FLY LADY - Week 1 December

  The holidays are in full swing! That means while many of you did a massive Spring Cleaning, I am doing my deep cleaning in preparation for holiday decorations.

My room schedule stays the same. The only difference is that after I deep clean, the Christmas decorations for that room go up. While this week is the Laundry & Kitchen, I'm also doing the Bathroom. I need the towels and wash cloths put in place. All of the fall/ Halloween linens are packed away and I'm working with emergency back-ups until the Christmas ones get unpacked.

Before I start with the regular routine, let's tackle the bathroom. This is probably the easiest/ fastest room in the home to clean but is often the room left behind until company is expected. When you consider that aside from the kitchen, this is the germiest room in the home, the bathroom really needs routine attention.

Everything gets wiped down by spraying with a vinegar water solution. I vacuum out the tub before wiping that down. 

The bathroom sink drain gets the montly drain cleaner solution. If you've not done this before, a monthly routine of this task will keep all of your drains running smooth and fresh.

Pour 1 cup of baking soda over the drain opening

Add 2 cups of hot vinegar

Flush through with hot water

     Note: Don't use the tap water as it won't be hot right away. I use a 4-cup pyrex cup.

     Note: To keep the water from boiling over and creating a safety hazzard, place a 1/2 of a bamboo                      skewer in the cup before putting in the microwave. You can also heat your water in a pan 

                or tea kettle on the stove.

If you've not done this before, the drain may still be sluggish. Just repeat the process then plan to do this once a month.

I also sweep/ mop the bathroom floor. 

Now I'm ready to decorate!

Laundry room/ Kitchen

These two areas are really one long room separated only by a double arch opening. 

For the washing machine, I run 1 cup of baking soda and 1/2 gallon of white vinegar through a HOT water wash. If you have an Heavy Duty setting, use this for the added agitation time. After you've run the vinegar/ soda rotation, run the washer again with just a hot water cycle.

I also wipe the lids and the machines on the outside with a vinegar cleaner solution. 

Everything gets taken off the shelves above the laundry side of the room and wiped down. While the shelves are drying completely I repeat with the cat counter on the opposite side of the room. 

The rug beneath the cat box is taken outside and shaken out then put in the washer. While that is running, I empty the litter box, wash it with pinesol and allow to air dry outside completely. 

I move the recycling baskets to the front deck, clearing the floor completely of any opstacles, allowing me to sweep/ steam/ mop/ rinse mop the floor. Once the floor is dry, everything goes back in place. This entire process takes me about half of a day but the results are worth the time.

On Day 2 of this week I'll tackle the kitchen. The baking counter seems to become a catch-all so that all as to be sorted out/ put away or pitched. Then the appliances are removed so I can detail the counter with the vinegar solution. Once dry, the appliances go back in place. 

Additionally this week, I will strip everything out of the coffee corner, wipe everything down, refill the tea bag jars and detail my coffee pot. I don't clean Bob's Bunn. That's his department. I don't mess with his coffee pot except when I need strong coffee to dye paper :-D

On Day 3 I will give the oven a good cleaning in preparation for the annual Christmas Cookie baking I'll be doing on Saturday/ Sunday

After the oven is cleaned, the floor will receive the same detailing as the laundry room and my kitchen will be ready for decorating and baking season!

Come back on Friday to see these rooms done and ready for Christmas!

Country Blessings!

~ Kelly

PREPPER FRIDAY - What's Enough?

 

Good morning, everyone!

As I hear the stories of everyone 'stocking up' and constant buying, wiping out shelves I find myself asking... What's Enough?

I'm pretty sure Bob has asked 'do we have enough, already' as he put together two new shelving units we purchased from Menards.

We have a wall between the shower room and Bob's man came. The side on the shower room is open stud. I saw this drop can storage unit on Pinterest and knew the studded wall could be converted.

 The wall is only about 6' long so not a lot of storage. Our canned goods overflow to a heavy duty shelving unit Bob built when we first moved in to this house.

In the spare room we have the two shelving units from Menards, an upright freezer that houses most of the meat. I also have four 5-shelf book cases that initially held all of my smaller pieces of fabric. I've since moved those to a storage shed in the back yard that I've dubbed my crafting warehouse. The Menards units hold paper and cleaning supplies. The bookcases hold all of our dry goods. I have one other bakers rack to move downstairs for all of the baking supplies. I want to add one more of the big shelving units to hold all of our water storage. Right now everything sits on the floor - in the way. 

So, back to the question. 

The amount is going to vary by the individual's situation.

I'm planning for a year. Not necessarily for another lock-down. (We haven't really experienced that here in the US like other countries) but should Bob be off work for whatever reason as well as working towards having a serious food supply for the early days of his retirement - which I'm hoping will happen in two years. 

What's your version of 'What's Enough?'

PREPPING - Dry Canning

 Good morning, friends!

Hard to believe a new month has begun. As I write this, it is Sunday afternoon. We have sun but a cold wind. We've barely crossed the 55* mark. 

Inside, I have the heat all turned off since I have the oven on and we are at a comfortable 70*. Quite comfy for working around the house.

Since I've been canning for over forty-five years, keeping canning supplies on hand is nothing to me. When everyone was going nuts and clearing the shelves of jars and lids, I had a pretty decent supply. Mind you, I still picked up a few boxes of what I thought I might be short on. But honestly, I did not understand the purpose of people buying EVERY BOX ON THE SHELF! One lady on YouTube admitted to doing just that. Why? In my opinion, those are the true HOARDERS... and the folks who give the rest of us preppers a bad name. 

I bought four boxes of pint jars since I wasn't sure what I had on hand for lids. I knew I had the jars but if I didn't have enough lids, those jars weren't going to do my any good. Buying jars insured I had enough lids.  When ACE Hardware had the jars in their ad (but not on the shelf), the manager of a local store allowed me to rain-check five boxes. I ordered three boxes of the half-gallon since I knew at most I only had six of those not already in use, as well as two boxes of wide -mouth pints. Wide mouth are great for when you want to dip into the jar for measuring. That was it. No clearing off a shelf- even if I could have found them. I bought only what I knew I needed and would use.

I spent all day Sunday writing/ scheduling blog posts and dry-canning sugar and flour.

I put up 40 pints of all-purpose flour. I chose pints because most recipes call for two cups of flour... exactly one pint. As I type this (Sunday) I am not sure how many pints I'll have of self-rising, 7-grain or corn meal.

Sugar is one of those items you really can't pre-measure for recipes. With that in mind, I put all of the white sugar in half-gallon jars and the Stevia in Nestea Tea jars. Sugar doesn't have to be sealed or heated like grains so packaging these up were easy. With the amount of sugar I had already purchased, I wound up with 10 jars and 9 jars of Stevia. I have both on my grocery stock up for Tuesday to finish filling out the jars I have on hand. The Truvia brown sugar will be packaged in wide mouth pints and regular brown sugar in wide-mouth quarts. 

While I'll keep a flour and sugar canister on the baking counter, my goal is to eliminate items like the brown sugar and Stevia that I don't need to keep handy in quantity. Easy enough to grab a smaller jar from the pantry as needed.

They say baking items could be our 'new' shortage as we head into the holidays. I do a lot of baking so am glad I won't have to disappoint the business folks I know look forward to their holiday cookie box every year. 

What are shortage are you anticipating? Is there anything you usually buy this time of year that you are already having problems finding? Please share in the comments below.

Be Safe! Be Prepared!

~Kelly

FLYLADY - November 2

 

Welcome to a new month, everyone!

We've enjoyed a few days of warm weather. The cooler temperatures are moving back in. What else can we expect for November. I'm hoping for a warm weekend as Bob and I have so much to get done outside, including putting the new cover on the greenhouse.

The first week of the month is dedicated to the Laundry Room and the Kitchen. I did the laundry room last weekend because I just couldn't stand it anymore. I also detailed the kitchen floor.

This week I want to get the baking counter under control In just one month I'll be diving into full-on Christmas baking mode. Aside from the 60+ cookie trays we pass out to businesses who've served us throughout the year I will need to get two boxes in the mail... one going to IL and one going to WA. 

The other thing I'm hoping to do today is to clean out the soffit area above the kitchen cabinets. We have glasses/ cups up there we haven't used since they were put up there. If I can tackle the area on the North and East wall then I can move to the soffit above the baking counter at a later time. That entire soffit on that side is all cook books. 

When we moved here twelve years ago I got rid of two HUGE boxes of cookbooks. I need to go through them again. My main keepers will be those from or associated with entertainers. From there I'll start recipe-testing select recipes from all of the others to create one single keeper book (or possibly one for each category). 

If I can accomplish that this week, I will be thrilled. I already have a box ready for the cups/ glassware to take to the thrift store tomorrow.

As we make our way closer to the holidays, I realize we may not experience the gatherings of the past but it's even more important to create an atmosphere we want to be in.

Let's get busy.

Be Safe! Be Prepared!

~Kelly