Today's View

As I was sitting here thinking about my lack of goals - always a weak point - I decided I'd just do a little bit of a pictorial with a few comments.  

My creativity space that is sorely lacking a clean, open space to work in.  I really need the cabinetry that was originally planned for the wall where the printer is.

I've been craving something gooey and sweet.  This was making its rounds on social media so I thought I'd try it.  I needed two cans of peaches but had only one so used a can of fried apples as well.  It wasn't as ooey-gooey as I'd hope, but still, it tasted good.  Next time: a smaller pan, I think I'd like it 'deeper'.

These still need to be done. 

These are clean and dry and just need to be put away - plastic doesn't always dry in the dishwasher, so that's why they're on the counter.

It's not 'perfectly' cleaned off, but it's far better than it was first thing this morning.

"To Be Posted" accumulates all receipts to be entered into Quicken, "Ready to file" is after is has been and/or reconciled.  Posting done, filing not done.

This got dusted but not polished...another day.

This part of the bathroom got cleaned!  The toilet and floors did not.  Ideally (in my world) even this would be cleaner - this was all new about three years ago but in my absence, and with our awful water, there is build up around the fixtures that needs a little more elbow grease and de-scaler applied.

This is just a taste of a few areas around the house.  My mind is as scattered as these photos - every room has an area or areas that need deep cleaning, not just surface cleaning.  Who knew it would be so hard to get back on track?  The dust is prolific - I could dust half a dozen times a day.  

I fight with myself between "playing" at whatever hobby calls me and striving to get caught up on all that needs to be done with the housework.  I get frustrated constantly doing the same chore over and over and over.  I know, and accept, that as a 'housewife' it IS my first priority to care for my home, but the frustration is deep of dealing with what I perceive to be inconsideration from the others living here.  I'll give one example that weighs on me.

The 6-bag laundry sorters.

The upper section where I hang clean laundry as it comes from the dryer.  Grunge towels are kept on the upper shelf, baskets (notice there's only one - the other is in the 17 year-olds bedroom STILL with clean clothes that were to have been put away & basket returned), and clean rugs.

In my mind (and it would work with their cooperation) I have a laundry system.  It IS in place, just not followed.  I have asked ONLY that they bring their dirty clothes on a daily basis and place them on the washing machine.  One of them walks right past the washing machine to get to his car!  Once there, I will sort them into the respective bag so that when any bag is full enough for a load, I will do that load.  Ideally, I would be doing no more than a load or two every day.  Nope! One piles his laundry up in one area of the bedroom floor, the other leaves his wherever he removes it on his bedroom floor.  One is 61, the other is 17.  Eventually, and often after I either go ahead and gather the laundry myself or they eventually carry their big armloads down, it gets to the washer, where I then have a much larger task of sorting and by then all the bags are full and need to be done, so it becomes a marathon day or two of laundry.  Mind you, I'm only asking for their clothes!  I gather towels, bedding, etc. because those are done separately.  

That concludes today's ranting and whining.

I just had a series of texts from Nick - his school had a special career outing event today.  He had to be at the school cafeteria by 7:30 this morning dressed "business casual" and it was mandatory.  They were bused from the school to the event location.  He texted because, the event is now over, but the bus driver was no where to be found!  About 10 minutes later, he texted that the bus was finally there, so it'll take about 20 minutes to get back to the school and then he gets to come home for the day.  He'll be hungry as he had no lunch with him and it'll be after 1:00 p.m. before he gets home.  

He's doing well in most of his classes with As and Bs, but Spanish, that's another story.  This is his 2nd year of Spanish, and he finished the semester with a D!  After talking with two other mom's, one's son is at a different high school and the other's son is at a private school, both also taking Spanish, and their sons are also having the same problem and they've talked with other mom's too whose children are having a problem.  We wondered if there isn't a city-wide problem with how Spanish is being taught in the schools.  

I'd better go work on something - one bite at a time :/

Not So Ruthless

I got on a pretty good roll with getting some quilt work done, but then got side-tracked yesterday.  I'm not really sure how, but I did.  It could be it was that box of magazine recipe pages and notebooks sitting close to my bed that started calling to me.  I have a LOT of things that call to me like that!

It may look empty, but much of the contents are still on my work surface.  There IS less, but I'm afraid I was not as ruthless as I could or should be.  I still have in my mind to create weekly menus from which I'll do my weekly general grocery shopping and monthly Costco shopping.  I had put together some of those weekly menus before, and they were in this box, but need to fine tune them some and put together more.  I like trying new recipes as I get tired of the same old meals over and over again.  The biggest problem though right now, is not having my full kitchen.  So this may all go back into a box, albeit a smaller one.  

I am happy to declare that I did get rid of quite a bit of the recipes.  Some just no longer appealed to me, and some I knew would not appeal to Marty or Nick.  Marty doesn't like rye so anything with rye or caraway had to go.  Nick is allergic to peanuts, so some of those went, but some I kept figuring I can substitute cashew or almond butter in.  Some were just more complicated, used  pricey or unique ingredients or tools which I've determined I don't have time for now.  You know the ones - they come from Gourmet, or Sunset or Bon Appetit.  Some foods no longer agree with me so some of those got tossed, but unfortunately, I had a real problem getting rid of all those recipes that could pack on pounds, you know, the comfort foods and desserts.  I've found that those from Cooking Light are sometimes just a little too light for our tastes.  Not that we couldn't stand to eat a lot lighter!

SO much clutter to wade through; how did it get this way?  One bite of that elephant at a time!  

Birds and A Dining Room Project

I just can't believe how fast time is passing, it's mid-January, already!  And with the heat and drought, you'd think it was May.  85 degrees in mid-January in the Northern Hemisphere is NOT my idea of winter.  I did see a couple of Oregon Juncos in the backyard a couple of days ago, so maybe they're precursors to finally getting some winter weather, but the 10-day outlook isn't looking hopefully.  The first two pictures below are not Oregon Juncos, they are Ringed Turtle-Doves. 

I have not specifically noticed this bird here before, but it is common to our area according to my bird books.  We get the Mourning Dove (yep, spelled m-o-U-r-n-i-n-g) which has spots on its wings and no black ring around the neck.  We also get the far more elusive Band-tailed Pigeon which is really very pretty - not your common rats-with-wings aka pigeons, but a large, shy, lavender/purple colored (although the book says gray/blue-gray) pigeon with a black-tipped yellow beak and a white half-ring on the back of the neck and of course bands on their tails hence the name. 

Ringed Turtle-Dove

When I first saw the Ringed Turtle-Dove, I thought it was the B-T Pigeon, but I've never known them to be on the ground in the backyard and these are smaller.  The pigeons had partied in the tree in the past and hung out on the power lines, but never on the ground.  So when these guys were in the grass pecking at whatever, I grabbed my camera and snapped a number of shots through the very dirty dining room window using my point and shoot with zoom.  I was afraid they'd fly off if I got too close seeing me through the glass.  They do look sweet and peaceful don't they?  I understand that doves are not always so.

And speaking of dining rooms. Yeah, pretty rough transition there.  That has been my focus over the last few days.  This is true confessions time.  For a whole lot of reasons over the last number of years, I have let my housekeeping take a back seat to just about everything else in life.  Some of those reasons included remodel of bathrooms, addition of heating/A-C on the roof with entry to the attic crawlspace through the house when the ductwork was replaced and a variety health problems.  Additionally I had some attitude problems and rebellion, lol.  

The following pictures will give an idea of how hard it is for me to stay focused and on task with the way so much is out of order.  Do you remember those books by Laura Numeroff, If You Give A Mouse A Muffin et.al. where the mouse gets one thing, then will want something else and when given that will want yet another thing and eventually the story brings you right back to the mouse wanting a muffin where he started.  That's how house cleaning and chores are for me at the moment, so follow along.

Messy dining room...and some cat toys.

Above is the dining room.  To the left and somewhat behind is the one-butt kitchen without an oven.  The card table is where I had been sewing prior to getting my Sanctuary (quilt room) remodel.  I have removed the card table from the dining room along with the stuff that was on it, and on some of the other surfaces.  That stuff had to go somewhere.  There was stuff that had to go to the recycle barrel.  As I go to the recycle barrel which is in the garage, I continually pass by messy bags holding good handled paper bags.

They are now nice and neatly placed into these milk boxes from Costco - they fit perfectly.  They were not in the dining room, they were in the garage.

These are the messy bags, and some excess bags of varying types that I decluttered directly to the recycle barrel.  The barrel is getting full!  That's a good thing.

And this table, in the living room, I predestined to send to the dining room for my rearrangement project.  Of course, IT had to be cleaned off too.  Yes, there's still a ton of dust in the picture.  Most of that stuff is Nick's gaming platform stuff, or trash.  Who needs those empty boxes for computer components?  Or those plastic packaging items that you need a Skill saw to open.  They headed to the recycle barrel too.  And that purple exercise ball?  The one I bought a year ago to do exercises for my back...that I never did...it's now deflated and placed back in it's box, which had been in the dining room - yeah, go figure - and is now residing in the entry closet, but that may not be where it stays either.  Where does one put exercise equipment they don't use but think they may some day.  I can see the fireplace again, yay!!  Of course, it's way TOO HOT to have a fire and too windy to risk sparks flying up and out of the flue.  Red flag warnings are in effect for the next few days...in January...when it's supposed to be 20 degrees cooler...when it's supposed to rain.

Cat Bathroom

I needed to show this, please excuse the dust - we're dry here, remember?  I was probably putting away some office supplies.  No, no, not in the cupboard but on the upper two shelves that conveniently aren't in the picture.  But what I wanted to show is, as we have no utility room which would be the perfect place to keep the kitties' litter box, and my bathrooms are way too nice to put a litterbox, not to mention pretty small, several years ago, I came up with this idea.  The armoir was a freebie from a family across the street that moved.  Not being in the greatest of shape, smelling like smoke, but quite usable, I had Marty cut a mouse-hole shape at one end, bought a large, high-sided plastic storage tub, cut an opening at one end of it and placed it inside the cupboard.  The doors open easily for cleaning the litterbox, the cats have LOTS of room, and there's some room for storing the scooper, an air freshener, and a little broom, which, ahem, needed to be used on the floor, obviously.  

The blue grate catches most of the litter from the kitty feet, and the container of clean litter is right there too.  Out of the picture at that "southwest" corner is the sliding door to the backyard. The kitties do not go outside, strictly indoor kitties.  While there when I took this picture, I probably scooped the litter box, which then led me back to the garage, where I set the used litter in another bag next to the recycle barrel.  Then I go to the bathroom and scrub my hands.  Clean hands after scooping litter is a must, and I must use the scrub brush.  For no specific reason, that has become nearly obsessive.  I cannot just lightly rinse with a little soap and water.  So once in the bathroom...

I remember the clean towels were still in the dryer, so back to the garage again.

The old-as-dirt dryer.

And my dryer works, which I'm thankful for.  Especially since it's about a year older than my 29-year old microwave oven. I have no clothesline outdoors should it stop working.  Notice there is water on the garage floor to the right of the washing machine.  That's one of "those issues" Marty and I stopped addressing, which bugs me, which I can't do anything about at present. 

The new layout, still lots to be dealt with.

The dining room table now has even more stuff on it. The table was rotated from it's previous orientation which will make it easier to get to the microwave since it's now farther from the one-butt kitchen than it's ever been.  I moved the two bookshelves over to and under the window.  I left the TV & stand pretty close to where it was.  The floors of course had to be swept, where does all the dirt come from? And they had to be mopped - hope that got rid of some of the dust. The 6' long table is against the solid wall.  That microwave oven is much heavier now than it was 29 years ago.  And I know it can't be because I'm 29 years older and not as strong.  I'm sure it's gained weight over the years, just like I have! 

Another angle of new layout.

I also have my bread machine on the long table.  It would be so nice to have home-made bread again.  I don't like using the machine to bake it, but using it to make the dough, priceless!  Watch for a future Toaster Oven Tuesday featuring bread baking...hope it's not a flop.

A plastic green and white plaid table cover was put on the long table.   It has to look better than just the bare table would.  

This was all worked on yesterday, and I did not get to my Sanctuary until after dinner.  There's still lots to do.  I didn't make any progress on it today as I had to do some Walmart grocery shopping, and then put groceries away and realized I had to clean the refrigerator and pantry, and update my inventory list. 

There were a lot more trips up and down stairs returning things at least closer to their "place for everything, and everything in it's place" locations.  It's a long road to travel, and will take time.  I may be cluttered, and dusty, but I don't think I qualify for an episode of Hoarders...but then again, you haven't seen my guest room, or a complete shot of the so-called '3rd' garage.  Three-car garages only hold one car, shelves for camping and sports gear, a workbench, and all the stuff you don't know what to do with when you can't make up your mind if you want to keep it for the day you need it, or to send it to a charitable organization, or whether to have your very first garage sale where you work up the courage knowing you'll have those who will want to haggle over every penny you hope to gain from your valuables you've outgrown or don't like any more.

Why?

Why? did I purchase this coffee pot? Better yet, Why? do I keep it? I do not like it. Marty does not like it. At the time it seemed like a good-idea-coffee-pot, it has the grinder built into the top, has a timer and it all goes into the thermal carafe...or not. We've lost count of the number of times something went wrong: the carafe didn't get put in, the basket with the grounds didn't stay pushed in, it's tubes get clogged. It doesn't have an auto-shut-off if the carafe isn't in or the basket pops out or doesn't get put in all the way...coffee goes everywhere, as do the grounds because the basket overflows when the carafe isn't in place. And cleaning the grinder...it - stays - wet - all - the - time! Oh, and if you don't take the lid off the carafe, it only dribbles into your cup, and if you should happen to drop it on your tile floor, the spout breaks and pouring issues are amplified. Wow, the exterior didn't look that bad until the flash hit it!
Why? can't I get this oven replaced? Better yet, Why? don't we push ahead for the complete kitchen remodel the kitchen so badly needs? Well, because we fear. We fear the future. We fear Marty may lose his job. We fear we might move at some point. We fear not finding a good contractor. And we procrastinate. Two procrastinators married to each makes for a whole lot of never-get-anything-done issues. Can you see the bungee cord going from the door handle to the top of the frame...uhhuh, without it, we risk the door falling off, so we open it very carefully and take a stance to bodily hold the door on...makes it fun removing hot dishes, lol. The clock/timer...hasn't worked in the 15.5 years I've been here. The oven thermometer...absolutely necessary, and necessary to check often...temps can fluctuate from 25 - 75 degrees above where you set the dial. Camera flash sure makes every smudge show, doesn't it?
Why? have I let these boxes, bags and stacks of paper sit here for, um, let's say a long time in years. One box is Nick's school memorabilia as is the stack of stuff atop the boxes. The other, I think, is Victoria's (or maybe my own) stuff, or not. The bags? well, they're some books I culled off the downstairs bookshelves, to go...somewhere and/or to be sorted. One bag I think is filled with maps from National Geographic. Probably should go through them and see if there's anything I really, really want to keep. I think in the back of my mind, I thought they might come in useful with some of Nick's schoolwork, but hey, what do I know.
Why? did I find these pieces of a hamburger on the chair next to the computer Nick uses? 'Nuff said!
Why? does this bookshelf look like this? Funny thing is, there's at least 3 more that look pretty much the same! And what do I do with the VHS tapes now that no one wants them? Have you seen the shelves of them at thrift stores? Ugh!! Worse than vinyl LPs.
Why? did this guitar not get put away? and still hasn't. Probably for the same reason the folding table never got put away...and that one's mine. And what IS that white blob under the table? Someone's dirty tissue? eewww...the trash can is 2 feet away!
Why? are there ALWAYS two pair of dirty socks on the floor in front of the sofa? May be different socks, but ALWAYS two pair! They fit the same feet (not mine! not Marty's!). Probably the same reason those game wires are ALWAYS stretched across the room. The living room has become Nick's 'game' room, sigh!
Why? did I not get this packed up with the rest of the Christmas books last year? and Why? does it have that dust outline on it? Shhhhh, I haven't dusted in awhile. and I really want to know Why? Blogger rotated my picture? It was a 1/4 turn to the left to begin with!!!!
Why? are these tan silhouettes my family? Hehe, because I had old ancestral photos in it and noticed they were starting to fade and took them out with the intent to photocopy and, well, after I don't know how many years now, I just have tan silhouette family members ;) because it hasn't gotten done.
Why? does it still look like this above the entry door? Yeah, you guessed it, it's been years!! again. We had the ceiling resprayed in a knock-down style after encapsulating the 'cottage cheese with asbestos stuff' and Marty had painted the walls bright white in 1998 (they had been Navajo White - ugh, dull/dreary), and then more recently we replaced the front doors. In doing so, the old trim was removed and the new trim didn't cover what the old had...or maybe it had just not been painted to begin with, but now it's obvious. I think it's one of those "I expected Marty to do it." and in reality it's a "Marty never notices it, so if it's to get done, I have to specifically ASK Marty to do it and he'll get to it when he gets to it, or not, or I just do it myself and keep my mouth shut" things, so it hasn't gotten done.

That's my little trip around the house for today. You might pray I don't present another one...no telling what could show up in that Why? episode. Now, on to more fun things :)

P.S. Why? can't I figure out how to get what I write placed next to the photo...I'm truly Blogger-challenged, hehe.