summer is over - go vacuum your ceiling fan blades

it's all piling up

I hate when the house is at this point - everywhere I look there is a little something out of place. It's on the verge of getting out of control. I'm just posting this because right now I am going to go get it tamed. I just wanted to put this here so I have to post later and say I did it.

It's time to get re-organized

The start of a new school year - time to organize and get back into routines. The number one routine that gives almost instant gratification is making menus. So this afternoon I sat down with my crock pot cookbook (because I still don't have ovens) and came up with 7 recipes that sounded pretty good. Then I made a list of the ingredients (minus very obvious things like salt, pepper, olive oil, etc), checked off what I have and went to the store. I'm pleased to say that I got everything except the pork chops at Aldi. All the ingredients I didn't have, plus basic cheeses and salsa I like to have on hand, plus stuff for lunches and snacks, plus a treat for Doug and I for tomorrow, for $140.

Sounds like a lot of chicken recipes, but I probably won't cook every night so this will cover a week and a half. And my kids don't appreciate much variety in side dishes, so they are repeated too.

Here are the menus:

1 Minestrone Soup (for Monday when my vegetarian friends are over)
2 Raspberry Glazed Meatball over Egg Noodles
3 Pecan & Apple Stuffed Pork Chops
4 Chicken Mozambique
5 Chicken & Stuffing Casserole
6 Classic beef & Noodles
7 Cheesy broccoli Casserole

Ingredient List

Minestrone:
red potatoes
carrots
beef broth
diced tomatoes
green cabbage
zucchini
onion
green beans
celery

Meatballs:
prepared turkey meatballs
raspberry preserves
fresh ginger
egg noodles

Stuffed Pork Chops:
thick pork loin chops
green apple
onion
white bread
pecans
butter
apple juice

Chicken Mozambique:
boneless chicken 2.5 pounds
white wine
butter
onion
lemon juice
rice

Chicken w/ Stuffing:
chicken breast
butter
cream of mushroom soup (2 cans)
stuffing mix

Classic beef:
beef stew meat (2 pound)
fresh mushrooms
onion
beef broth
sherry
sour cream
egg noodles

Cheesy broccoli:
frozen chopped broccoli (2 pkg)
cream of celery soup
shredded cheddar cheese
saltines or potato chip crumbs
chopped cooked chicken

2 insights

1. It's not hard to keep the house clean, it just takes a lot of decision making. Every time I see a pile of stuff sitting inside the front door or on a flat surface, it's because it's something that requires a decision - do I need to keep this, should I follow up on this, where should I put it, etc. etc. etc. I just need to deal with the fact that it's up to me. It makes me chuckle when grownups say "I don't know" to choices - as if decisions will magically happen and then fill you in on the details. Actually, that IS what happens at my house, I just happen to make the magic myself..ha ha.

2. I am going to have to keep better track of my spending. I want to know where the money goes. I just got home from grocery shopping. I'm going to keep my receipt out and cross off the stuff as I use it. This should tell me a few things: Do I really use everything I buy? Am I stocking up on ingredients for recipes and then not making them? How much food am I wasting?

breakfast

It's a little weird to live with someone on nightwork when you aren't working. Each day floats past at a different rhythm, depending on the mood of the sleeper. Hungry, tired, wired, bored.

I get up at 5:45 (thanks alarm brain) and get Ed up and out, then Dave, then bill gets home. We do whatever we're going to do that day, then I lay down with him to try to get him to sleep. He is not a good sleeper. I, on the other hand, am an EXCELLENT sleeper. Put me in the dark snuggled under the covers and I zonk out, sometimes before him. Now, when I've had a regular night's sleep and it's 12:30 when we go to bed, I fall into a nice 20 min nap, but when I've stayed up late a couple nights and still get up early, I can sleep for 2 hrs! Talk about disorienting!

Today happened to be a hungry and happy day, so I sent him out to get steaks for the grill. Remember, this is dinner for him, and I am eating low carb. While he was out I searched the internet for a good steak topping recipe and came up with Paula Dean's bourbon mushroom sauce. YUM YUM

Looking back at the recipe, I actually forgot to add the cream and it was yummy anyway. Saute onions and mushrooms in a little butter. When the mushrooms reabsorb their liquids, sprinkle with a small amount of flour and stir well. add 1/2 c. bourbon and 1/2 c beef broth, stir til thickened and reduced in half, then add 2 T cream (which I forgot). S & P to taste.

2 things

Number One: I have started a Cleaning Calendar in Google calendars. One thing about not having a set schedule is that it seems like the work is never-ending. Housework sucks because you have to do the same things over and over. It seems like I JUST cleaned something and now it needs doing again (needs done...tee hee). but guess what? I THINK I clean something more than I really clean it. So for now I'm using the CC as more of a Cleaning Journal. Keeping track of what I do each day. Eventually I might schedule things to tackle on specific days, but right now it's more of a TA-DA list and a reality check.

Number Two: I am culling cookbooks and deciding what to put back into the kitchen. These have been sitting in a ox for 2 months, and some up in a hard to reach cabinet for a LOT longer than that. I went through a couple church/girl scout/fundraiser cookbooks and only saved the pages with recipes I think sound good. Also came up with 5 recipes to make during the next week or two and added their ingredients to my shopping list. Now off to the store. It's almost pathetic how good it feels to do this!

I'm a barkeeper

I must be a barkeeper, because barkeepers Friend is my new good friend.

I have been having a lot of trouble getting the discolored areas out of the tubs from our iron filled well water. I have tried disinfectant wipes (ha - only in my dreams would something so easy actually work!) and Soft Scrub (a little better but not very effective), a lot of elbow grease with a scrub brush and SS (wore out the scrub brush and got rid of the worst of the stains). Still, not the sparkling clean tubs that were here when we moved in. Either the people before us didn't shower, or SHE knew a trick I didn't.

So, drawing on my experience working at a library and covering in the reference department, I did what works best - start asking people who know. Well, actually, I only ended up asking Chris because as it turns out, she had the answer that led me to my answer - "Comet". OK, a step more aggressive from SS. A little scary on fiberglass, but with the attitude I learned from my sister (If it's already ruined, you might as well try something radical - practical experience from when she melted a plastic spoon onto a electric coil stove burner) I went to my cleaning supplies and grabbed the Comet. Only it turns out it wasn't Comet, it was barkeeper's Friend, a cleaner I got a couple years ago to clean my glass top range.

Enter the magic....

I used this stuff with a damp scrub brush and a wet tub and the stains came out. Even more impressive - the stained nickel drain plugs came clean. SS had never even touched those and I had written them off as stained for good. AND it took the yellow tinge out of the porcelain bathroom sink and the yellow off that metal drain.

When something looks dirty it feels dirty, no matter how much you've scoured it. So it was a happy ending. And calling myself a barkeeper sounds a lot cooler than saying I finally got my grubby tubs clean.