Tawra Kellam at the Living on a Dime site is offering FREE downloads of her ebook, Valentine’s Day on a Dime. When you go to the link, right click on the DOWNLOAD link and then choose “open link in a new tab” if you’re on a PC. Mac users are on their own, sorry.
I’m a big fan of her cookbook, Dining on a Dime. Way more than just recipes–there are all kinds of great food tips and other homemaking ideas.
Don’t miss today’s free download!
I spent about 5 hours today working eliminating a giant pile of clutter from my dining room. It was SO worth it.
This stuff has been sitting here since February, when the role of minister of my SFO fraternity was thrust upon me. The out-going minister handed along a File Box O’Stuff.
Then the parish merged with another parish and we had to clean out a file cabinet in the rectory basement. Guess where that stuff went?
Yup. My dining room.
Much of this stuff is stuff that the minister needs to keep at hand. But it was really getting in the way, especially since I need to start getting cleaned up so the Christmas decorations can come out to play. Plus, the cloth file box stacked underneath a cardboard file box next to a tote bag was SO attractive in my dining room.
So I cleared the dining room table and immediately covered it with the contents of those boxes and the tote bag. Then I found a small file box (that fits under one of my living-room side tables so it’s covered by the tablecloth) and got down to business.
Five hours, one bag of recycled paper and a trip to the Parish Center later (to drop off some books for the fraternity library) I was all done. Everything important is filed in the box. Meeting minutes are in the proper places in the proper binders. I found papers in there from the days when the fraternities were bound to Friar Provinces rather than Regions. I kept one copy of everything but tossed most duplicates (like we needed 24 “programs” from a Mass celebrated in 1984….) Things are now filed and portable–so when elections roll around this summer I can easily pass this stuff off to the next minister!
I’ve still got a couple of tote bags out, but they’re neat. One for choir, one for SFO and one for SFO music and Greccio scripts. They are all lined up next to my guitar. Not bad for a day’s work, and the backache is worth it.
It’s nice that two of my kids are of Dishwashing Age, but sometimes it’s just easier to do it myself.
Especially when I hear things like this from the child in the kitchen:
“I get an Apple Puff for this.” 
My answer: “Why? This is your Regularly Scheduled Daily Chore!”
Child in Kitchen: “I know. I just want an Apple Puff….Hey, COOL! If you put a cup upside down in the sink and run water right on it, it looks just like fireworks.”
There had better not be more mess in the kitchen after the dishes are done than before they were started.
…in my (car) trunk!
Yes, I cleaned out the car today. I was given a few reusable shopping bags at school when I volunteered in the library this morning, and I figured that instead of carrying empty bags into the house, I’d fill them up with what had been left in the van.
No wonder Little Brother couldn’t find his jacket this morning! I found his fall jacket, a windbreaker, and 2 sweatshirts (one hoodie, one regular) in the van. (Never fear, I sent him to school wearing a half-zip fleece, so he was warm enough!)
I also found 2 flashlights, 2 rain ponchos, a key I’d been missing, 2 books, and 4 DVDs.
I threw out a grocery bag full of trash and then even dragged out the shop-vac to get the popcorn kernels (who ate popcorn in the car? Must have been sometime when TheDad took them somewhere…)
And when the kids get home in 10 minutes I will issue the inevitable warning against eating in my van, leaving stuff in my van, and generally trashing my van.
But I know perfectly well that by Saturday I’ll need to clean it again.
It’s been a busy day in Housecleaning World. I took down the curtains in the living room, dining room and kitchen, and washed them along with the tablecloths from the living-room side tables. Then I washed windows in the living room and kitchen, and ironed curtains for the kitchen as well as the tablecloths (heavy starch on those, thankyouverymuch). I scrubbed the screens for the living-room windows–a bank of 4 windows 6 feet tall and 30 inches wide.
I started dough for Danielle’s beer rolls. I hosted a birthday party for Adventure Boy and was thankful for my neighbor, who made the delicious cake.
And THEN I ran out of gas.
The dining-room windows are still not washed, and the living-room windows are clean but naked. Now there’s a big, giant spider with striped legs busy building a web outside one of the dining-room windows, so it looks like my window of opportunity for washing those without the interference of local wildlife has passed.
I didn’t want to cook dinner, but I put on my apron and got things started. I was thankful for my rice cooker, and even more thankful when Middle Sister came into the kitchen, saw that I was all set up to make Chicken Piccata, and said, “I’ll cook!”
One thing I really don’t enjoy is coming downstairs in the morning to find a trashed kitchen.
But today I didn’t mind it TOO much.
There were glasses and ice-cream bowls scattered around, since Big Brother had some friends stay overnight last night. There was a skillet and a pancake griddle, from TheDad’s and Little Brother’s breakfast. I could tell Little Brother had eaten pancakes, since the sprinkles were on the counter (and a few on the griddle). Little Brother likes colorful pancakes.
A Star Wars starfighter with C3-PO at the helm was parked next to my coffeepot. (No, Little Brother didn’t do that. Apparently one of Big Brother’s friends is a big Star Wars fan).
Then Middle Sister decided to make hash browns while I worked on waffles for the visiting teenagers, who were just starting to wake up.
The kitchen is a wreck. But everyone has had a good breakfast and is now enjoying a good laugh. I can live with that.
I found the Bunny Tongs that I put in a very safe place last spring, just before Easter last year, and couldn’t find when it was time to dye the eggs.
With over 6 months to go until next Easter, I took no chances. I put the Bunny Tongs into the big old pretzel tub where I keep the plastic Easter eggs.
Should I mention what I was doing when I found the tongs? I was hiding the Halloween candy! So I’m not going to say where they were, or there will be no candy left for the trick-or-treaters.
OK, it’s not much. But I’m happy with it.
This morning I made a “Stuff-Mart” run to pick up some over-the-counter medicines, TheDad’s “Chick Coffee” (this chick won’t touch that stuff, but he loves it, so I graciously buy it for him, even though the checkout lady probably thinks I’m the one addicted to it…) and a new mop head.
I hate changing mop heads. Ewwwww.
Anyway, when I was rummaging around in the mops I found this really cool Libman Scrub-Brush-On-A-Stick. Let me be the first to say that this thing is a GENIUS idea. My kitchen floor (which is white–somebody smack me if I ever choose that color for a floor again) was bordering on the disgusting, so I knew that this scrubber was for me. Definitely worth $6.
So I took my new Scrub-Brush-On-A-Stick and a bucket of Lestoil and got to scrubbing. Then I took my old mop and another bucket of water so I could rinse as I go. I scrubbed and scrubbed. Scrubbing is a really good workout, I might add.
If Lestoil didn’t smell so strong, it wouldn’t work so good. (Can you sing that commercial jingle, too?) Well, it sure does smell; I’m glad the windows are open–but my floor is so clean. So shiny.
They are guaranteed to stay that way at least one more hour, until the school bus gets here. All bets are off after that.
So I think I have earned the opportunity to make myself a nice cup of coffee and put my feet up and read until that school bus arrives. And then I will greet everyone and force them to admire my nice shiny clean floor.
And then I won’t let anyone in the kitchen, so no one can spill. Yeah, that’ll work…
Every mom has an unwritten list of stuff she doesn’t “do” and I am no exception.
Danielle and Aimee have crossed over to the other side graciously written out their lists so every other mom will feel that she is not alone.
So…I will hereby demonstrate just how much of a Slacker Mom I really am.
I don’t do window screens. I can’t figure out how to get them out of the windows, which I admit I don’t wash too frequently either.
I don’t clean things that are higher than my head. I’m 5’2″. A lot of things are higher than my head. I just chuck stuff up there and pretend it’s invisible.
I don’t do “outside.” Inside the house is generally my domain.
I don’t do insects. That’s what TheDad is for; if he’s not around, I can generally count on Adventure Boy!
I don’t dust if I can at all help it. Lucky for me, Middle Sister likes to dust. When I was growing up, my sister had very bad asthma, and it seems like Mom was ALWAYS making me dust. I figure I’ve done enough dusting for one lifetime.
I don’t vacuum behind furniture, except in the family room. If we ever move, I shudder to think of the size of the dust bunnies that must be living back there.
(I do iron, though. But not the kids’ uniforms, once I discovered what they do with them in between the time I iron the clothes and the kids put them on.)
One of the things my kids learned on the cruise was that they do not have to clean up after themselves.
Little Brother was shocked, one morning, to find a plate with toast crusts on one of the staircases. He told me that he would never do anything like that. (Now, that is definitely crossing the line, people. Find a table to put your stuff down!)
Since returning home they seem to have applied the lesson of Someone Else Cleans Up All Messes to our home.
Wrong, bunny breath!
I came downstairs this morning to find a bowl with some lettuce and salad dressing on Little Brother’s “art table” in the family room, and an awful lot of stuff all over the place in there: light sabres, Wii games and controllers, pillows, matchbox cars, marbles and batteries (dead or alive? Someone else gets to test them to find out).
They’re all lucky I didn’t get them out of bed right then and there to pick up this mess.
In the living room I found my paint pens on the coffee table. Middle Sister had borrowed them to embellish her notebooks. I told her that when she was done, she should leave them on my desk. It’s 3 feet from the coffee table, by the way…
The remote for the family-room TV was in the kitchen.
There are going to be some busy children in my house today. I imagine there’s going to be some yelling, and since it’s nice weather, my windows are open.
So I apologize in advance to my neighbors, and even to SFO Girl and Ellen, for what you may hear today. But I’ve had enough of the toast on the stairs.