{ Mindful Housework }

 

 Song from a Secret Garden 

 

The warm temperatures have dropped dramatically.  What looked like warm Spring coming in to say hi the past two weeks, has snuck back into 30 degree weather, windy and rain.

As I sit here on the couch, wrapped in my robe, the wind is howling outside, the skies are a dark gray and the tiniest of rain drops pitter patter on the driveway.  It seems like old man winter is holding on for dear life, grasping at every bit of cold, not wanting to let go.  Such is this battle every year, Spring and Winter competing to the bitter end.

I won't say I enjoy the drastic change in temperatures again, but I do love a good thunderstorm, the kind that brings a darkness to the home that only soft lit candles can thrive in.

 

 

I have gone about my day with a purpose, being mindful of every chore I encountered.  It isn't just about cleaning, or doing laundry, but the heart with which you do it, and intent, and the time to be mindful of what you are achieving in that moment.

 

Housework is just housework, unless you approach it with the mindset that it's your way of contributing to your family.  A way of providing a safe place, a warm bed for weary bodies and tummy filling good food to nourish your soul.

 

I once was told that this simple kind of life is a great idea, but not attainable especially for those who work outside the home.  I understand that, after all, being a homemaker as I am, my life is within these four walls, and so it gives me more time to focus, to go slow, to sip coffee and read a book, or bake a cake, or garden or whatever it is that I want to do.

 

But just because I am home full time, it doesn't mean that those who work outside the home, can't live it as well.   

 

Slow, soft, mindful living starts within! 

 

When we choose to project the quiet inside, to our outside world, it affects everything around us, and in a way brings others to this more calm, laid back, and slower pace of living.

A great way to start living it, is perhaps by surrounding yourself with those people and things, that will encourage you to stay on that path.  I will be honest and tell you that save for myself, no one else in my life lives this way, or even shows a want to do it.  So for me, I choose to find inspiration outside, and being that I'm a very visual person, that inspiration comes through videos on YouTube of like minded women.

Slow living, quiet vlogs, just lives being shared through few words and lots of beautiful scenery.  At the moment, I follow a lot of channels that share their daily slow life from Italy, France, Norway, Germany, England.  

 

Many times, when I am doing the usual cleaning up around the house, I think about my great grandmother Ema.  I fondly remember her with her apron, the pocket always filled with random tidbits, things she needed like her handkerchief, and also things she picked up as she went about her day.

She did everything with love, often cooking meals for 15 people at a time since we always had a big family.

There are memories and moments that are forever etched in my mind and heart.  The smile on her face as she prepared green beans, or peeled a potato.  She would often have me help her peel and then spent the entire time saying "you're taking off more potato than skin Sandra", or "don't cut so deep, softly run your knife just under the skin".  I would often be amazed at how she would start at one point of the potato, and just like magic would end at the other, the potato peel a long swirly line just hanging off the tip of the knife.

She never complained, never said she was sick of doing the same things every day.  She just went about her homemaking chores with a joy in her heart and a leap in her step.  She passed away a few months after I moved to the USA, at the age of 96.  To the end, she still monitored everyone and the running of the household, often giving out orders from her bed.  What an incredible woman and what an incredible love of homemaking she passed down to me.

I wish I could say that my daughter is following in my footsteps, but when it comes to homemaking, she isn't, and that's ok.  I feel that society has taught our daughters that homemaking is something to look down on, that independent women should not be in the home cooking and cleaning, that it's beneath them.  

Did I try to instill this same passion in her?  Absolutely, but in a world of social media and outside influences, I often feel as parents we are left with our hands tied in a sense.  What we teach at home, is often forgotten beyond these walls.

However, now that she is in her own apartment, she often calls me to find out how to do this, or that, or how to cook a certain dish.  Slowly, but surely, she is coming around to understanding how important it is to care for our homes.

I often get many messages on my Instagram, from friends and other women, telling me how much I inspire them or motivate them.  That for me is the best compliment I could ever receive, because I don't look at what I'm doing as influencing anyone, but rather sharing my life and how happy it makes me.  If that inspires others to live a simpler slower life, it's a wonderful thing.

Anyway, I started this post yesterday afternoon, but then got sidetracked with dinner and the night routine and ended up leaving it until this morning, to finish.  

It is currently 7:28 am, and I'm going to sit in bed a little longer, I've been up since 4:45 am, and since it's Saturday I'll take it easy, start my morning slowly and then move on to what needs to be done.

What's on the agenda for today?

• More housecleaning
• Trip to the store to restock on veggies for the week (I am going through a lot of vegetables lately)
• Work on my crochet a bit more
• Start a new book
• Make some cute fabric chickens for Springs
• Continue watching Shogun
• Watch some period dramas (really wanting to watch something a la Jane Austen)

Hope you all have a fantastic Saturday friends.

{ Getting things done }

I woke up this morning, not feeling like doing anything.  I dragged myself through coffee, hubby's lunch preparations, and then breakfast for myself at 8am.  I just wanted to lay in bed and do absolutely nothing.  

 

Ever since I started perimenopause, the first two days of my cycle are brutal.  I feel so drained, crampy and get hormonal headaches.  But, things need to be done, so as slow as I may move that day, I get up and honestly, after I'm up and about, I start feeling better.

Days like these, I find comfort in the menial homemaking tasks I need to do.....like standing at the kitchen sink, washing dishes and listening to the birds outside. 

 

 

 

I stripped my bed, and put on fresh bedding.  I usually do it on Monday's but didn't get around to it, and I didn't want to wait a whole other week, so got it done this morning.  There is just something about fresh linens and a freshly made bed.  I think I've said it before, but for me, if my bed is made and my room is clean and tidy, it makes it feel like the rest of the house is in order.  

Next I moved into the kitchen and got the dishwasher unloaded, then hand washed the few breakfast dishes in the sink, wiped down the counters, opened the window and took out the meat to defrost for dinner.

Oh and I wanted to show you a quick tip for washing your dishes too.  I have this cute brown jar that I keep near my sink.  In it I have dish soap.  When I start running of dish soap, I buy a new one, but before I run out completely, I pour the remaining soap into the jar, and keep adding my leftover liquid dish soap.  

When I wash dishes by hand, I just dip my sponge into the jar, and voila.  I try to use that soap up before starting a new bottle.  It makes washing the dishes easier, because I just have to dip the sponge in, and keep going.

When the kitchen was in order, I got busy with the dining room/den area.  I started moving things around, trying to get it not so cluttered while the old couches are still waiting to be taken to the donation place.  

Is there anything worse than that moment you are right in the middle of cleaning, and you look around and there is just a mess everywhere?  Makes you feel like abandoning ship and running for the hills, but you gotta press on and finish.

And for some reason, I'm the type of person who starts working on one thing, and sees something else along the way, so gets that going as well, then sees something else and adds that to the list.

 

Example.....moved the couch from the wall, next to the other couches.  It is crowded and crazy but it's only until Saturday morning, and it's out of the way.  Then I moved my sideboard/dresser where I store my table linens, placemats, runners etc., to the wall where the couch was at.  But instead of stopping there, I opened every drawer and refolded, looked through, and organized the drawers again.

While I was doing that, I was eyeing the antique table up that is in the picture above, next to the couches.  It belonged to my husband's uncle's mother.  That was a mouthful.  Hahahah

His aunt gave us the table last year.  It is a beautiful wood parlor table, and though it's big and kinda clunky, I love antiques and especially family treasures, so want to use it in the house.  I

One thing I like doing while I'm working around the house, is to put a video on my laptop, and play it in the background.  It's usually a podcast, or some sort of video that I don't need to watch per say, but can listen to instead.

Once I was happy with the dining room, I moved back into the kitchen, to start some of my seeds.  Today, I planted some more lavender.  Jasmine gave me these a few weeks ago, and they've been sitting, patiently waiting for the weather to warm up.

While in there, I also changed the water on the philodendron I'm propagating.  It's always thrilling when you start seeing rooting on some of the cuttings.  As always, not all the cuttings will take, some will root, some will die. 

 

I gave the living room a quick tidy, nothing was really out of place, except for Elliott's toys all over the floor, which I picked up and placed on his tower and his basket.  

In the picture below you can see the new (to us) couches I mentioned.  They are beautiful and so comfy.

Now this picture may seem odd, and no I wasn't building Elliott a fort, although he did treat it like one, and slept under it for hours.  Actually, if you look on the bottom of the rack closest to the couch, you can see Elliot's shadow.  LOL

But I washed my bed linens, and didn't want to use the dryer.  Since the temperatures around here have been so nice and warm, I wanted to hang them on the clothesline to dry, but it has been super windy and I didn't want them to end up flying away.  

I opted to open my back porch door, leave the screen door closed and let that wonderful wind in.  I just pushed my two dryer racks closer to the door, and in no time, my sheets and pillow cases were dry.

After the housework was done, I finally got to sit down, give my lower back and cramps a rest, and just relax before it was time to start dinner.

I have set my current book aside, it is taking too long to read, and I have just 1 day left in March to reach my goal.  So, I've decided that I am going to grab the two smallest books I have on my pile, and try to cram them in before Friday morning.  

Then I can start April fresh, finish The Sugar Camp Quilt and grab the next book on the list, to reach my monthly goal of two books.

I think if I just stick to reading the books I feel like at the time, it will make it easier to actually stick to the 24 books for 2022 goal that I set in the beginning of the year.  If I keep forcing books on myself, I will quickly give up.  Anyone else like me?

I managed to get everything done that I wanted to, and I even crocheted.  Oh that brought me so much joy.  

I confess, I didn't crochet anything major, but just two faux wasp/hornet nests to hang out on my back patio and porch.  I've heard that they work really well to keep wasps away, because they will not build their nests if there is a big colony (nest) already in place.

Besides, I figure if for some reason these don't do the trick, at least they will look cute hanging outside the house, right?

I thought I had taken a picture of the crocheted nests, but I guess I didn't.  I did share it over on my Instagram stories, but I'll take a picture with my camera tomorrow and post it here too.  I want to make a few more, because our house is quite big, and I need a few all around the house where the wasps like to make their nests.  I'll also let you know if they actually work or not.

Well friends, I am going to take a motrin, drink a cup of tea, watch a little tv, and call it a night.

{ Busy end of school year }

The past few day have been spent trying to get all the school work finished.  There's a lot.

11th Grade is no joke, and Nick is taking Astronomy, Game Design and Chemistry, we won't mention the Algebra 2 because yeah, this old head of mine can't deal.  Last day of school is the 15th of May, so next week Friday.

I just realized that my last post was on Monday and that was the Happy Homemaker Monday.  I swear this week has flown right by, but it's been a good one nonetheless.

A lot of homemaking, cleaning, not much swimming as the weather has been a bit strange and with the strong winds, that's a huge no no for me.

I know many people don't iron anymore, but it's one of those homemaking chores that I love doing.  I still remember as a teenager, I would beg my stepmom to leave the ironing to me.  A big ol' pile of clothes, 6 people worth.

I would put on some music, and happily iron the whole afternoon long.

We had a laundry area at the back of the house, it had one of those old cement sinks with the washboard.  A spot for the ironing board, washing machine and so on.  I don't know about you but I adore old laundry rooms.

I'm constantly on the look out for an old washboard, or even an old sink.  Maybe one day.

The sewing machine has also been used multiple times, not only for masks, but I've been working on some placemats.  Nothing too fancy, pretty basic but I needed some new ones in spring/summer colors.

Still have 2 to finish sewing up, and am hoping to get to them this week but truthfully, Nick wants to get his schooling finished before the 15th so we have been pushing full speed ahead and everything else is taking a backseat.

I'm slowly coming around to catching up on shows, though not really.

You know I was thinking the other day that when my children were little, I often felt like I had no time for anything and would think about the day they would be grown and how much spare time I would have then.  Haha

No really, I thought surely as they get older, it frees up more time for me, but it really doesn't.  It's just a different kind of need from them, but nonetheless your job as a mother is as important as it was when they were toddlers needing your full attention.

My homemaking has been enjoyed to a whole new level.  I used to enjoy it but lately I'm taking so much pleasure in doing every task before me.  I also used to rush through the task at hand because I was already thinking about the next thing on the list.  I've stopped doing that.  I concentrate on what is before me, take my time and then move on, and if the next thing does not get done today, it will move on to the next day with no problem.

My chalkboard wall had not been updated in a long time.  Yesterday I scrubbed it all clean, gave the wall a good wash, then redid it again.  I'm not an artist, as you can clearly see, so no stunning looking chalkboard with fancy writing and all that jazz.

It's functional though and that is really all that it needs to be.

I just realized looking at this picture that between Tuesday and Wednesday is not a lot of space.  Don't ask how I did that, I don't know.  It's going to bug me though, so once this week's plan is done, I may redo the days again.  OCD at it's finest.

Last night's dinner was delicious.  It is a new recipe that I tried and I'll have it on the food blog this morning.  Lemon and Garlic Baked Chicken Legs.  SO good!

I also have a ton of bananas.  I've shared before how I like to buy the bags of overripe bananas from the commissary.  I use those for baking.  I grabbed two bags this time because I want to make some banana jam too.

The cake I made above is a caramelized banana upside down cake.  It is divine.  I don't think the recipe is on the blog yet, I'll have to check, but if not, I'll add it when I add the chicken recipe.

Just bear with me, I am doing a lot better on posting the recipes over on Full Bellies, Happy Kids.  I used to be so good with it and then moved to Texas and fell off the wagon, big time.  Since then it's been a struggle to get back into the rhythm.

Honestly I think that the minute Curt retired from the Air Force and we moved from Arizona, everything changed.  It shouldn't have, and I didn't think it would affect my blogging, homemaking and so on, but it ended up being the one thing in my life that took the biggest hit.

I'm not quite sure why.  I've tried to think back and make sense of it.  The only thing I can think is that we were in a different stage of our lives, it was just us, we did what we wanted when we wanted. There was a comfortable rhythm to it all, and then Curt retired, we moved States, my family moved to America and the life we once had disappeared.  Maybe it's something else, but that is the only thing that I can think of that would cause such a drastic change for us and for me as a person, and ultimately as a blogger.

So what I need to focus on now, is bringing that part of me back into a very different world.  Kids are grown, one has graduated 3 years ago, one is graduating next year.  We have our own house, our little pug girls are no longer with us.  There's been so much change, maybe I haven't quite grieved everything, I think that is probably the biggest thing for me. 

It's good to let go and grieve what was, but I never did.  I just jumped right into the next chapter and kept going. 

Sorry for venting and putting this all down here, but sometimes when you start writing and thinking at the same time, you start healing and learning.  It helps to think clearly.

Here's my question to you, what do you miss most about my blog?  I am talking to those that have followed me for many years, many all the way back from 2006. 

Or what did you enjoy the most?  What kept you coming back? 

Would love to know. 

Alright friends, I need to get this post up, then start my day.  Have a blessed one :)

Schooling - Game Design Portfolio, History Portfolio, English Semester Exam, Astronomy Exam
Print book label and wrap book for shipping
Post Office to mail book
Tractor Supply to pick up some soil
Finish placemats

Belgravia

Youtube Vlogs

Getting those kitchen towels super clean!

On yesterday's post I mentioned how I get my kitchen towels nice and clean, using a mixture of cleaning supplies and letting nature help out with it's heat from the sun.

I spent many a year just doing what everyone else did, going to the store, buying this and that product, trying bleach and all sorts of chemicals to help me with my housework.  I didn't really think about it, I just went with it like so many others.

As my homemaking journey continued, I started wanting to be more independent and self sufficient.  I would sit and wonder how our ancestors got by, what did they use, because we know for sure that they didn't have all of these hundreds of products at their disposal.

We know that they had to use a lot of what was available to them, and use it to the maximum of their advantage.

The tip I'm about to share with you, is one such way to make use of products you already have on hand, but also to make use of nature and what God has put at our disposal.

But let's gather your grimy kitchen towels, and get going.  The first thing you will need is a big tub.  I use my dish tub for this and it works just great.

You're going to start by mixing in 3 to 4 tablespoons of baking soda, 2 cups of vinegar and about a cup or so of powdered detergent.

Give it a good mix, you will notice that it will bubble up as the vinegar and baking soda combine.

Boil some water, I use a big pot to boil quite a bit because I want enough to cover all the kitchen towels.  This is where you can judge for yourself, if you're only going to do a few then cut back on the ingredients, but I tend to keep my towels and wash them all once a week, using this method.

Also, I don't just put in white or light colored kitchen towels, I put in my colored ones as well, and they get nice and clean too.  This mixture and way of washing them, takes out grease and even stubborn stains.  I've never had an issue with it and always get great results.

Pour the boiling water into the tub, and then start adding your towels pushing them down with a wooden spoon so that you don't burn yourself in the hot water.

Once all the towels are in and covered completely with water, just set it out in a nice sunny spot and leave it.

I do this first thing in the morning and leave them out until about 5pm or so.

After it's been sat out all day, the water will still be warm, but you'll be able to grab the towels with your bare hands.  Go ahead and give them a ring, and then pop them in the wash.  Once done, hang out to dry.  You can use your tumble dryer, but I always hang mine out because I find that the sun helps again with the last whitening that I need.

I tell you nature is your best friend when it comes to getting things done, especially if you use it the correct way.

Look how bright and white they look?

How to whiten kitchen towels in the sun:

One big tub
Boiling water, 1 gallon
Baking soda, about 4 heaping tablespoons
Vinegar about 500ml  (2 and a half cups)
Powder detergent, 1 cup
Plastic bag to cover


Mix the baking soda, vinegar and detergent well, then pour in the boiling water.  Carefully add in your kitchen towels, be careful not to burn yourself.  I use a big wooden spoon to stir the towels into the water.

Place a plastic bag over the tub to cover. You're basically going to give it a nice steam bath, or a sauna if you will.  You don't have to cover with the bag, if the sun is hot enough, you can leave it as is, and that is what I did today.

Let it sit in the sun for a couple of hours.  It's best if you place them out in the morning and leave them until later in the day, or even overnight.

Wring them out really well, then throw in your washer.


I now have a fresh pile of towels ready to be used in the kitchen.  They smell good, they look amazing and I know they're clean and sanitized.  Next week Friday I will again repeat the process, once I've used them up in my day to day kitchen chores.

I do hope this tip helps you, and if you decide to try it out, do let me know how it worked for you. 

A day in the life and some recipes for you all

Hi everyone, come on in and sit with me, let me show you a bit of my day.

I had yet another home day which I'm really, and I mean reallllyyy loving.  It's been so relaxing to not have to rush out the door or be watching the clock constantly.  What it's done is help me reset, so to speak and recharge my batteries.

{ Reading and Ironing }

There are days that the housework tasks are so many, that I feel like I hit the ground running in the morning, and don't stop until my head hits the pillow.  See, even though I'm at home all day, you would think that things would be always slow or laid back, and for the most part, they can be, but there are also days that the work is never ending and continous.

{ Ironing and my favorite Vlogmas Channels }

My skin has been so dry the past month or so, it's quite awful and no matter how much wash it or apply lotion, it just doesn't seem to help.  So this morning, I decided to start with a Rose Face Mask which I've had on hand for a while but hadn't yet gotten around to trying it.

It smells amazing, and it worked really well hydrating my face.  I'll have to keep using it throughout the winter months.