Filed under Bright Ideas, Housekeeping - Maintenance, I'm a slob
Good Housekeeping
Since the heat index is creeping up, (115 today) – I’ve been working on choosing an area to if not make ‘wonderful,’ at least improve – by throwing away stuff, re-arranging what’s left and doing deeper cleaning.
Today’s choice was our dining area. We have a huge Lazy Susan in the center of our glass dining table. It was overflowing with meds we decided to try and then lost interest in, plus do-dads of all flavors, plus…. It was completely filled and the area AROUND the Lazy Susan was filling up, as well. We had SO much ‘stuff,’ it was making it harder to clean the table. I decided that today was the day on the dining area table and the top of the buffet next to it.
The next area to be tackled is what we call, “The Go-Out Table” where everything in the world (give or take a FEW things) go to live. (You can see it in the background of the upper picture of the dining area.) It’s a mess. I have studiously ignored it due to laziness and ‘other priorities,’ but it’s getting to the point things will start avalanching soon.
I’ll see if I can at least get started on that before I’m planning to mix Killzall and spray for more weeds around 5pm today. Wish me luck?
Filed under Housekeeping - Maintenance, I'm a slob
Amber is a very boisterous 3-year-old, 95-pound yellow lab. Her hair is short, but just as we are about to go into cooler weather, she is driving me nuts shedding hair! She is happy, healthy, and seems to shed an entire dog on a regular basis.
Yesterday is a typical example. I vacuumed our first floor, appalled at the huge amount of hair accumulated in the vacuum. I cleaned out the vacuum canister and then showed my husband – who had to be reminded that this wasn’t an accumulation over several times of vacuuming – I got it all with ONE session of vacuuming.
I then went up to tackle the second floor, starting in our bathroom and bed room. I have a smaller vacuum up there, but FILLED IT UP with the vacuuming of the two rooms!
I will finish the job today, with the guest room, guest bath, my art room, the 2nd floor hallway, and the stairs.
I am definitely not Suzy Homemaker, and I’m a slob, but I vacuum an average of twice a week and this accumulation seems over the top.
I am thinking of giving Amber a buzz cut. She has a coat we bought her for cold weather. She hates it, but that may be the price she has to pay for shedding whole dogs of hair cavalierly…
Filed under Housekeeping - Maintenance, I'm a slob
Stephanie Stamm
It’s quite dark outside right now. Our rain is supposed to finish sometime this afternoon. All our growing things have really gotten good, thorough drinks the past few days.
Since it’s not a good day to continue work in the garden, I’m switching to INSIDE things. Since I’m such a lousy housekeeper, there is a plethora of things from which to choose on things needing to be cleaned. :0/
I am planning to try to get up to my art room today to try to finish the bookmarks I started recently. I have more ideas rattling around in my head that I would like to start when I finish the current project and get things cleared off.
source unknown
I am happy to report that I lost another couple of pounds this morning! That gets me back to my 40 pounds off from my lardiest!
These sweet bears are from when I lost weight several years ago with Nutrisystem. As with the gold stars I put on my desk calendar for exercise, these were motivating. We stopped this program because they discontinued most of the food my husband liked. I’m happy to have re-earned the green bear…
So far I am very happy with our new eating regimen of having our main meal of the day a frozen entrée from REAL FOOD in Greenwood. Their food is delicious, and the portion is controlled. We are skipping breakfast and eating something light, such as tuna fish salad, for lunch and then MAYBE a careful snack mid to late afternoon, if we are hungry. The careful eating plus exercise (elliptical trainer and yoga stretches) seem to have me on track again, and for that I’m truly grateful. (We will pre-order for next week when they list the choices this afternoon. )
I hope that you are having a good day, full of love and free from stress.
Stay safe and well.
The combination of zipping into my art room, doing a project, and zipping out again, plus having other projects take priority, resulted in a mess in my art room.
I just got some new wooden earring blanks that I have ideas for, but decided that my art room deserved a good straightening up and cleaning before I started something new. As you can see, things are in a mess.
I spent quite a bit of time there this afternoon, and think I did enough good that I can begin the new earrings tomorrow with a clean conscious. –
Here are the AFTER pics –
Timeline Photos via Cindy Pasqualini
There is a bright, round shape in the sky lighting up everything around here today! It’s 34 right now and is supposed to get to 50. You can’t ask for much more for a day in February!
We are about to leave for Lunch Bunch, our every Friday celebration of friendship. Usually there is Linda, Kay, Kay’s husband, my husband, and me. Sometimes relatives of ours join us. Sometimes other friends. It’s good food and good conversation with hugs and laughs with caring friends.
After Lunch Bunch, my husband and I will go to Ft. Smith to leave another donation with the Veterans Thrift store. This time it’s a lot of clothes, shoes, and purses.
Today’s Project – scrubbing bathrooms. We have two full baths upstairs and two half baths downstairs. Since I’m a lousy housekeeper, they all need work.
I’ve been trying to get up to my art room, but time and energy run out before I can get there. When I get things a bit more caught up, my priorities will change.
I hope you have a glorious day today, too.
Filed under Friendship, Housekeeping - Maintenance, Thoughts on a ________
I cleaned out the aquarium again this morning. I think it’s averaging once a week for three fish. That seems excessive to me. I got a new filter yesterday and have installed that today. I’m hoping that this will do the trick. I kept the old one, though, because I’m thinking I may use BOTH of them. I may also get a second aerator…
Anyway, my fish seem happy and healthy. The smallest one is having some equilibrium problems, but seems to be doing well, otherwise. I read that this might be due to the fact that I was sprinkling their fish food onto the surface of the water. I have now started putting the food into a cup of their tank water, then pouring the water into the tank.
I have spoken to them about the article I read that said that goldfish were ‘particularly prolific poopers.’ They didn’t say much about my observations, though.
So I’ve decided to quit griping (are you smiling in relief now?) and just clean the tank, trying to find ways to keep my ‘prolific poopers’ as happy and healthy as possible.
Filed under Family, Housekeeping - Maintenance
So far today I cut up raw veggies and put them in containers in the fridge for lunches and snacks and cleaned out the aquarium. (I’ll show you pics in a few minutes.) THIS is today’s main project.
We use the shelves above my kitchen desk as a combination medicine cabinet for downstairs and a first aid station. We would like to be able to find meds quickly, since patience is not our long suit if we’re in pain, for example, or having something else for which we would like quick relief.
It has gotten to the point that if we try to take something off the shelf, something ELSE might come with it!
You can also see in the picture below that my desk has ‘disappeared.’
I will try to fix this today.
The one thing I’ve done in the past two days was this morning, when I got the fish tank cleaned out. The last glass beads I got worked better, but the color was too dark, so I got an assortment of blue, green, clear, and used some of the red.
The fish didn’t say anything, but they’ve been exploring the tank. One interesting difference is when they’re looking for any missed food on the bottom, the beads they’re disturbing TAP on the bottom of the tank, making an interesting clicking sound.
So, no one said anything except my husband, who pronounced the change ‘good.’ I feel better because I hate it when the water gets cloudy.
Filed under Family, Housekeeping - Maintenance
Bandit Tape Gun
Last year I did a major cleaning out of my clothes closet. Happily, we have a guest room now that has a walk-in closet, so I moved my spring and summer stuff in there. Today, I’m moving the winter things out and the spring things in.
If I get that accomplished, I’ll start going through to see what I’ll get rid of. I figure that if I do a major purge twice a year, that’s really good for me. Plus, I’ve decided that if I can really get serious about getting rid of things I know longer like, things that don’t fit, and things I never wear, I can then treat myself to some new things!
It’s raining in waves here, with no chance of even thinking of doing anything outside. I have a beef stew in the crock pot, so it’s the perfect time for this.
I’ll talk to you later!
Filed under Housekeeping - Maintenance, I'm a slob
“Wash on Monday,
Iron on Tuesday,
Bake on Wednesday,
Brew on Thursday,
Churn on Friday,
Mend on Saturday,
Go to meeting on Sunday.” ~ Nursery Rhyme
If I would actually try to adhere to the nursery rhyme above, maybe I would have to devote a whole day to each cleaning project – except that you notice there is no day for working in the yard, working in the garden, playing in the art room……
Today’s project wasn’t an all day project because we’re going bowling with good friends this evening.
My husband fixed me a nice counter top with shelves above as a planting station. What actually happens, though, is that it becomes a landing station for all manner of things, such as extra sugar free iced tea, beer, Pepsi Zero, A&W, wine, plus cat carriers, buckets….
We both contribute to the disaster here. My husband walks past it, saying, “It would be good if you’d clean up your area….” This suggestion generates a whole bunch of creative come-backs, usually thought, but rarely spoken, plus my choosing another area that needs my attention rather than this one.
This morning I decided ‘today is the day” to clean up my garage counter, if just a little bit.
True to form, my husband came into the garage just as I was beginning, suggesting I go help him with the mower. I smiled sweetly, telling him that I was cleaning up my garage counter, as he recently suggested. :0)
As you can see in the picture above, it was WAAAAAY past time to have cleaned this up. You can hardly tell there is a counter there.
This is after a bit of reorganizing, moving a few things out to the shop and cleaning. See – there IS a nice looking counter top there! My husband was pleased with my efforts, particularly since I made sure he could easily get to his drinks without moving a bunch of stuff.
I then went out to help him with the mower a bit.
So, big projects are done for the day. We can clean up and look forward to friends and bowling this evening!
Filed under Housekeeping - Maintenance, I'm a slob
products.geappliances.com
This is what our fridge looks like, except ours is black.
We bought it about 7 years ago, and have been really happy with it.
Lately, though, the gasket in the freezer at the bottom has become brittle on the sides, allowing air to get in and causing ice to form. We found a repairman who is ordering another gasket for us as soon as it arrives. Today, though, it was all iced up and desperately needed attention.
We got our styrofoam coolers down from the attic, spreading them out all over the kitchen. I emptied the freezer, tossing out things that were old or we don’t eat anymore. Then we defrosted the freezer that usually doesn’t have to be defrosted, using a hair dryer, a fan, and keeping the drawers open.
We just finished cleaning it all up a few minutes ago. I’m going to start returning things to the freezer in a bit.
While we were waiting, I cleaned out the rest of the fridge, finding FOUR jars of cherries. My husband tried to look blameless, but didn’t pull it off. :0) I know have the regular part of the fridge cleaned and rearranged.
It’s too bad that it takes something like the freezer filling up with ice in order for us to do a thorough cleaning. I think almost anything takes priority…
Filed under Acting Like a Grownup, I'm a slob
creativeartworksblog 