We had our oven cleaned today. Things had got so bad I decided it was time to bring in a professional oven cleaner. Yep, it’s sad but true. The poor guy must have wondered what he’d signed up for. I showed him the smaller top oven first which we rarely use and was therefore not all that dirty, then I gave him a quick flash of the main oven and asked him if he would like a cup of tea. My distraction tactics must have worked because he didn’t run away, put off by the challenge of cleaning the main oven.
In a roundabout way, this reminds me of the annual exercise I go through about now where I clear out and tidy my to-do list as we approach the end of the year. There are always a few things lingering on the list, rather like grease in a dirty oven, and they need attending to. It’s time to move them on to the new list for the forthcoming year or assign them to the waste bin.
This can be a major exercise as I often find myself wanting to roll over tasks I know have gone past their use by date. It also reminds me, again, that I am always too optimistic about how much I will achieve during the course of a year. So much to do, so little time to do it!
But just like the oven cleaning man, I have cleaned and polished with much gusto and I now have a much reduced list of outstanding tasks to add to my plans for 2024. I feel much the better for it.
Anyway, our ovens are lovely and shiny now, almost like new, and I promised the oven cleaning guy that I would invite him back next year, before the ovens get excessively dirty again. Was that look on his face as he left one that suggested he was looking forward to some follow-up business or did it belong to a man who has no intention of coming back next year? I guess only time will tell.
Image by StockSnap on Pixabay
