FLY LADY Week 3 - Bedroom & Bathroom

 Good morning, friends!

Well, I can't believe it's only been three weeks since I cracked the ribs. Some days I feel like I can do anything (with the help of Advil Dual) but know that I shouldn't and that is hard.

We might have found our end tables. Which means Bob is going to be ready to tear the living room apart, deep clean and set them up. I'm just not.

We are to have really nice weather this week (in the low 70s) so maybe we can get the Christmas stuff down. I think I'll start with decorations off the tree. Hey, in my current physical capabilities, anything is a start. LOL

I really do love my naps. Especially, if I can get the bedroom nice and cold. But I am trying to avoid them overall.

I told Bob yesterday that I want to start getting the sewing stuff back in the craft room so I an put the roll top desk in the bedroom. That will allow me to get the vintage wooden office chair out of storage (and out of the way so we can work on the Christmas stuff).

To get to the sewing corner, one of us needs to  move a lot of small stuff out of the path. My plan is to move what I can to the bed where I can sort while Bob moves the sewing stuff back into position. That corner needs a deep cleaning, too. So far the mouse hasn't chewed on the chord to my vintage lamp. I think we finally got rid of him. 

I've been watching quilting videos and I want to start sewing again. I need a quick baby quilt for a gal in Eureka Springs who's having the first girl in the family going back at least three generations, if memory serves me.

Plan for the week:

Get the sewing stuff back to the sewing room

Get roll top desk into position

Put all the crackers into jars 

That last one has been tricky. We have almost two cases of Town House crackers but I've not been able to operate the jar sealer. I can put the sealer on the jar but I can't pull it off. I just haven't made time for Bob and I to do that together. Maybe that will be our first task. 

If your refer back to THIS post, I can put 1- 1/2 sleeve of crackers in a quart jar. If my math is correct, that's approximately 48 quart jars of crackers for the pantry. That should sustain our pantry until next holiday season when they go on sale again. Though I got a good sale on them for the holidays, they had them almost $1 cheaper for Super Bowl. Grrr. I'll have to remember that for next year. 

Time to get busy.

Be safe, Be prepared, Be Blessed!

~ Kelly

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