One Door, One Mess

Just because you have two or three or more entrances into your home doesn’t mean you have to use them. The more entrances you use, the more time you will spend cleaning up the dirt that gets tracked in through them. We have three doors into our home but we only use one on a daily basis. The others stay locked. The front door only gets opened for company and the UPS man. The back patio door doesn’t get used by anyone. In fact it has a couch in front of it right now.

We all go in and out of the garage door. That door is spring loaded so it’s the only door that gets shut. I’m going to put those spring hinges on all our outside doors at the farm. They are so nice. If you have kids you should install them on your doors too. It’s cheap and easy to do but there is a down side. My friends can’t figure out why my kids always leave their doors wide open when we visit. I have to apologize and say it’s because their Mother never taught them to shut a door.

Our new home has a front door and a garage door that both open up to the same mud room. Why do we need a formal entrance when we’re not trying to impress anyone and I would much rather have a functional room to store coats and boots. Not to mention one mess!

Get To Bed

I have decided that my goal for the month is to go to bed at night when I’m tired. This is a difficult thing for a lot of us to do. We get involved with something and then it’s hard to stop what we’re doing and go to bed. We don’t care that we’ll be tired in the morning. I think this goes along with Intuitive Eating. You feed your body when it’s hungry, and you sleep when your body is tired. If we start doing this we will be healthier, happier and enjoy all the benefits that go along with taking care of ourselves.

The thing that helps me get to bed earlier is getting ready for bed when my kids do. Usually I tell myself that I’m going to bed at 10:30. Then at 10:30 I stop what I’m doing and start getting ready for bed. For some reason I always underestimate who long it is going to take to get ready to go to bed. I have to dress, wash my face, brush and floss my teeth but oh ya, I need to put some clothes in the dryer and then if I empty the dishwasher now I won’t have to do it in the morning, etc., etc. I’m lucky to be in bed an hour later and sometimes I’m up till midnight!

If I’m really on top of things then we all get ready for bed, we read and I tuck the kids in by 9:00. Then I can see to any last minute details, read in bed for a while and still go to sleep by 10:30. My goal is to do this every night until it becomes a habit.

Organize Your Pantry

I did some organizing in my pantry today. When I have anything in the kitchen that comes in a box, I throw the box away and use a clothes pin to close the bag. Well, we don’t go through bags of chips very quickly so they are always going stale. Today I transferred the chips, cereal, pasta, beans, tea bags, etc. into gallon sized re-seal able plastic bags, hoping they will stay fresh longer. The bags will be easier than using a clothes pin that can fall off, allowing the contents to get dumped in the bottom of the snack drawer. I just wash the bag when it’s empty and use it for something else. Do you know the fastest way to get a baggie dry after you’ve washed it? Fill it with a dry dish towel and before the next meal, it will be dry enough to store.

Updated - This has worked wonderfully for us. There is no more mess and snacks stay fresh forever!

More Kitchen Organizing

Baggies
Baking
Baking II
Cereal
Dishwasher
Dishwashing
Fridge, Vacuum, and Garbage Cans
Grocery Shopping
Pantry
Pantry II
Picnics
Recipes
Scrub Brush

Little Quilts For Little Girls

I got my last unquilted quilt out last night and finished it. It was easy since I already had the machine out and I had a feel for the quilting. Machine quilting can be tricky because you have to move the quilt very smoothly and keep a steady pace on the pedal at the same time. That’s why I have to practice before I can do a quilt.

This quilt started out as a baby quilt for Love but it was too small so it turned into Kate's Birthday quilt. I make her a doll quilt every year for her birthday. She doesn't care at all about them but I do. Now I get to make doll quilts for my two girls and my boy since Grey informed me he wants quilts too. Their birthdays are December, January and February so I'd better get started now!

How Do You Quilt A Quilt?

Tonight I finished a little doll quilt that I made for one of Kate’s friends. I love to quilt but I have decided that life is too short to make big quilts that require hundreds of hours and possibly many years to finish. From now on I am sticking with baby sized quilts or smaller. Doll quilts are my specialty!

I was able to cut out and sew this quilt all in one morning but getting it quilted was another story. It’s not that I don’t enjoy machine quilting but it requires a little bit more brain power so I tend to put it off. I decided today was the day so I divided a very small project into even smaller pieces. This morning I started by getting out my machine and threading it. Later I practiced drawing a design on a piece of paper. This afternoon I spent a few moments sewing the design on some scraps of fabric. Finally, tonight I got the quilt quilted.

The whole thing only took about 1 ½ hours spread out over the day. I could have quilted the whole thing this morning and gotten it over with. I could have done it two weeks ago for that matter! Obviously that wasn’t the approach that was going to get this quilt finished. Telling myself, “I only have to do a little bit at a time,” is what helps me finish so many projects. That’s how I quilt a quilt. That’s how I clean a house and that’s how I raise a child. A little bit at a time. There really isn’t any other way to do it!

An Island Concept

I’m having two islands made for my new kitchen. They are going to be counter height tables that I can move wherever I need them. The first table is going to have a shelf under it to store pots and baskets full of dish towels. The other table won’t have shelves so we can eat at it and push the stools under it.

I can use the tables separately or I can push them together to make a really big cutting surface for my sewing projects. I can prepare food on one and the kids can work on their projects on the other one until it’s time to eat. The kids can water color at their table while I make cards at mine and I won’t have to worry about them spilling water on my papers. We can work right next to each other without getting in each other’s way!

What Does It Take To Get Your Dishes Clean?

You are not going to believe this but I have decided not to put a dishwasher (besides me!) in our new house. I have been wanting a really big stainless steel sink for the kitchen. So yesterday I thought why not go really big and get a commercial type sink. The one I want has two BIG tubs with a drain board on either side. That will give me lots of room for stacking, washing, rinsing and drying. With a sink that big I could do a lot of dishes and get them done quickly so why do I need a dishwasher? I scrub and rinse every single dish before I put it in the dishwasher anyway! I have a friend (you know who you are) who actually rinses all her dishes, then washes them in hot soapy water and loads them in the dishwasher to wash them again. Then she actually complains about doing the dishes!

Today I decided to start washing my dishes by hand to get used to it and see if I really could live with it. Let me tell you it is a huge pain in my little tiny sink. I have to load the sink three different times and I have to “hand” rinse the dishes instead of dropping them into a big tub of clean water. Then I loaded them into the dishwasher to dry. So that’s what the dishwasher is for!

Folding Chairs

What do you think of this idea for my kitchen? I get sick to death of moving the bar stools to sweep under them every day. What if I buy folding bar stools and have a place to hang them on the wall. Every time someone wants to sit they have to get one down and put it back when they're done. I know, I'm crazy. No one would really do that would they? Well, I am definitely going to use this idea in my sunroom. That's where our dining table is going. We won't be eating there often and I don't want a maze of chairs out there. If it works in the sunroom then I may try it in my kitchen too.

Our outside walls are almost all framed. Only a couple more days and then the house will be sitting for three weeks waiting for the roof to arrive. No more re-designing the house now. The windows and doors are staying put and I'll just have to live with it if I change my mind.

We had another huge disaster today. The gas company came out early this morning before we got there at 8 a.m. and dug a big trench straight through our field! They were supposed to follow the road over and then down to our house. With our gas running right through the field we would never be able to sell that piece of land in the future. Luckily we were there in time to stop them from laying the pipe. They filled the trench back in and now they say we probably won't get gas for another 6 months because we held them up! I was so fuming mad! All I can say is, this had better get worked out in the end.

This house is giving me so much stress that I hardly even sleep at night anymore. If I could ever get a hold of my contractor who is conveniently absent through all this, I think it would help matters. My son said in his prayers tonight, "Please don't let anything else go wrong on our house and if it does, please don't let my Mom get so mad." I guess I need to calm down. My stress is stressing my small children! I'm trying to include some non-house things into our days. Today we spent some time at the Library and we went to the gym. Otherwise we are at the all consuming farm every minute of the day.

Wood Floors

Our floors are being laid today. It's all so exciting! We're putting down pine 2X6's that also serve as our sub-floor. They're going to get nice and beat up before the house is finished. It's going to look very rustic and we're saving thousands of dollars on flooring. I hope we're happy with it! Chris tells me during every decision we make, "Do what you want 'cause we're not changing it." I think he's fed up with all of it and is happy to leave the decisions to me. It is a big responsibility but he does say, "If we don't like it we'll sell it and build another one." We have plenty of room to do it but I never want to move or build another house. Maybe it's like giving birth. It's painful but a couple years later you forget and want to do it again.

Chinese Chicken Salad

Chinese chicken salad seems to be a standard at Utah functions. I always enjoy it and I finally tried making my own. I searched recipes on the internet and put together all my favorite ingredients until I came up with this tasty version.

Chinese Chicken Salad

1 cup almonds, slivered
4 packages ramen noodles, broken
1 head cabbage, shredded
1-2 stalks green onion, finely chopped
1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cooked and diced

Dressing:
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup rice vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 T ginger paste (optional)
2 t sesame oil (optional)
4 T peanut butter

Cook almonds and noodles on a cookie sheet in oven at 350 for about 10 minutes or until toasted. Mix dressing in blender until combined. Toss everything in a large mixing bowl. This makes enough salad to feed an army!