dead-animal-body-parts!
~Elizabeth
yucky, but oh so funny. The chore bowl is an awesome idea.
That's a good idea...the only problem is, I NEVER feel like doing chores!
I actually like the idea of the chore bowl..or sex bowl or perhaps a mixture of the two so you never know what you'll pull out.
In other words, I will do anything to try and avoid not cleaning or picking up bugs.
ewwwwwww, i would have just thrown the chore back in an waited for him to pull it! touching skulls is for boys to do!
and is it weird that i thought "dusting bones" was going to be some weird sexual euphemism?
Can't. Stop. Shuddering. !!!!!
(A) Picture, please?
(B) Sweetie, I think you are PRIME candidate for "The Marriage Ref". Let Jerry decide if the Death Shrine stays or goes. I can't speak to your odds of winning, however, since observing that one wife got to keep her giant iguana...in the house...like a dog. She dressed it up in little home-made costumes. Anyway...it's a thought.
Wow a deathshrine! Wow! I agree with MiMi Leland does owe you...big!
Thanks for stopping by today :)
Omg the death shrine gave me heebee jeebies & I cant even see it! lol!!
Good job on getting the house clean.. can you pass the spring cleaning bug to me? HAHA
Loving this post, girl! So glad you stopped by my place so I could visit/discover you.
;-)
Love your chore bowl idea. I think I need to make one for us. Only somehow I envision myself being the only one to ever pull chores out of the bowl. No fun!
This is a godd one, made me smile!
A squirrel head in the freezer...cannot wait to hear that one! I have a bunch of owl pellets and they kind of give me the creeps, so god for you for cleaning those. I do really like the chore bowl...good idea.
hmmmm.
i have a touch of OCD and i'm trying to decide which would trump which in this situation...would my need to clean the death shrine be greater than my easily skeeved-out-ness?
my friend's neighbor used to have a goat skull as a door stop. but that's neither here nor there.
i really, really like the chore bowl idea.
Death shrine? Girl, you are wacky!
I don't like cleaning, I get people to do it for me. Then I do the 'I am a job provider dance', it makes me feel better and calm the guilty attacks.
I love the idea of a chore bowl! I hate cleaning too and am always looking for ways to creat some sort of a system to getting it all done without a crazy long list that will overwhelm me.
I can't believe that you even tackled the death shrine! In my mind the hallway is this dark and spooky area and the shelf just looms hanging out far enough that you actually have to walk around it! lol. I think my imagination got the best of me when you mentioned it was a death shrine!
And a squirrel head in your freezer? Like an actual head fur and all? Or just the skull? I don't know how you handle that!
oK - the death shrine actually doesnt sound so bad... But the head in the freezer?? EWWWWW! LOL
a squirrel head in the freezer? This I need to hear about... We kept a frozen piranha in our deep freeze for many years until the freezer died. The piranha thawed out and we pitched it. My hubby wanted to have it stuffed and hung like a trophy.
Your husband is a very lucky man! I could not live with skulls in my house. Seen too many dateline episodes and have acquired waayyy to much of a morbid imagination!
I am a bit of a clean freak but there could be 3 inches of dust on them bugs and no way in hell I'd touch it - Bravo to you!
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