so i washed some venetian blinds today. definitely the one in the guest bedroom, and while i was at it, the 4 blinds from the living room. i removed them and put the whole lot in the bathtub with a hot bubble bath of dishwashing detergent. right away i realized my mistake: mixed together, it was hard to tell where one set of blind began and another ended. something else: if i thought soaking the blinds alone would remove the decade worth of dust, i would be mistaken. there'd be no way around it, each slat would need to be scrubbed with a sponge.
each blind is composed of about 75 slats and it took at least 15 minutes to clean a single blind. that's 15 minutes bent over a bathtub, fingers turning to prunes from the water, wiping off the dirt accumulation one slat at a time. after i finished cleaning one, i'd stand it up vertically on its ends in the sink to let the water drain out. after a while i turn it over on its other end, just to be sure there's no more water.
soaking in detergent isn't necessary, and for me it was better to simply use water since i wouldn't need to rinse off the soap after i was done cleaning. the water was very dirty initially, so i drained it a few times. at some point one of the valance clips must've came off and probably went down the drain. fortunately that one remaining clip was enough.
the final drying was done with the blind re-installed back onto the windows. this allowed me to separate some of the wet slats that were stuck together and to more easily wipe dry any wet spots.
besides the guest bedroom blind and the ones from the living room, i also washed one of the blinds from my bedroom, one that was easily dirty (that one actually had mildew growing on some of the slats).
from a distance i can't tell that the blinds have been cleaned. but up close, they look as good as new. when i get the chance, i'll clean the 2 remaining blinds in my bedroom and the 2 from the kitchen. then i can wait another 10 years before cleaning them again!
it took me almost the whole day to wash 6 blinds, punctuated with a lunch break. i felt pressure to get them cleaned because it was getting dark and i needed to have the blinds up. i winded down with some more skyrim.
i noticed in whiterun that all the guards seem to know me. at first i thought maybe because they heard that i was the dragonborn, but when i specifically asked one of the guards about it, the real reason was because there was a bounty on my head for some unknown crime. i could either persuade the guard to let me go, pay the bounty, bribe the guard, resist arrest, or go to jail. paying the bounty meant i wouldn't be a wanted criminal anymore, but i'd also lose any stolen goods i happen to be carrying. so i decided to strip down in my own house and approach a guard to pay off the bounty. that seemed to work but took a long time to unload all the stuff i've accumulated.
from whiterun i went to riverwood, and from riverwood i cut through the mountains to reach ivarstead. there doesn't seem to be an easy way and i had to go by helgen. along the way i passed by fort neugrad and got a chance to practice my flaming arrows. nothing more satisfying than setting a bandit on fire! i then came across haemar's shame, a cave housing several vampires. nearing ivarstead i found a horse on the road. for some reason i couldn't ride it unless i stole it first, so that's what i did. i tried giving my housecarl a ride too but the horse was only for a single person, so the housecarl just ran behind as i galloped.
arriving in ivarstead, i realized there was a bounty on my head - most likely for stealing that horse. the first building i entered was a tavern, and i immediately started a drinking contest with one of the patrons. the result was i blacked out and found myself shanghaied to markarth, all the way on the western edge of skyrim. fortunately a carriage ride back to whiterun was only 20 gold. unfortunately there's no carriage to iverstead, so i have to walk around the mountain again if i want to go there.
for dinner i cooked half a cup of basmati in the rice cooker and finished the rest of my indian curry from last week.
i'll need to wipe down the kitchen and bathroom one last time and the house should be ready for my new roommate arriving tomorrow (saturday) night.