Archive for cleaning
Salad For Dinner…
I tried out my new salad spinner tonight. It isn’t the best quality, but it was $5.99. It is one of the smaller ones, perfect for me.
The tomatoes are from the garden. There are ton of romas to be picked. I cannot decide whether to make salsa or tomato sauce. (I think mom is wanting salsa and I am wanting tomato sauce.)
My kitchen has managed to stay clean for two days now. I’ve been making a point of not dropping stuff on the table when I come home, but actually putting it away. What an idea. *grin* I’ve also washed the dishes as I’ve used them.
My house will be clean and simple one day. Really.
Hey Look…
It’s a halfway better looking template…
And I know I have ignored this blog for the past month and a half…maybe more…but life happens sometimes. I am trying to simplify everything in my life though so I have more time to do the things I want to do, rather than the things that just need done.
My new policy is that if I have some bit of clutter that I move around from place to place, and it doesn’t really have a place of its own, then it goes into a box to be donated. There is still clutter around, but it is mainly doll house and miniatures supplies/items/works in progress. I’ve even managed to kill off quite a few houseplants (odd for me) so there aren’t even as many of those to keep watered.
Ryan is coming home for a week, the first week of September. I am also taking a week off then.
Today Mom and I redid part of the kitchen. The landlady didn’t want the paneling painted, but I did get rid of the country blue wallpaper.
This is what my kitchen looks like now:
At least the side with the sink. The opposite wall has the refrigerator, microwave and a metal shelf with lots of glass jars and colored bowls on it. And that curtain material? It took -months- for me to find it, but I absolutely love it. Retro in muted colors. The painting you can sorta see over the stove is one I did in college, it is ribbon candy, I just never took it down after Christmas. The flowers are fresh cut zinnias.
Now I just need to get the rest of my house that clean…
As for this template, the blue text needs to go away. And those smiley faces…I assume those are new with the theme I was redoing, but they have to go. I’ll get to it soon. Really. I try anyway.
Did I mention?
I am going to change my theme a bit. For headers I am going to try to rely on photography, I like the look better. I’m going to get rid of the title/subject line as many times I sit here pondering what to put in it. It will be replaced by a larger date. Also, I wasn’t aware that the theme doesn’t display right in Internet Explorer (at least the version my parents are using). I also need to put in the ‘go back’ and ‘go forward’ links. I’m not sure that will get done this week, but hopefully this weekend at least.
On Saturday, Dad, Mom and I went to Findlay Market in Cincinnati. The farmer’s market is open now. I bought a some plants there-six lettuce plants, basil, cilantro, oregano, thyme, some hens and chickens and notably a mimosa tree. I have nowhere to plant this tree, but I am going to try and keep it in a pot till I have a place I can plant
it. Sometimes it is raised as a houseplant in climates like Ohio’s, but I’ve read that it is a finicky plant. I’ve wanted one for a long time as they are so interesting. Their stalks of leaves are normally spread out, until you poke them, then they fold up like a venus flytrap. In the actual market I bought some peppers, grapes, a fryer chicken and an apple scone. Here is an example of what the mimosa does:
Sunday we had a grill out for Father’s Day at my aunt’s house. That was a pretty good time, but in the 15-30 minutes I sat out by the pool I ended up getting sun burnt.
For Father’s Day I made my dad a stuffed teddy bear. While that might sound strange, in actuality it is pretty sentimental. He ‘had’ this pair of cowboy boots from when he was still a bachelor. They were made of eel skin and honestly, they were falling to pieces-but he still wanted to keep them. Mom and he were cleaning out the storage closet a couple weeks ago though and he decided to get rid of them. Mom kept them without him knowing though and gave them to me. Dad was very happy with the result.
Today Mom and I went to go draw a mural on a nursery wall (Mom will be painting it this week while I’m at work). After that I made a Lowe’s and Wal-Mart run while Mom and Kaylee waited in the car. Afterwards we all came back here and Mom helped me get the house clean-really and truly clean. I have a few things left to put away, and the sewing room is my job, but all the ‘seen’ parts of the house are spic and span. We had fun figuring out how the new slipcovers actually fit the furniture.
Ryan was talking about coming home over the July Fourth weekend, but come to find out he has a blood drive that weekend. It’s looking like I might not get to see him until October. That’s a long time-a month short of a year in fact. But we’ll handle it.
I had a fairly good weekend (except for a few things that started Sunday night…).
Friday night I spent the night at Mom and Dad’s house. I reformatted their new HP computer to put XP on it. I was advised not to (by HP), but I did it anyway and it works just fine. Even as they advised against it, they told me where to get all the XP drivers for the hardware.
Saturday I spent a lot of the day at their house transferring files and installing programs. That evening Dad went to a hospital to visit someone while Mom and I went to the thrift store, the Mexican restaurant and Wal-Mart. I have pictures of what I bought, but my card reader is at their house and the cord isn’t wanting to work, I’ll get that worked out tomorrow.
Yesterday I went to church, then the three of us went to Columbus. We went to the hospital (the James Cancer Center, one of their friends is pretty bad off) and visited awhile. We went to North Market, which isn’t nearly as good as Findlay Marke
t, but still a market. I got six gerbera daisies which are a satisfactory replacement for zinnias til they begin blooming. I have pictures of the flowers too, but as I said above.. After the market we went to Utrecht (really I was the only one that had a real interest in that store). I do love Utrecht. I could have spent a lot of money, but I was good. I bought a palette for watercolors. It has four mixing wells, but then on the sides it has little removable-sealable jars. I also bought six individual Prismacolor colored pencils to keep with my sketchbook. Oh, and a stick of Kiss-Off. If you’ve never tried this stuff you need to. It is a stain remover stick, but better than anything you buy at a normal store (since it is made for people who tend to get pigment in their clothes).
Today I finished transferring some files to my parents’ computer, then I ran to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things. Otherwise I’ve been cleaning all day, the down on your knees scrubbing sort of cleaning.
My clumsiness has worked against me in the cleaning aspect though… Last night I decided to dye some yarn while I was cleaning the kitchen. Whatever off brand drink mix (think Kool-Aid) I was using, grape, exploded in the microwave about nine minutes in. I had fun cleaning dripping purple water out of the microwave, really. Today I made sun tea and when I was bringing it back in I was holding it by the handle. The handle did not break, I’m not really sure what happened, but the jar came undone from the lid and shattered spectacularly all over the patio. A gallon of tea and a million shards of glass. Gurney couldn’t go out until the tea dried and I swept up the glass, though when I was out there when the sun was setting you could see it glinting everywhere. After that I was cleaning the bathroom. I picked up a full package of those little latex hair rubber bands-it was open-and I flung them everywhere, including in the toilet. Tonight I took a pitcher full of chicken broth over to Mom. It made it fine down my driveway on a hill, a stop at the highway crossing, and for whatever reason, when I stopped at their house the pitcher tipped, the lid popped off and about five cups of chicken broth ended up on my front passenger floor board. I really, really hope that the shampooer sucked it all out.
So now I am going to sit here and relax til I go to bed and try not to break anything else.
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