Musings from the bottom of the freezer

I was so excited and blessed to find a deep freeze for only $40. I couldn't believe I actually found one for this price. Sure, it was larger than the one I had planned to buy new, but for the price, how could I pass it by?

That was before I tried to fill thing. Even cleaning it was a challenge. Before I plugged it in, I was careful to wipe it clean, inside and out. I didn't want to live with dirt from someone else near my food. The outside was fairly straight forward. Just spray and wipe. Next came the lid, a bit more grimy around the seal, but still easy. Then I looked at the cavernous insides. How was I going to reach the whole way to the bottom? I started at the sides. I reached and stretched and was still only able to reach my arm half way down. But what about the bottom?! I thought a while. I tried a stool, but still couldn't get the whole way down. The only other thing I could think of was to crawl inside. What a sight! Vinegar spray in one hand, paper towels in the other and my head and shoulders poking out the top of a deep freeze. The only real problem was that I was wearing slippers with a rubber bottom that left foot prints. I wiped away, and being satisfied, climbed back out of my freezer.

Now the real challenge is filling it. I work from a limited grocery budget. Generous enough that it allows me to buy whole and organic foods if they are on sale, but not so generous that I can run out and buy enough to make my deep freeze look even moderately filled. I'm not looking for full to the brim, just full enough that I can't see the bottom. I despair that it will take me many many months of careful on sale shopping to do it, but by golly the gauntlet is thrown. I will prevail!

What to do?

Saturday is here, a fresh new day. It's not only a Saturday, but a holiday weekend. Now I'm faced with the question of what I will do today. What I should be doing it cleaning the house (for the millionth time this week!) I should be vacuuming and making things neat once more. This is one of those days being a domestic engineer is just not sounding fun. Last night during movie time, 4 year old trashed the living room. The lights were off so I didn't realize just how many toys she had drug out of the bedroom to play with. This morning, the light of day shows all-and I even made her pick most of them up before bedtime!

I'd rather be... hmm... that's a tough one. I just know I don't feel like cleaning up today. I guess I'd rather be laughing over a nice hot cup of coffee with my momfriends. They have husbands who are home though (mine is back to work-no rest for the weary), so the weekend is out. Oh, well. I guess I'll just dig in and get the muckin' about over with.

Hope your day is more fun!

No time to blog

To my "many" readers I must apologize for not blogging much lately. I've been very busy around the house. Between homeschooling, regular housework and the regular busy week activities we have been doing some outside work. I know, we started late. This is not my choosing. It was the best I could do. My husband works 2 hours away and is only home one day a week ( he works a full 12 hour day 6 days a week-poor guy). The work that needed done was the kind of heavy lifting work better left to a man. I politely asked my dad several time and finally caught him on a day when he was in the mood to work. Actually, it was a conspiracy. My mom and I bought the stuff and she told him the following day that they were coming over to help me work. So with my dad's help, on one of our yet still warm and sunny days, I put up new plastic on our semi-closed in porch. My plan was to then go pick out a deep freeze and have it delivered, but to my surprise a neighbor of my parents had a used one sitting out for only $40. I was stoked and paid for it. I was even happier when the man offered to deliver (without my asking) for no additional charge. YAYYYYY!!!! I saved around $300 dollars by buying it used. Before the man could deliver it though, we had to make some modifications on the semi-closed in porch. When we bought our place it had a very small patio (3x6ish) that was attached to the house. Under it was a large concrete slab and over the whole slab was a very nice roof. Last fall we closed in the roof area with half lattice and half plywood. It was an improvement but I still thought the small patio was in the way. This year before we could put the freezer out there, we ripped down the patio and left a small landing with some steps into the house. Now it is much more roomy, not only for the freezer, but the kids as well. Now they have some place to ride their scooters or bounce a ball in the middle of winter.

I'm content.

My Employment Manual

Flylady calls it a Control Journal. Candy calls it a Home Management Binder. I call it my Brain, my Duty Journal or my Employment Manual. What it really is is a large 3 ring binder with all my little notes and schedules all put together in one place. I always kept schedules and checklists and chore charts, but I never had them all in one permanent place that they wouldn't' get lost or destroyed. This spring I ran across Candy's blog and started reading about her binder. I then popped over to flylady and found she had something called a control Journal. How had I missed reading about this before?

At first I must admit that Candy's scheduling annoyed me. (Sorry, Candy if you're reading this.) It seemed too good to be true. It probably annoyed me because it was an area I had been struggling with at the time. Anyway, I let the idea marinate a while and then decided that in order to make meal planning much easier I would give one of these binders a go. I'm glad I did. I now have a place to keep track of all the stuff that got lost before- lists, phone numbers, vitamins, homeschooling , and more. I have been blessed since implementing the use of my Brain.

Mine isn't nearly as fancy as some. It's just a simple 3 ring binder with a pocket on the inside. None of the pages are fancy or decorated. Most of them were made by hand using a ruler and pencil until I'm certain how I want to keep things or find a printout I like.


I have extra page protectors in the back and a clip in zip pocket in the front with pens, pencils, dry erase and post it notes. I never have trouble finding a pen anymore.

Section 1 is my Routines/to-do's/calendar. It may seem silly to write simple things down like get dressed, make bed and brush teeth, but on those winter mornings when I have the blahs, it will be helpful to look at my Brain instead of having to try to function on my own. I have morning, afternoon, and evening/before bed routines written down. They are more like a to-do checklist. After my schedule comes my August-June calendar. I really made it to write down our home school goals and schedules so I need to make another for my own personal stuff.

Section 1 also has my master weekly schedule. Here I have the days that run across the top and times that run down the side. Here is where I remind myself that Tuesday garbage goes out and Wednesday cans come in. You get the idea.

Section 2 is food. Here I have my personal menu plans and ideas as well as the one for our co-op. Really, making the co-op lunch plans is what inspired me to start doing the same for our own home. I like variety, and get bored with the same kinds of food over and over. Thus far I have not repeated a recipe in 5 weeks. Next week I may begin repeating. I try a new recipe every week, and incorporate the tried and trues in as well.

Section 3 is Bible study-pretty self explanatory.

Section 4 is herbal remedies as well as homemade cleaning product recipes. I love to make them. They not only save money, but are better for the environment and my family.

Section 5 is phone numbers, emergency contacts etc.

Section 6 is homeschooling calendar.

Section 7 is a list of samples I want to save for school portfolio.

After that Is extra page dividers, loose leaf, a clipboard and page protectors. I'm always ready to add another section, and I know I will.

Some people post pictures of their books. I dont want to take that kind of time.

It really has been a blessing to me and my family. I no longer am fluster from misplacing a paper or disgusted when it's suppertime and don't know what to cook. I'm not as scheduled as Candy, but I'm not Candy. I'm me and that's how God wants me to be.

If you've not put together a binder of your own, you can cruise over to flylady or Candy's and follow their directions or you can play around with what you have and make up your own.

There's No Place Like Home

Ahhhh.... Home at last. I had hoped our business would end on Sunday, and it did partially. After church we had a leisurely lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon outside. Hubby works out of town and wouldn't get a day off this week, so we decided to visit him instead of going home. (We always spend Sunday with my parents.) I really had only planned to stay 1 night and then come home around lunchtime. The kids were so happy to be with daddy that they wanted to stay longer. We went to the store, bought a big jug of bleach and a mop, and spent the next several hours cleaning and wiping every surface we could.

Let me explain. My husband is a chef. To make money he needed to head out of our smaller town and work in the city. He shares an apartment with other men that do the same thing (currently only one as the restaurant is short a person.) This apartment is not a home to any of them. It is merely a place to crash after their hard 12 hour days. Are you getting the picture? Nothing ever gets cleaned. Oh, to Hubby's credit he said he had vacuumed his room 2 weeks ago and he did buy a new shower curtain. It still was grimey. So grimey you wear your shoes everywhere. Anyway, a few hours labor took care of all the gross grime.... the worst part is always the bathroom. Men away from home quickly revert to pigs in the potty. ......blech.

So after it was scrubbed and bleached (-a quick note here, my homemade dry laundry detergent worked wonders on the greasy floors!!) the children decided it was a rather nice place to be so we spent another night with daddy. The following day I planned to leave when daddy left for work, but the children had other plans. They weren't quite ready to go, so we did school, played a while and finally departed around 5. Supper time, but I was determined to not stop until we had put some distance between us and the apartment. Every exit along the road that had somewhere to eat I would do a hunger check and they always said they could wait a little longer. To the kids credit we didn't stop until we were a half a hour from home(1 1/2 hours from daddy's apartment.) There we splurged on a steakhouse dinner. Salad bar, steak tips, baked potato and frozen yogurt for dessert. Yummm. Hunger really is the best seasoning.

We made it home shortly before bedtime. I checked email, read some blogs, and then talked to hubby when he got off work. Bedtime was too late and we slept in this morning, but it was worth it. The kids got to see daddy, his apartment got a much needed cleaning, and I came home with a paycheck.

Really after such a busy week I can identify with Dorothy. "There's no place like home."