Weekend Review – The Super Bowl made me not take pictures this weekend

I was a very busy girl this weekend but I have nothing to show you for it. Sorry, but I blame the Super Bowl. So since a picture is worth a thousand words, I had better get busy to at least make up one picture for you!

Hubby works every other weekend, so that means that I can get things done around the house by myself every other weekend. Hubby is a huge help when we work on things together, but I try to keep the small stuff done on my own so that we can either just hang out together or tackle the larger projects as a team. This weekend it was time to reclaim the living room from the chaos that had overtaken it. Part of that was my fault (shoes tend to collect in there) and part of it was Hubby’s fault (hello socks and other discarded clothing!) and the last part rest squarely on the furry shoulders of our cats. The current theory is that cats are agents of chaos.

But I do have a picture of this, so all together now! Ooooo! Ahhhh! I even straightened the pillows on the couch. What can I say – I’m an over achiever (actually glutton for punishment since the cats love to mess them back up!)

I have found that the fastest way to make a room look clean is to cut down on the clutter. Not only does this make the room look clean, but it can make a smaller space look bigger. Hubby had gaming books and metalworking materials on the coffee table and they fit perfectly in the baskets under the table that are there for just this very purpose. I also keep a basket on the tabletop for the remote controls. Not only do we not have to hunt them down, but they look neat and organized just by throwing them in the basket when we aren’t using them! Another great basket that we have in the living room is the one for the cats’ toys. I know that they can’t put them away on their own, but they can get them out when they want to play with them instead of just having them scattered all over the house. Again, a little bit of effort to toss them in the basket and it looks so much neater!

I also recommend cleaning out from under the furniture when you have the time. Things have a way of migrating under there. I found two socks (not matching), the ball from the cat scratcher with the little track around the edge for the ball to roll in. Apparently it is more entertaining for my cats to pull the ball out and hide it.

After the living room was clean, I went and spent the afternoon with my mom. We had Mexican food for lunch and it was amazing.

Sunday was filled with cooking mostly. I had grand plans to clean some more but kept getting distracted by just about anything except for cleaning. That and I truly believe that the cats were actively trying to thwart me. Why else would they get into the top of the closet in the office and knock down the basket full of scarves repeatedly? Once time that I went in there after the big crashing sound, Gambit was sitting in the basket and looking at all of the scarves on the ground. But this is what Gambit looked like as a kitten so I can’t stay too mad at him.

After attempting to clean, I went over to my mom’s and helped her get the ribs ready to go in the smoker. We used a dry rub from Emeril and modified it a little bit. I’ll post that at some point. I also went back home and made Red Hot and Blue style potato salad (recipe to follow later). It was just me, Hubby and my mom for the Super bowl, but we had lots of delicious food and now lots of delicious leftovers! This week I’ll make a few new meals out of leftovers to show you how versatile they can be. There is nothing quite like having a head start on a meal!

So until later…well…later!

Love,
Meg

It's Going to Get Worse Before It Get's Better

Do you have any parts of your house that you don’t even like to look in, let alone think that anyone else might take a peek? You know, the junk drawer, the closet, the cabinet that you always just shove junk in to make it go away. Then the whole “out of sight, out of mind” phenomenon takes over (I’m going to pause here and tell you how impressed with myself I am for typing that word correctly on my first try – go me and insert happy dance here) and then you forget what you even have in there. I have vowed to banish these spaces from my home because I am tired of not wanting to look at them and actually I need the space for other more important things that you very much.

Now we all know that Rome wasn’t built in a day and that since all of the extra clutter that makes it way into our lives didn’t all get there in one day, it is going to take quite a bit more time to fully banish it. And then you will have the eternal battle to wage against it returning when you aren’t looking. Things like that have a way of sneaking their way back in.

This weekend Hubby and I started our epic battle against the clutter in the kitchen and laundry room. Ok, we started in the laundry room but since some of the stacked boxes (most of the stacked boxes) in the corner of the laundry room were “new” dishes, we had to spill out into the kitchen as well. Just to clarify “new” – these are dishes that I got for Christmas before Hubby and I started dating because they said that they were going to discontinue the pattern. These are the same dishes that my mom has, my uncle has, my grandmother has, my grandmother’s sister has (my great-aunt)…are you getting the picture yet? My family uses these dishes. They were still new in the box even though I had them for years – hence the “new”.

The dishes are a pattern called Blue Danube and are white with a blue pattern on them. If I had though ahead I would have taken a picture of them, but I didn’t so now you will just have to wait. Ooh – suspenseful. In stark contrast to my lovely dishes with place setting for 12 (even though there is no room in our house for a dinner party for 12) we had been using the dishes that were left behind by Hubby’s roommate from before we started dating. I know, really mature of us, right? I have a weird mental block against allowing myself to use my own good things – like my good pots and pans, knives, plates; the list could go on and on. And before you say anything, yes, I’m sure that I would benefit from therapy.

So in order to move the antique buffet in the laundry room from the short wall to the long wall next to the washer and dryer we had to unpack the dishes. In order to be able to put them away, we had to get rid of the old ones. Are you with me so far?

We boxed up the old dishes in the boxes that the new ones had been in and have set them aside to donate to the Salvation Army. We shop there a lot for all sorts of things because you truly never know what you are going to find there and wanted to take this opportunity to donate to this great organization. Another two bonuses of donation is the tax write off and that it is not going to a landfill.

So once the dishes were sorted our cabinet looked something like this:

Isn’t it great? Such pretty little stacks of dishes! I was seriously excited to see them there and kept grinning and exclaiming “our pretty plates!” How grown up of me. I know, I know, I should have done a before shot and I promise to get better at doing that.

While Hubby got cracking on our kitchen cabinet that housed the explosion of food storage containers, I tackled the cabinets in the laundry room and the newly aligned buffet. I pulled out things that we had apparently moved from the duplex to our new house in the buffet, along with things that had been shoved into the cabinets for lack of any other place to put them. And now, the after pictures of the laundry room: So much better, right? Now the goal is to keep things that are already in there this nice and add more storage and organization solutions as well to continue to improve it. Oh, and to decorate it. I’m pretty slow to pull the trigger on new decorating but there is a method to my madness.

Until next time!

Love,
Meg