Hi Friends! Just a short little thought today, because sometimes all you have is a minute or two. That is what this is about! Using all those little scattered minutes.
We all have those awkward minutes between things that we think are useless minutes. The three minutes waiting for the water to boil. The five minutes standing in the bathroom waiting for your toddler to pee. That unusually long time it takes for your washer to stop actually spinning when you thought it was almost done. You know what I am talking about?! If you added up all those awkward minutes and put them together you would probably have a good chunk of time to get something done, but you can’t really do that. But why waste them?!
Make use of time, let not advantage slip.
William Shakespeare
I have a running list on my refrigerator of random things that need to get done. Some are things that would take quite a bit of time, some are short little things and some are things that my husband has to do. Some of those longer things can be broken down into small pieces though.
For instance, I have on my list to trim the bushes out front and to cut the dead blooms off my hosta and my hydrenga . At first that might sound like a weekend long project. Today the babies were sound asleep, the toddlers were playing nicely in the living room. I grabbed a garbage bag and the shears and left the window and front door open so that they can see me and I can hear them and I took less than five minutes to cut the dead blooms off the hosta. Ta-da! Maybe at nap time today I will get to the hydrenga!
So next time you are waiting for your toddler to pee, grab a Clorox wipe and wipe the baseboards. Dust the shelf in the laundry room while waiting for the washer. Clean the slider window while waiting to let the dog back in. Clean out the cup full of pens and pencils while waiting for a friend to arrive.
My iphone tells me each week how much time I have spent on my phone and on which apps. In other words, it tells me what I have been doing with my “awkward minutes”! Take back all of your awkward minutes and turn them into productive minutes! And don’t forget to break down what seems to be a big job into to little chunks at a time!
Have a wonderful productive week!
E XOXOXO
Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a week’s value out of a year while another man gets a full year’s value out of a week.
We have all heard that “Cleaning with kids is like brushing your teeth while eating Oreos”! It’s funny, can be true, but it doesn’t have to be.
What if I told you that you can have toddlers, teens and in between and still have a clean house without screaming and yelling. In fact, don’t do that! That will most likely defeat the purpose.
Is it hard work? It can be at first, but mostly the hard part is the training yourself and being consistent. The hard work is not you running around following all the children and picking up after them or nagging them non stop!
The key is routine, habits, consistency and discipline. (For you and your children).
Be an example. If you don’t make your bed, take care of your coat when you come home, or put your shoes away….. Why would they? I can’t stress this enough. Children do what you do, not what you say.
Let them see you clean your bathroom, do the dishes right after dinner, take the trash out, etc. Always put your things away before doing something else and always go to bed with a clean and tidy room. Let them see your routines and good habits.
I have heard all too often that when your kids are little it’s ok to have a messy house. Is it? What life skills are you teaching them? Let them see what work is. Impart a good work ethic. Have them help! You are not denying them time with you. You are teaching them something invaluable for life just by letting them see you have good habits. It’s ok to make them wait a minute. When they want something and you are just finishing the dishes, it is ok to say ” Ok, honey. I will get that for you as soon as I am finished.” Learning a bit of patience and noticing that other people are doing things are important for them too.
Let them know what is expected of them. Outline for them what they are supposed to do and when. Make a chart, Send them a list that they keep on their phone. Tell them that you expect them to clean up their toys after each activity. Tell them they are responsible to make their bed. Tell them they are to do homework immediately after school. Be specific. Have an attitude that tells them that you believe in them. If they think you don’t think they will do it, they won’t. If you don’t tell them it is expected of them, they won’t do it.
Break it down. Kids, and for that matter big people, come in all different personality types. I can tell a room full of 2-3-year-olds to clean up and I am going to see a lot of different responses. Some will start putting things away in all the wrong places, some will walk around dazed and confused with a toy in hand, some will pick up a toy to put away and then forget and start playing with it. Sometimes there is even that kid that eagerly puts everything away in the right places after the other kids have dumped them in all wonky.
You can’t send that kid that picks up the toy and starts playing with it to his room when he is 10 and expect him to clean the giant mess on his own. Not happening. Most kids need some guidance. Even if you can’t stand there in the room, you can break it down for them. “Go pick up all your books and put them in the shelf and then come tell me when that is done.” “Now go find all the legos and put them in the box.” You are teaching them great problem-solving and organizing skills this way without overwhelming them.
Assume the best of them. If they left their backpack on the couch, just say, matter-of-factly, “Susan you must have forgotten to put your backpack away, I know you are normally good about that. Would you please take care of that?) They will respond better to that than telling them once again they have failed just like you thought. Not that you would say it that way, but they often hear that. This way they are still hearing what you expect of them and that you believe they are well-intentioned and worthy of trust. They will try to rise to that.
Be the parent. “She wouldn’t let me do her hair.” I couldn’t get him to put his coat on.” “All they will eat is chicken nuggets so that is what I have to make.” This might not make me very popular but, be the parent. When they are told to pick up the toys, they need to do it. If they are told to sit at the table all through dinner, they need to do it. Kids don’t know what is best, they don’t know what is good for them. That is why God gave them parents to teach them and train them.
If I rob a convenience store and the cops show up and say “Freeze! ” and I don’t….. Do you think they are going to shrug and say “She wouldn’t do what we said.”? Or will they offer me a candy bar and say if you freeze you can have this! No, I am going to get a really quick lesson in consequences!
It is not fair to let our kids go through childhood thinking that if they throw a fit or refuse to do things that they get their way. Life just isn’t like that. I won’t get on a political soapbox, but let’s just say I believe that is a lot of why our country is the way it is today.
Consequences for not obeying, refusing to listen will nip those in the bud. You have to be consistent though. If you aren’t …. well, kids know. Having to dish out a consequence a few times to have your kid respect what you say is so much kinder than forever after nagging, yelling and the constant power struggle. Better for both of you! Your child obeying you the first time you say something might just save his life someday. You are the parent! You are in charge.
Kids respect what you inspect. You do need to have a good expectation of your kids, but if you never check to make sure they have followed through on what is expected, they WILL notice. At 15, you obviously don’t have to check to see if he’s brushing his teeth ( I hope) but at 6 you sure do. Your 8-year-old child still needs reminders and supervision to get morning routines done and get off to school. Kids need to have homework checked. You show your kids that you are interested and that you care by checking to see they’ve done what is expected.
Praise for a job well done. When kids hear praise for what they did well, they want to continue doing it. That goes for all people, little ones and big ones! When your two-year-old puts his toys back, tell him how great a job he did! When she “makes” her bed, tell her how proud you are of her. (Don’t fix it… at least not in front of her!) If your teen cleans her room, tell her it looks nice!
I personally don’t believe in an allowance for daily things that are expected. Those are things that are just part of life for us and for them. If you want to teach the value of money and work then pay them for extra things like raking leaves, pulling weeds, that sort of thing. No one pays me for brushing my teeth and making my bed. Paying them for things like that gives them the idea they are doing it for YOU, not because it is just a life skill.
Give grace. be kind, be thoughtful. Have you ever had a really rough day? Of course. We all have! On those days that you didn’t seem to get anything done and things just didn’t go as planned, wouldn’t it be nice if someone took one of those things off your list for you and did it?
When your little one is having a harder day than usual; when the kids at school called her names or the spelling test was harder than she thought, be thoughtful and help her tidy her room before bed or turn her bed down for her.
Remember what it was like to be a teenager? I do! It was the worst thing EVER. Teens go through so much! The stress of changing hormones that they don’t even understand, horrible peer pressure, self-esteem is tough, other teens are not the least bit kind. They are required to make huge life decisions, do an enormous amount of difficult school work and do it well to get into schools they want to get into plus hold jobs too! It is a LOT!
When your teen is having a particularly rough day and they rushed out without making their bed, make it for them! Do a load of laundry and put it away for them! Make them feel that home is a safe place to be. A place where they feel loved and accepted even if they don’t quite get all their chores done now and then. Of course, respect their space. Make home a place they want to be.
By teaching your children the skills to organize and clean and giving them grace and love when they need it you are giving them the skills and character to be amazing successful people that this world so needs!
Train up a child in the way he should go,
And when he is old he will not depart from it.
Proverbs 22:6
Blessings! XOXOXO
Hey Friends! I have been using this CBD oil for quite some time now and I am loving the results! It helps a lot with the pain I have in my neck from some surgeries. Did you know that you can get CBD oil in lotions and oils that you can apply directly to sore muscles and joints? How amazing is that?! If you would like to learn more about it click this link!
How do they do that? What kind of magic is it?! Their magic is in their habits!
Here is a list of habits that I have compiled that people with clean homes do. If you would like to have a home that is always in a state of “near company ready”, try adopting these habits.
Put it back, don’t put it down. When working on a project or even just writing a note or curling your hair, put it all away before you walk away.
Declutter. Live more with less. A home with less “stuff” gets less messy. You can’t clean clutter.
Everything has a home and everything in it’s home. If it doesn’t have a home, either make a home or toss it. Just like habit number one says, put it back. Always return things to their proper home.
Always make your bed. There are so many good reasons to make your bed, but most importantly it makes the room look better even if that is all that is done.
Empty the dishwasher ASAP. A dishwasher full of clean dishes is a sure fire way to have dishes left in the sink.
Never leave dishes in the sink. See above! Dishes in the sink spreads to dishes on the counter, none of which looks tidy. Your sink is just like your bed but in the kitchen. If it looks nice it helps the rest of the room look nice.
Never leave a room empty-handed. When walking about the house, always take a look around before leaving a room and notice if there is something that needs to go to the room you are going to. I have a saying…”Always improve the room you are in, even if it’s just a smile.” If you can’t find anything out of place in a room, just smile and make it a happy place to be!
Do it now! Don’t wait to pick up that receipt that fell on the garage floor, do it now. Don’t wait to hang up your coat, do it now. Don’t wait to sort through today’s mail, do it now… most of it goes in the trash anyway! Most things take far less time to do than we think.
Work smart, not hard. Clean the shower while you are in it. Keep cleaners where you will need them. Clean the fridge one shelf at a time instead of all at once. Use a shared app with the family for groceries and to do lists. Cozi is my favorite! Check it out here!
Do a load of laundry a day. Small loads of laundry done daily are much more manageable than mountains of laundry done on the weekends.
Reset. Before bed, before leaving the house, after the kids go to school or go down for a nap, Reset! Reset the room. Fix blankets and pillows on the couch, straighten books on the coffee table, put the slippers or shoes in the basket, and straighten the rug. Make it a beautiful place to come back to.
Respect your home and the people in it. Even if you don’t care about your coat on the couch or dishes in the sink, someone else does. A clean home is a peaceful home. Respect each other by picking up after yourself and helping out. Teach your children this from the time they are young. Even if it’s not our favorite thing to do, we do it to show respect and kindness to each other.
There ya have it! I hope you can pick up a few of those habits to help you have a super clean and happy home too!
Blessings! XOXO
Hey Friends! I have been using this CBD oil for quite some time now and I am loving the results! It helps a lot with the pain I have in my neck from some surgeries, it helps with keeping emotions in check because let’s be real…hormones can do a number on us ladies and this really helps! It helps keep me be calmer and able to handle the stress of a bunch of toddlers daily. It also helps me sleep well.
Below is a link where you can check it out! Please feel free to message me with questions!
Boxes. Cardboard boxes. Sometimes taped together to make a particular shape. A shoebox, a cereal box cut to the right height, toilet paper tubes taped together.
When I was newly married we had next to nothing. Then we had three children and had even less. But we managed! I didn’t have money to spend on Rubbermaid boxes or cute baskets to organize my things. It really never crossed my mind! I just made do with what I had to organize our things. So cardboard, packing tape, and yogurt containers were often used as “organizational tools”.
I share this to say, don’t wait until you can find the right baskets or till you can afford the containers for the pantry. Declutter, see what you have left, decide what shape and size things you need and then find a shoe box or a salad bowl and use that for now. Write down in your notes in your phone the exact size etc of the things you need. Next time you are at Walmart or Target you know exactly what you are looking for. Do not buy a bunch of cute baskets and wooden boxes before you know what you need!
You don’t need money to organize. If you never get the perfect basket and your bathroom is primarily organized by shoe boxes and packing tape…. guess what?! It’s still organized. Currently, the drawer that holds my cleanser, moisturizer, deodorant, contacts and the like is completely coordinated with boxes taped together to make dividers. Classy, right?! At least it is organized!
I am sure by now you all have heard of Marie Kondo. If you haven’t, she is a Japanese woman with an incredible amount of wisdom about decluttering and living a simple clean life. I will link her book here. You can click on the image to order from Amazon if you are interested! She has a show on Netflix called “Tidying Up”.
She does suggest that you do huge decluttering sessions and I don’t find that very feasible. As much as I would LIKE to do that I don’t have a lot of time for that and I don’t imagine you do either.
Declutter in a small area every day. Instead of putting off decluttering at all until you have time to pull everything out of each room of the house, I suggest doing little bits every day or as often as possible. Yes, it will take a long while to get through everything, but at least you will be making progress.
Decluttering is not a one and done. Hopefully next time you declutter and reorganize the junk drawer it will be much better, but you are going to have to do it again.
If you have the time and inclination to go all out… don’t have the kids at home, have pizza planned for dinner and have help! The likelihood of becoming overwhelmed is very possible so it is imperative to have a friend to help you.
Don’t start it if you can’t finish it! Don’t pull everything out of a dresser or the kitchen cupboards if you only have an hour to do it. Make sure you have the time to completely finish. Take it out, sort it, put it back, bag up garbage and take it to the trash, bag up donations and take them to a thrift store or charity of your choice. Do NOT leave donations in a bag in the living room or by the front door. Get it out! Decluttering is supposed to make your home less chaotic and more peaceful. A pile of junk left on the kitchen table when you got tired of doing it, is just the opposite.
Here is a super great article on what NOT to do when decluttering! Check it out!
I hope you do something fun this weekend. Spend time with your kids. Our time with them is so short. Be with your spouse. Enjoy the life you’ve been gifted!
I was tidying up in my laundry room and came across the “Laundry Cheat Sheet” that I made waaaaaay back when, when I was teaching my daughters how to do laundry. I had put it in a page protector and hung it in the laundry room so that they could easily look to see how to wash what they were washing!
As you can see, it is a bit wrinkled and worn. It has been stored away for quite some time. I thought it would be fun to update it and make it prettier and share it with you! It can be a reminder for you or help you to teach your kids to laundry too.
I am a fan of bleach. I use inexpensive white hand towels and washcloths for my dish towels and dishcloths. They can be bleached and when they get gross or wear out I throw them away! I can’t stand the thought of all the bacteria and raw meat and all the nastiness that can be in a kitchen NOT being cleaned with bleach. Bleh! That is just my germophobia coming out I guess!
I don’t wash my bath towels with dish towels. It just seems yucky to me. I don’t bleach my bath towels either. Vinegar is a great way to get any smells out of the bath towels though! No, they don’t end up smelling like pickles!
I rarely dry any of our shirts. The less time in the dryer, the longer your clothes will last. Besides, I find that skipping that step and going straight to a hanger to dry and then to the closet speeds up the laundry process. There is less in the dryer so those things dry faster, and the shirts are hung up already so they just have to be moved to the closet.
This is one of my husband’s favorite shirts. Notice the year printed on the shirt. It has rarely ever been dried, if ever. I would say it has lasted pretty well!
My favorites things for laundry are right here! You can purchase from Amazon by clicking on the pictures.
If you are subscribed to The Self Cleaning House you will receive the Laundry Cheat Sheet in your email! I hope you enjoy it! My Christmas present to you!
The new year is fast approaching and it is the time when people begin to think of change. New habits they want to start, old ones they want to break.
I have not been a huge fan of New Year’s Resolutions. They sound good, but really they are just a way of procrastinating what we know we should be doing now, until the first of January. We will probably spend money to lose weight or exercise or start some new craft or hobby and then by March, if we are lucky to make it that long, we are back to where we were but with less money and nothing to show for it. I am not trying to be a Debbie downer here, but let’s face it, it is pretty typical.
I am very guilty of this myself, which is why I haven’t been a resolution enthusiast and most definitely don’t share my attempt at resolve to change an area of my life on social media. No one likes to fail publicly!
I am currently reading James Clear’s book Atomic Habits. It is one of the most amazing books I have ever read! If you want to really learn how to change your habits and change your life you need to get this book! It is powerful! Because of this book, I may change my opinion and actually make some New Year’s Resolutions this coming year and stick to them! I am learning so much!
We often we fail to follow through with our efforts to change because although we WISH to change, we don’t really WANT to. Even though we don’t like the habit or behavior we wish to change, it is comfortable. Change is hard. We may be afraid of change. It may be subconscious. We may not feel we deserve it. We got there for a reason. It may require working through those issues before change can happen.
Another reason our resolutions flop is because we don’t know how to go about changing! We rely on sheer willpower to make huge changes in our lives. When we are tired, stressed, hungry, sad, our willpower is the first of our character traits to bail on us! Our brain is trained to make us feel better and protect us. It doesn’t know that a quart of ice cream at 10pm is a bad thing. It just wants us to be ok.
There are some amazing habit hacks that you can use to help you actually stick to those resolutions!
Make your new habit as fun and attractive as possible! Buy a new pair of walking shoes or a cookbook.
Reward yourself! Pay yourself each time you work out and use that money for a spa day or for something you want.
Don’t make your new habit so difficult that you are defeated before you start. Go to the gym a couple times a week, not 6 days a week for two hours a day! Make it easy!
Remove any obstacles that would give you an excuse to not follow through. Set out your gym clothes at night. Get rid of all the junk food in the house.
If you are trying to stop watching so much TV put the remote in another room or on top of a shelf that you can’t reach well.
Change your routine. If you always have cookies after dinner and you want to stop, immediately after dinner, do something else! Go for a walk. Take a bath.
Most of those things relate to weight loss and healthy living but you can apply those principles to anything!
Those are just a few small things that are mentioned in this book. There is a wealth of knowledge in it!
You can purchase it here!
I am following his blog as well. It is always fascinating and I learn something new every time I read a new article. I am kind of a nerd when it comes to self-improvement, productivity, motivation and that sort of thing. If you are into that, you really should check it out!
If you are wanting to make a change in the New Year, whether in your home, in the way you go about housekeeping, or in your health or whatever it is you want to change, now actually is a good time to start planning and moving in that direction. With the proper tools and knowledge, you will be able to achieve your goals!
Check the routines page here on my blog for the basics to help you stay on track!
Get the Atomic Habits to help you learn how to best keep those habits in place
I am a list person! I love “to do lists” and “honey-do lists” and “things I want to make lists” and “grocery lists”. For some though, lists are overwhelming and discouraging. They are not a challenge but instead just daunting, and they are likely to give up before they start. If that is you, I want to help you!
First of all, your daily routines are going to become HABIT and you won’t need a list to tell you to do it. You may need to remind yourself for a while with sticky notes or index cards until your habits are set in stone but eventually, they are like breathing. That is the whole point! You won’t have to think about it! (If you haven’t read the daily routines on my blog, go do that now! Check in the main menu! )
If you get overwhelmed by lists, I am willing to bet that you put everything from “Clean the garage” to “feed the cat” on your list of things to do today. Your list is longer than your arm and you have work, your child has ball practice and you have to make cookies for the bake sale. Not a good day for cleaning the garage or anything else that is going to take more than five minutes to accomplish. That list, although some things like “feed the cat” need to happen today, is way too much and it is discouraging right off.
Even if you don’t think you are a “list person”, lists can be very helpful. Going to the store without a grocery list is like a dizzy blindfolded kid trying to hit a pinata. Good luck! If you don’t make a list of Christmas gifts to buy, you are guaranteed to forget someone. Awkward!!! Lists are very important!
Sometimes our minds get so busy thinking of all the things we need to do that we can’t focus or even sleep well. Putting those things in writing on a list helps to get it out of our brain and onto paper so you can rest or focus fully at the task at hand.
Lists help you feel grounded and less scattered. Lists allow you to be able to make a plan.
The trick to not getting overwhelmed with lists is to not put everything on the same list and don’t expect to get everything on your list done by lunchtime. You can have lists for things you don’t plan to have finished until next year!
Today I want you to take just a few minutes and start a “crockpot list”. Yes, a “crockpot list”! This is a list of things that you would eventually like to get done but aren’t vital do NOW! Things that can sit and “cook” for a while. This is not a list that you are to look at and feel pressured by. This is a list that you can look at next time you find yourself at home for an afternoon and you have two hours free….what on that list can you get done? Maybe your husband agreed to help you do some household things for one hour, what on that list can you do? You are waiting for a friend and they call and say they are running fifteen minutes late. There is a lot of things you can do in fifteen minutes instead of staring at the clock!
My “Crockpot List” looks like this:
Clean out/tidy the secretary desk (desk where we keep bills, coupons, envelopes, stamps etc.)
Clean and organize the corner cupboards in my kitchen
Work on my cookbook
Defrost the chest freezer and organize
Work on my book
Organize the craft supplies
Post the items I would like to sell on Marketplace
Make your crockpot list and keep it either in your day planner or the side of the fridge, where ever you will find it next time you have a few moments to work on something. A “Crockpot List” will help you be more productive and a better time manager!
The kids are back in school! My granddaughter is in 2nd grade this year. Time sure flies! The first week of school is always really exciting and she is anxious to get up and be ready for school and out the door on time. After that, it starts to get…. a little less exciting. Establishing good routines that first week is super important, and then making sure that they keep it up is important too!
Teaching life skills is one of the most important jobs we have as parents.
Teaching routines, goal setting, and self-discipline sets your kids up for success!
Even though I know my routines inside out and backward, I, as an adult, still like checking each item off and feeling successful first thing in the morning.
It is just as important for our kids to feel that way! Having a list, chart, whiteboard or some other way for them to mark off completed items, helps them feel successful, helps them to know exactly what is expected of them, keeps you from having to tell them over and over to do each item and it teaches self-discipline. Giving them some things that are super simple, especially at a young age, helps them feel good because it is not overwhelming and they have that sense of satisfaction right away. “Look Mom! I already have two things checked off my list!” Even though those two things were get dressed and brush their teeth, we need to let them feel that sense of accomplishment. It will encourage them to achieve more for that good feeling and a good work ethic is born! That sets them up for success later in life!
It’s up to you if you want to reward them for doing chores or routines. My own personal opinion is that it is important to teach them to feel the satisfaction of a job well done and get praise and or appreciation from you, not money. No one pays me to clean my house, unfortunately! It would be much harder for me to have a good attitude about doing it for simply the satisfaction of having a clean home if I had learned that everything I do demands compensation to be worthwhile. It’s extremely important to remember to praise and thank your children for the jobs they do. Don’t forget that we are trying to teach them to feel good about a job well done.
That being said, I think it is a very good life lesson when kids are compensated for doing things above and beyond what is laid out and expected of them. Their routines and normal chores should be expected, but raking the yard or weeding the garden may be a great way for them to earn money for something they really want. Money, or whatever has been chosen as payment for tasks, is a great way to teach them about finances and is extremely motivating.
Here is an excellent short read from Dave Ramsey on this topic!
Take a moment to thank your child and praise him for making his bed or even brushing his teeth today and don’t forget to pat yourself on the back and really feel good about what you got done too! Good job!! You are teaching your kids habits that will benefit them for life!
I have been trying a new thing!! I had heard how great fermented veggies were for your gut health and digestion. I wanted to try it! I am always up for a new experiment. The first batch I did was Brussels sprouts. That was the only fresh veggie I had on hand. I wouldn’t recommend them! They were…ok. If you are a fan of raw Brussels sprouts then maybe you would like them. This batch I am very excited about! Cauliflower!
This is a picture on day 3. It is starting to get cloudy! That is just what it is supposed to do!
Fermented Vegetables
Fresh vegetable of choice:cauliflowercucumber, carrots, green beans, asparagus, radishes, whatever suits your fancy
2cupsgood, filteredwater
1 1/2tablespoonsea salt
3clovesgarlicopt
bay leaf, peppercorns, jalapenos, or other spices you want to use.
1leafcabbageor small ziplock baggie of rice
1wide mouth mason jar with lid
Stir the salt and water together until dissolved.
Pour the salt water over the vegetables leaving 1/2″ of headspace. Tap jar on counter and wiggle around to get rid of air bubbles and pockets.
Fold a small cabbage leaf and press it down on top of the vegetables so that it keeps the vegetables submerged in the salt water. or put a bit of rice in a snack ziplock bag removing all the air and place on top of vegetables to keep the vegetables submerged.
Close the lid on the jar tightly and place it out of direct sunlight in a relatively moderate temperature (68-75 degrees).
You will start to see some bubbling around day 2 or so. After day 2, over a sink (it will kinda fizz and leak as you begin to open it), gently loosen the lid to let some of the gas escape once or twice a day.
The vegetables are ready anywhere from day 4-10. The longer they sit, the tangier they’ll be. Taste them starting on day 4 to figure out your preference. I like them best around day 5 or so.
Once you decide they’re the level of sourness you’re looking for, place the jar in the refrigerator where it will keep for a couple of months.
Cook’n is a next generation recipe app that makes it fun and easy to share favorite recipes.
One of the most consistent things you will see in a clean home is that everything has a home and everything is in it’s home.
You can have a disheveled room and pick up and have it clean in just minutes if everything has a place to live.
If an item has no place to live, it is wandering aimlessly around the house from one flat surface to another feeling out of place and awkward.
Imagine how that whatchamacallit you ordered from Amazon must feel. It got ripped from a shelf, shut into a box and thrown into a truck. After a few rough rides, air turbulence, conveyor belts and another truck ride, it landed at your front door hoping for a warm welcome and a good home. Alas, it’s been moved from coffee table to kitchen counter to dining table, never really fitting in. All it wants is a real home. A place where it belongs. Have a heart! Find your whatchamacallit a home!
In all seriousness, establishing where something will live eliminates frustration when cleaning, it also helps prevent procrastination. As a bonus, you will always know where something is when you need it! Which also means you can delegate when necessary because you know where things are!
Next time you bring something into the house, think about where it’s forever home will be and put it there. NOT a temporary home on the dresser for now.
You can have a clean home for a hot minute without a home for everything but it won’t be that way for long. An organized home has a home for everything.
Making sure nothing is left homeless will save time cleaning, make your home more stress-free and allows you to do more of what YOU want to do!
We are in the middle of summer here in North Idaho, but I am already looking forward to fall! I love fall! The cool crisp air, the beautiful leaves, the boots, scarves and pumpkin spice lattes! Yup, I am that girl.
Apples are another of my fall favorites. We go apple picking at a local farm every year. Our whole family goes together. Hot fresh apple cider warms your hands while you stand in line for the pumpkin doughnuts, the aroma alone is worth standing in the long line. Local vendors are selling their homemade goods. Kids scream with delight at the bounce houses and beg to get their faces painted. Wonderful memories are made there!
So when I stopped in a roadside fruit stand and found Honey Crisp Apple for $12.95 for a giant box I had to get them! I can’t wait to go pick them myself but just couldn’t pass them up at that price. So let the apple cooking, baking, eating begin!
One of the first things I did was make a fresh apple cake. Seriously one of my favorite “apple” things!
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I peeled four apples. I needed four cups of apples but these things are the size of my head so I ended up with eight cups! I put the other four cups in a ziplock bag with a couple teaspoons of Fruit-Fresh and some water and put them in the fridge for something else.
I used my really cool apple peeler/corer to peel the apples. Super easy and fast!
Yummy!!!! Warm with Vanilla Bean Ice Cream is the way to go!
Fresh Apple Cake
Servings 12
1cupbutteror shortening
2cupsbrown sugar
2teaspoonscinnamon
2eggs
1/2teaspoonsalt
2teaspoonsbaking soda
3cupsflour
4cupschoppedapples
Topping
1cupsugar
2tablespoonsbuttermelted
1cupchoppedwalnuts
Cream butter and brown sugar together. Blend in eggs. In a small bowl combine salt, soda, cinnamon, and flour. Stir into shortening/sugar mixture. Fold in apples. It will be very thick. Put in a greased 9×13 baking pan. Combine melted butter and sugar and sprinkle over top. Sprinkle with chopped nuts. Bake in a 350 F oven for 50 minutes. Check for doneness with a toothpick.
Serve warm or room temperature with vanilla ice cream.
Cook’n is a next generation recipe app that makes it fun and easy to share favorite recipes.
Click on this picture to order Fruit Fresh from Amazon! This stuff is great! I cut up apples for my husband’s lunch, put a little Fruit Fresh in a ziplock bag and some water, add the apples and shake! No brown apples!
This apple peeler/corer is a huge time saver! You can even peel potatoes with it!! WOW! Click on the picture to order!
I can feel it staring at me. In the kitchen, the office, the bedroom closet. Every room I enter it is there. Glaring at me, threatening to overtake my home, to suffocate me and make me it’s slave. I make my way down to the laundry room searching for an escape from it but it has grown and I feel even more helpless to escape its clutches. I am too afraid to open the pantry door. The walls seem to be caving in, the rooms shrinking! The clutter has taken on a life of its own!!!! Panic attack!
It started in a seemingly innocent way. I was just going to put that box of old photos away somewhere but I needed to find a place first. This is a really neat bag, I might need this for something. I might need all those old towels someday…I will file that paperwork later…I might want to pick up cross stitch again someday in my spare time. I will just put the cans in the pantry and shut the door really fast.
I have been feeling a bit overwhelmed lately by all the “stuff” we have collected. It sneaks up on you, doesn’t it?? I swear I didn’t see it coming. It seems to multiply and we don’t even notice. I start to walk by the piles of things and shut them out. I become blind to the stacks of things on the counter, the overdue library books by the door, the neighbor’s cookie plate on top of the fridge. They become like furniture, it’s just there. It gets easier to set things down on the piles or just in the general area of an item’s home rather than actually put it in its home.
Then one day, you notice. You go from room to room with eyes wide open. Your palms sweat, the clutter seems to mock you. You feel helpless and confused. How did this happen??
It’s called “Entropy”. Entropy is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It states that everything goes from a state of order to disorder. It is the natural tendency of things to lose order.
Without countermeasures, life will always become less structured.
Without care the lawn dies and weeds crop up, cars rust, barns collapse, pantries become unorganized, garages become a mess, marriages crumble, families fall apart.
Entropy increases over time. The state of something will continue to decline without effort on our part to restore order.
So, why doesn’t the junk drawer stay organized? It’s science!
The good news is we CAN combat entropy. In fact, God put us here to do that!
Genesis 2:15 “Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.”
God expects us to put out the effort to keep our home, our land our cars, our space in general, in good order.
Here is an “Anti-Entropy, Anti-Panic attack” list:
Always do your morning and evening routines
Don’t put it down, put it away
Have a “home” for everything
Do you REALLY need it, want it, love it? If not, get rid of it. Don’t set it down.
Be present. Pay attention to your surroundings. Don’t walk over the same gum wrapper on the garage floor for a week. Pick it up and throw it away.
Now, since I have been slacking on my own advice and the clutter is leering at me, I am going to go on an anti-entropy quest!
Put water and oil in the bottom of the bread machine. Put dry ingredients on top. Start on “dough setting”. When it’s done turn onto a floured surface and knead to deflate it. Divide into two equal pieces. Let it rest for 10 minutes. The second ball of dough can be frozen at this point for future use. Roll and stretch the dough and form it on a pizza peel that is heavily dusted in cornmeal.
Place pizza stone in oven and heat to 500* for 30 minutes.
Saute ground beef until no longer pink and drain. Add taco seasoning and 1/2 cup water. Simmer until water has evaporated.
Mix refried bean with salsa and stir until smooth and spreadable. Gently spread over prepared pizza dough.
Top with seasoned meat, olives, red onion, crushed chips and then cheese.
Turn oven down to 425*
Carefully slide the pizza off pizza peel onto the hot pizza stone.
Bake for 10-15 minutes watching closely.
Remove the pizza using the pizza peel.
Serve with lettuce, tomato, sour cream, jalapeno, and hot sauce.
Cook’n is a next generation recipe app that makes it fun and easy to share favorite recipes.
This cool ottoman/toy chest/storage chest is just the thing I need for scarves, hats, gloves, and umbrellas in my entryway! Click on the pic to order!
Look at this totally adorable water bottle! My granddaughter is really into unicorns! She also likes to steal my stainless steel water bottle because the water stays so cold! So I think this is just what she needs!
or the side of the fridge, where ever you will find it next time you have a few moments to work on something. A “Crockpot List” will help you be more productive and a better time manager!
Fermented Vegetables
with a couple teaspoons of 
and some water and put them in the fridge for something else.
/corer to peel the apples. Super easy and fast!
Click on this picture to order Fruit Fresh from Amazon! This stuff is great! I cut up apples for my husband’s lunch, put a little Fruit Fresh in a ziplock bag and some water, add the apples and shake! No brown apples!
This apple peeler/corer is a huge time saver! You can even peel potatoes with it!! WOW! Click on the picture to order!
The Self Cleaning House 