New Year, With a Difference

So this morning I managed to sleep through my alarm.  Both of them.  And my husband trying to wake me up.  I'm blaming the rainy weather.

Trying to get back into some sort of schedule after two weeks of almost no schedule is really hard.

Yesterday I also took the time to sync up all the calendars in the house.  I look at the month  ahead and discover just exactly how busy I am.  Every day.  For a woman who is suppose to be a "work from home mom", I seem to be never home anymore.   Karate practice, basketball practice, basketball game, doctor's appointments, teaching at the school...  Pretty much, each one of those things takes up one day, and the entire day's schedule must revolve around just that one event.

The upside is that since I'm a writer, I can pretty much write anywhere.  I don't need a computer to do it, I can use a pencil and paper, and then add it into any document later on, when I get home.  This is especially awesome since where the kids have basketball and karate has no wi-fi.  Strange in this day and age, I know.  At the doctor's office I can get wi-fi, but even the guest accounts need passwords and pins and stuff like that.  So, I drop back to a small notebook in which to jot ideas and use my microcassette recorder in the car.

Yeah, remember microcassette recorders?  For those of you too young to remember, it's what we used before we had tablets and phones that could double as a voice recorder.  Mine was really advanced, and could be set to record only when someone was speaking.  That was to save tape space and batteries.  I set mine on voice activation when I'm in the car, which means it runs all the time between the kids and radio.  But I still do manage to get some ideas onto it.  I also set it up to record when I'm in the shower.  Why do I always get my best ideas in the shower?  I don't know.  Once I remember planning out an entire series of novels when I was rinsing dye out of my hair.  I pretty much even had the first couple of chapters outlined out.  It was awesome.  I didn't have a recorder going at the time, so I lost it all.  Taught me a lesson, let me tell you.

At any rate, I'm trying to schedule better, and I'm planning on trying to get more stuff out of the way on Saturdays and Sundays.  I still need to get my dinners planned out for the coming months.   Soon it will be time to hit the cupboards and freezer to do just that.  We'll see how all this goes.

I wish you all luck in the new year for a imperfectly perfect year.  Or at least the next couple of days.

;-)  

The Year Challenge

School has been out for over a month now, and it has been HECTIC.

This year, the end of the school year means one thing:  The One Year Challenge

The challenge was thrown down by one of my friends, and because I can't seem to say no to a challenge, this is what I'm doing for the rest of the year.  My house is on the verge of becoming painfully cluttered and disorganized.  Really disorganized.  I have one year to get it cleaned up and straightened up and stuff gone that I don't need anymore.  Thank goodness there is enough to do that I can keep switching off jobs, and I won't get bored. 

There are bookshelves to go through, clothes to be sorted, painting to be done, floor tile to be replaced, furniture to be re-done, furniture to be thrown out and replaced...... Well, you get the picture.  And all of these things need to be sandwiched in between gardening, canning, dental appointments, visits from family, and the kids' summer activities.  Plus, planning for the new school year, which starts in just over a month. 

Yes, it's less fun than a vacation.  

However, I think I will find it MUCH more satisfactory.  If I went on vacation now, I wouldn't be able to relax, because I would keep thinking about the horror that is my house.  We're planning on going on vacation next year.  This year, we're concentrating on getting our house cleaned out and organized in one year.  

So far, we have managed to blow through sorting out the kids' clothing (a HUGE job), and a small section of my clothing (an even bigger job!).   I organized my canning supplies already, so that was a big job out of the way, and by organizing those supplies, I was able to organize my pantry a little more.  Or at least find space for most some of my empty jars. But I swear these things multiply at night, when no one is looking.

I have a list of things that need to be done.  It's an ever-growing list.  It's probably never going to end.  I'll just keep adding things as they come up.  I've actually started to hum a little song to myself whenever I add things to it:

The more it grows (tiddly pom) the more it goes (tiddly pom) the more it goes (tiddly pom) on growing.  

And nobody knows (tiddly pom) how long it grows (tiddly pom) how long it grows (tiddly pom) there's no knowing.

I'm looking forward to this process, actually.  A lot of people deem it necessary to try to find a schedule, and stick to it.  My life is constrained enough.  I need the freedom to be able to jump from one project to another, and not feel like I'm doing it in the wrong order.  Some days I'm ready for dealing with clothing.  Some days I want to work in my kitchen.  Some days I want to paint.  Some days I want to be a handyman and do repair work.  As long as I get one thing done a day that needs to be done, I'm okay with that.  It might make things kind of chaotic, but I'm okay with that too.  My life is chaotic.  It probably always will be.  But that's what makes it perfectly imperfect.

Cart For My Canning

Over the last few months, I have acquired a new hobby that is taking up a huge amount of space in my tiny little kitchen.  It's a worthwhile hobby, which is leading to other new hobbies for me.  The best part about these hobbies is that they will (hopefully) be saving my family money, in a lot of different ways.

The original new hobby is canning.  Yep.  I'm a canner and I'm not ashamed of it.  I'm slowly emptying out my chest freezer and canning everything in there that I am able to.  Money saving benefit of this is:  as I empty out my freezer, I won't need such a big, electricity hog, and will be able to invest in a smaller one.  My ultimate goal is to only need it to store milk, baked goods, and flat frozen freezer meals.  It's coming along.  However, I digress.  

The canning equipment is space consuming.  Canning pots (I have a water bath canner and a pressure canner) are BIG.  Really BIG.  They take up a lot of space, and that is space that is better used for food that has been canned, or dry ingredients, or just about anything else.  And then there are the towels, the funnels, the lid lifters, the lids and rings themselves, the jar lifters, the pectin, canning salt, citric acid...... The list is really endless.  And it took over my pantry space quite rapidly.  

Since I have been challenged by one of my friends to get my house cleaned up and organized before the end of the year, I figured this was a good place to start.  I had been on a hunt for a decent cart that can support a lot of weight (that pressure canner is heavy), and store a lot of stuff.  And it had to fit into an area that is about 30in x 25 in.  It had to be under $100.  It had to be sturdy and long lasting.  It had to look decent.  

TALLY HO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  The hunt is on!!!!!!!!!!!!

After a couple of months of searching, something appeared at Overstock.com. (No, this is NOT a paid advertisement for them.  I'm not getting anything from them for mentioning them.  This just happened to be where we found the cart.)  Now, Overstock is not my usual go-to place for shopping (thrift stores are really more in my price range), but my mom pointed me in the direction of a really cool cart that just about met all my requirements.  

On Friday, it arrived (three days sooner than originally expected.  Awesome job Overstock!), and was put together.  

 It came with a handle, but I really didn't need it so we didn't put it on.  If there comes a time when I do need it, we still have it tucked away, and will be able to use it.  But it's just perfect handle-less.  

I also had that set of three clear plastic drawers tucked away in a closet, and had used them for some sort of craft supply, but I cleaned it out and am putting it to MUCH better use.   

The three drawers store my funnels, lid lifters, jar lifters, pectins of varying sorts, lid tightener, cheese cloth and jelly bag.  I'm probably going to replace the drawer pulls to something a little cuter, because that's how I roll.  

I also found two small crates when I was cleaning out, These crates are perfect for sorting my rings and plastic lids.  

I can now organize them according to size (wide mouth and regular) which will also speed up the process a little bit.  It was a troublesome having all the rings and lids in one box, and forever trying to sort through them.  Also, the crates aren't enclosed, so if the rings are still damp from being washed, they will be less inclined to rust, because the air flow is better.  Labels for these two crates are coming, and when the arrive and are attached, I will be showing them off.

I already had my lids (also known as "flats") sorted into plastic CD boxes I got from our local dollar store.  I sort them according to "Used" or "New".  The "used" lids are not used for canning, but kept on hand in case some sort of weird crafting bug strikes me, or I want a lid on a jar, but don't want to seal it.  I can use one of the used lids for that.  

I will be properly labeling the boxes later on.  These boxes are stackable, so when my supply of new lids gets out of control (and it will), I can have one box for wide mouth lids and one for regular lids.  

The top shelf is reserved for my "babies".  I actually took down all the large stock pots I use in canning and fit them into the large water bath canning pot on the right.  The lid rests on a pot on the second shelf.  Moving all my big pots to one location freed up space for my empty jars that are currently waiting to be filled with produce from the garden we are putting in (one of my other new hobbies, but that's a future post).  

I now have room under my pantry shelves for my 5 gallon buckets of bread flour and all purpose flour, which is great.  I also have an extra small bucket down there for empty bags or for berries when I get on a berry canning roll.  (It's easier to put unwashed and unprepped berries into the small bucket while prepping them for canning.  But more on that in a future post, when strawberries are ripe.)

So that's pretty much it.  It's a just another chapter in my perfectly imperfect life. I'm loving it, and it's coming along in an awesome way.

One Change and Why

Our house is the perfect starter home.  Or a home for someone who is downsizing.   But for a family of four, it is less than perfect.   If I could make one change to it, it would be to open up the kitchen so I can see into the living room. 
I love to cook, but my kitchen is tiny.  If two people are in my kitchen, there is no chance of doing something like opening the oven door, or the dishwasher.  Everything is very.....compact, to say the very least.  The other problem is that it is very closed off from the rest of the house.  I can't see what my family is doing in the living room, or talk to them without yelling. 
Sometimes isolating myself in the kitchen is a good thing.  I can lose myself in cooking up a storm, trying a new recipe, making a mess, and not having to answer to anyone.   However, most of the time, after a long, quiet day at home by myself, I'm more than ready for some interaction with other humans.  
I guess the thing I would want would be a mostly open kitchen, but one I  could shut off if need be.  (After all, I don't want to give away all my secret recipes and stuff.) 
The main problem with trying to break through the wall dividing the living room and kitchen is the fact that it is a dreaded, very useful load bearing wall. You know, one of those walls that can't be taken down be, because it helps hold the house up.  It can always be worked around, but it is expensive and incredibly time consuming. 
On my wishlist for my next house, I want a more open concept for my living room and kitchen.  With a lot of light.  A LOT of light. 
What would you change in you house?