Success, Failure and Origami

Sundays are a day off for both DH and I. I usually sleep in, shower, make breakfast and then we each settle in to our chosen task of the day. Yesterday's task was cleaning - we've been trying to get some housecleaning done each Sunday. DH pulled apart the headboard and drawers in the upstairs bedroom to spray for ants - yes, we're still having a ant problem *sigh*. I decided that the downstairs shower needed a serious scrub, so tackled that. We were both successful - in a way,

Since I'm discussing Origami later in this blog, I
decided to illustrate with origami forms. Here's
the standard crane. DH can fold one, but I'm
absolutely hopeless at it and have never made
a successful crane. 

The shower walls and glass door scrubbed clean beautifully, but when it came to the sill there was a problem. There's a section of the sill that has always been weak - it has fallen apart many times in fact. The latest grout had disintegrated a few years ago, leaving open the back side of a few small tiles. They chose yesterday to fall off the sill completely. DH will reglue and grout them into place later this week, but that means a week of showers in the upstairs bathtub for him. I'm relieved that I use the showers at the gym every day anyway, so I won't be affected until next Sunday, if at all.

A step up from the crane is the dragon. I couldn't
resist putting him here because he's ... he's
a dragon and it's well documented that
I adore dragons. 

DH's clean in the corner of the bedroom was pretty thorough. He pulled out drawers and moved the headboard's end unit completely out to allow access for vacuuming and spraying ant spray where he thinks they are travelling up from the ground level. After replacing the furniture and drawers, and airing the room out for a while, he declared himself satisfied and we continued with the remainder of the afternoon.

I am totally in love with this origami mastodon (or is it
a mammoth)? Either way, he's really quite beautiful. 

BUT last night while watching TV, an ant crawled up onto the wall on his side, near where he had just cleaned a few hours before. He was NOT happy. From the sounds after I went to bed, there were at least two more ants that ventured out to meet their death by his hand. So, in essence, our cleaning was only somewhat successful - we still have an ant problem and we have to reset and regrout some tiles in the bathroom shower. Great intentions did not, in this case, lead to great results.

The moose is by Robert J Lang, an acknowledged master of
origami. He used a single piece of paper and folded this in
2002. It stands six inches tall. Those horns are outstanding! 

I hope your weekend was a bit more successful. I know that these were only minor setbacks, but they certainly came under the heading of "frustrating"! On a positive note, we watched a rebroadcast of Nova last night about Origami (thanks for the recommendation, Shirebound!). It was excellent, so I decided to illustrate today's blog with origami forms. I'm rather hopeless at origami, fortunately I have other skills - LOL. It's Monday, so have yourself a good start to the week.