Hello dears, Come in and I'll make you coffee. It feels cool in here to me and it is a little but then I just finished a glass of iced tea, lol. I have all that tea that John has bought me over the last few weeks and after pricing sodas at the dollar store this afternoon on my way home feel even more compelled to enjoy the tea. However, coffee would be most welcome at the moment.
Don't mind the aromatics...Be glad you are that side of the screen and I am on this, as I've taken cold and have a mentholated heat rub mixed with peppermint oil on my chest. That, lots of fluids, elderberry gummies and rest are my mainstay at the moment. I am not as ill as John, though he never confesses to feeling really bad. However, let it be noted that the man didn't feel up to drinking a cup of coffee this morning...I did not miss mine nor the second cup I typically have either. We've had a run of illness in the family with boy little boys and their Mama and Taylor, too. Taylor's was, thankfully caught early and aside from telling her mom that she was sick she never actually got sick. The boys were not so lucky. Ear infections and chest congestion for both of them. Bess took them to the doctor and I found this photo incredibly funny:
That's my two youngest grandsons peeking through the vents of the door at the doctor's office. They heard a baby cry and wanted to see him...
Speaking of aromatic stuff, I was the recipient of some facial care samples and I happily embarked on a trial. LOVE the way the products make my face feel so silky. Can.not.abide.the.aroma. Seriously, I had to get up and wash my face all over again the other night because the perfume in the product was so overwhelming to me. This is why I typically use a non-scented cleansing routine and why I shall be looking into buying another product.
Isn't it odd that I can love perfume as I do but the scents of so many products truly bother me to the point that I cannot stand them? Mind you I'm pretty picky about perfumes as well. I so hypersensitive to aroma that I can be overwhelmed by a person who has used a discreet amount that is seated four rows away. I generally do not walk down the soaps aisle at most major grocery stores because I find the scents so overwhelming. When I had migraines I always knew when one was on the way because one of my first symptoms was almost always a devastating sensitivity to day to day aromas.
I dislike having to try new products. Were it up to me I'd use the same things over and over again because I feel safe with them but that means little in a world that is convinced we need/we must have something new, so they reformulate a product that has been working perfectly fine and then it no longer does. Never mind... as I age, my skin has different needs than it did when I was younger. I lean a little more towards dry skin. I have dark spots. What I used at 18 or even at 45 is not going to work for me now.
The week has not really gone as planned. Menus are off entirely. I jumped in to the chores hard on Monday and very nearly finished all of the zone work and thought I'd get back to the little I missed. I'm not so sure just now. However, I did pretty up one little area and it was so easy. I added a quilt to the back of this chair. Suddenly the whole area has a lovely appeal, because the quilt has all the colors of the pillow, the blue and white and orange/gold of the items on the side table. It makes me smile to sit across from the chair and look over at it.
But aside from Monday, nothing has gone as planned. Not a thing. I changed my mind about how I'd handle my grocery budget. Start on the first of each month and end on the last day of the month I said...and then I turned around this week and spent every penny I have for the month. All. Mind you aside from not having a turkey we need little. The freezer is filled, the stockpile has been reasonably refreshed. We've enough. It's just the idea that whoosh! It's all gone. I will buy a turkey breast. I promised John that I would but I'm really planning to curb every other impulse.
And then for all that spending, and all the meal planning that went on ahead of that spending, we've eaten out three times this week. Three! On Tuesday I felt compelled to bring home Chinese Hot and Sour soup and General Tso Chicken because John has a chesty cough and stuffy head. We did eat for two meals off that purchase. On Wednesday, we went to Aldi and bought a cart load of groceries and I had things ready at home to warm over but John wanted to go up the block to a favorite pizzeria and have Spaghetti. I didn't object because by this time I was feeling the cold's effect on my body and not having to prepare a meal and unload groceries too seemed a gift.
Then today, I drove up to the market where I purchase ground beef and chicken breasts. This week they are running the Tuesday special all week long. They generally do this just before the holidays begin because they don't run the specials during the holidays. So I decided it was now or wait until after the first of the year and we were so very low on meat. Well, I picked up a sandwich for my lunch while I was there because it was a bit after 12 and a long time since my 6am breakfast. Sigh. I'm determined to get myself in gear and cook foods for the weekend tomorrow. I'll have to refer back to my menu plan, though it seems pretty useless at the moment. I might as well plan a new one.
I had planned to buy more of those rectangular clear bins with the hermetically sealing lid I'd found at Dollar General, saying to myself that they were more suited to the shelving unit and to filling with bags of flour and sugar, etc. Well...I found a lid at one store and bins at another store but neither store has the mate to the other. I am thinking I will end trying to find them online from another source after visiting multiple Dollar Generals. Both Tuesday and today I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of stuff stacked in the aisles and the cluttered appearance of shelves in the two stores I'd visited. It just overwhelms me. As well, both stores tend to be a little 'dark' which I loathe. Our local store is not dark but it is tightly crammed with products.
Speaking of clutter, the response from Mabel on my Clean House post this week struck a hard chord. I too have been doing housework for as long as I've been in school. It wasn't just making my bed in my primary years, I was responsible for certain tasks from about age 6 onwards. When we moved, when I was seven, my responsibilities included ironing the family clothing, washing the breakfast dishes each day after school and reheating supper, as well as sweeping and dusting. By age 12 I was making supper on my own each evening and by the time we'd moved to our last shared family home I also canned and preserved the bulk of our produce, helped clear up after every meal, did all the family ironing which was a massive amount in those all cotton days of clothing, and sewed all my own clothing. I worked! No, other girls my age were not carrying the responsibilities of a household on their shoulders but it was expected that I would and I did. Life was an endless round of housework and homework and in those days we had LOTS of homework each evening and over the weekend.
So when I got married, naturally I rebelled. I was working outside the home and expected to clean the house as well and I didn't find it fun nor did I have help. So I didn't do it a whole lot until I was a stay at home mom and then it was haphazard and as I felt like it. When I did feel like it, things were so out of control that I often started from the inside and worked out. Closets, drawers, cupboards and then the surfaces. I was super exhausted and it took days to recover from that sort of cleaning.
When I was a single mom on my own with two children and pregnant with Katie, I'd come home from work and sometimes find my house had been cleaned. I do not know to this day who did it but it was the loveliest thing! By that point in my life it wasn't not wanting to clean it was that I was in so much pain and so overwhelmed with a stressful job and life in general that housework was just one more thing I felt totally inept at handling.
When John and I met and started living together, he soon marshalled the forces about us. He did laundry. The kids had to do dishes and vacuum and sweep. He had them take turns mowing the lawn. I cooked meals three times a day and had time to focus on the finer mechanics of running a household for seven. But I was still not a prize winning homemaker! Surfaces in private rooms were often piled high with things that overflowed to the floor. Behind doors there was a welter of clutter.
I worked outside the home for two years after we moved here, then we determined I'd come home to stay. I made up my mind that I owed it to John to work just as hard inside my home as he did outside the home. He still did (and does) most of the laundry and he vacuumed the main living area daily and he still marshalled the forces though we were soon down to just 2 children to push to labor. I learned. I learned to declutter. I learned to keep things clean on the surface. I learned to organize. I learned to do so many things that I can't even name them all! I had worked in a house all my life but it wasn't until we moved to this home that I finally mastered the art of housekeeping. It is so ironic to me that now I have leisure time to sit and just admire the well maintained home we share. John will readily tell you he's no idea where nine tenths of what we own is, but I can tell you exactly where most things are and tell you in detail, too. I had read all sorts of books over the years including the book that was Flylady's inspiration. She just took a rather complicated system and dumbed it down into easy steps that helped me learn to do what I'd wanted to do all along: keep a clean and lovely home. I moved on and learned to properly clean areas from other sources and the house has just become a haven for us all.
You'd think with me doing as much cooking as I did growing up I'd feel the same loathing for making meals but I'll let you in on a secret: it was one of the rare complimentary moments in my life growing up and so I have always enjoyed the 'reward' of cooking a meal. I might be criticized for any and all things over the years but my cooking was always complimented. Over the years I didn't stop enjoying cooking though I do sometimes weary of the routine for prolonged periods but mostly, I really enjoy it and see it as a creative outlet. When you're feeding seven on a budget that will barely feed one, creative is the only thing you can be, lol. So over the years I've made up recipes; I've tried new recipes; I've adapted ideas I've gathered while reading recipes and brought them inline with our likes and our budget. I have continued to cook. It helps a lot that I happen to like eating.
Now that the house is pretty much back under control, I have been seeing lots of little tasks that require my attention. I am not doing them willy nilly as they occur to me to do. No. I've worn myself down to nubbins at times with that 'Well I might as well go ahead and do..." thinking. No. I plan each month what areas I will concentrate on in each zone. If something is a particular eyesore then I will add it to the list for that zone area but I will not tackle the kitchen cupboards while I'm meant to be working in the living room or go clean the front door when it's beds and baths week. I just won't. I figure we've been looking at things all this time without bothering so waiting an extra week won't hurt. I cannot believe how much easier I've made my life! If something bothers John and it's a job of work to do it I will tell him, "Yes, it's on the list to be done this month." If it really bothers him he'll go on and do it himself but mostly he's satisfied that I've noticed it and have planned to tend to it.
I finally finished the Elizabeth Goudge book last night. I don't mind telling you that I lost my way in it. I lost interest. I skimmed the last pages and missed great loads of stuff. I love her work but she is meant to be taken in large doses of reading and not in bits and pieces as you can cram it in. I'll not make that mistake twice. I'll make sure next go to take time to savor the book I'm reading by her.
However, my lack of interest made me stop and think about books, specifically my particular friends as I call them. Some are light acquaintances and fun for the moment. Some, like Miss Goudge's books, really require a lot of attention. My friendship with her books is complex. I've been reading this author since I was 16 or 17 years old. As I've aged, I've found newer deeper wisdoms in her words. She is no mere acquaintance. She is a lifelong companion and I did neither the book nor myself any favors in letting other things distract me from my reading the book thoroughly. Had it been another author I might well have read it in the dribbles and drabbles and not lost anything, but I did a dishonor to her work in this reading and I'm sorry for it.
I'd meant to stay and chat longer, but I find, as usual on a work day, that I am weary. I've gone well past my stopping place for the day. I must make myself some sort of supper. I need to work on one or two things. I must give my thoughts over to planning a breakfast for my husband tomorrow morning. And I shall allow myself the early bed time that I consider my reward for rising early to see my husband off to work his shift.
Grab the umbrella on your way out of the door...and we shall meet again this month before the holiday overtakes us.
7 comments:
Funny, but I, too, loved cooking even as I loathed the rest of the cleaning load I carried. Perhaps it was because my father loved to cook and it was one of the few times we worked together on tasks. My husband's mother was a wonderful woman but a terrible, terrible cook. Canned foods and TV dinners were her friend. My husband has learned to enjoy fresh vegetables and home cooking and home baked bread, but when I have had to travel for work he reverts to corn dogs for lunch and dinner and cake for breakfast! The sad thing is that for years I deprived myself of the joy of cooking and baking because I worked in hard charging, male dominated profession (prosecuting criminals) and felt that I would look weak and too girly if I talked about or did cooking. It was liberating when I switched professions and reached 40 at the same time and realized that I pretty much no longer cared what anyone but my husband thought about what I was doing. That was when I started canning, growing a huge garden, and baking/cooking again.
Thank you for your blog.
Yesterday we worked together on a big declutter of the living room. Tonight I turned on the LED candles to turn themselves on every evening and I am enjoyingy clean and cozy space. It feels good tonight sitting here with Hubby.
BTW-Plague Defense from Hopewell Oils will kill the common cold with only one dose on the bottoms of your feet. If it is not truly the common cold virus then it may or may not help because different viruses need different doses or even to be combined with other oils to work. We have never seen it fail with a true common cold though. I haven't treated any sickies yet this fall so I am not in the loop about what is going around yet this year.
Our Dollar General just got remodeled a while ago. For about two weeks it was so neat and organized. Now it is cluttered, not dirty but just cluttered and it drives me crazy to have to walk around boxes of stuff that needs shelved like I was in a maze. I was in total candy heaven the other day, Saw a pecan roll and decided to splurge on carbs. When I looked to be sure it was made in the US, I see it came from Macon, GA. It was a wonderful treat. They kept saying pecans would not be available this holiday season but Aldi had them so I grabbed them while I was there. I think you used to talk about picking pecans and I had pecan envy. Gramma D
The Dollar General nearest my house looks like a disaster area. They leave the big rolling pallets of stock to be shelved at the ends of many of the aisles to the point that only one customer cart will barely pass through it. It makes shopping very difficult. Several months ago they also decided to completely block the fire exit. I let it go the first week that I was there, and then the second week when it was still like that, I called the Fire Marshal's office when I got home. The exit has been kept clear since then. I wasn't worried about fire breaking out, but I had always planned to escape out that door if some yay-hoo came in to rob the place and I was at the back of the store. Dollar General stores just a couple of communities away from mine are often robbed.
Sorry to hear that so many in your family are sick with colds, flu, earache right now. Maybe all of you have gotten done with whatever is going around now, and you will all be feeling good for Thanksgiving and beyond. When I catch a cold, it always goes to my chest and ends up being a major asthma event which lasts for weeks. I'm a good Grandma, and I love my grandson, but when my Grandson has a cold or virus, I'd rather not spend time together until he is well. When I get a cold, my must have comfort is Vicks Vaporub. I wear an old tee shirt under my Jammies and slather it on my chest, and my neck which I then put an old satiny scarf around, and then I rub it on the bottoms of my feet and put on my thickest slipper socks. I am then a sight to behold, visually and aromatically. The Vicks makes my little Fuzzy dog sneeze and my husband absolutely detests the scent of it. It gives him heartburn.
It was a good idea to get some clippings of your family's heirloom chrysanthemums. My Mom used to grow an amazing variety of 'mums years ago. Many different colors and interesting shapes of blooms, some of them with long and short petals on each bloom, spider mums maybe, some had huge blooms, others had tiny blooms. I was too young then to have enough sense to get starts of them.Now the mums that I see, even though they are pretty, especially in mass plantings, all look exactly alike, except for colors, and not too many varieties of those. They look like clones all lined up at the store waiting for someone to buy them.
It is a terrible night outside here near St Louis tonight. The wind is gusting straight out of the north rattling the shutters. It is just right at or below freezing, and snow is blowing. The streets are slick with black ice and there have been several car accidents. It looks like we have already jumped into winter here, and I'm already ready to jump back out of it. It makes me want to put Vicks on the bottoms of my feet, just in case.
I used to follow that rule too. To only work in the zone area and leave the other places till it was their time. Now I am putting out fires too often and you made me realize it. Yes at times you have to cut into your time and do what is not on your schedule but I Can keep work when I can work on that zone. Thank you for the reminder !!
I sure notice when allergy season is near the first sign of it for me is an over sensitiveness to fragrances or any smell for that matter. I don't see how people can use powerful spray perfumes for their home then add extra softer smells to the wash, put on perfume and on and on. Don't so many fragrances fight each other ??
Aren't they too heavy?? I tried Gain on our sheets and had to get up and change the bed completely to be able to sleep. I gave the detergent away. I now only use detergents with no fragrance and more natural. If I want fragrance I can add it later from some flowers or such. :-)
I am cooking ahead more etc and it sure had made meal time for me easier. Somehow trying it this time worked out better than it ever had. There is no going back. ;)
I am reading the real book that the PBS series Home Fries is based on. It is by Julie Summers . She goes through the history of the Women's Institute and on to actual diary entries of the many women as they did their huge part to help during WW2 in England. I am Really enjoying it. She helped with the series set up and said they do a good job of bring out the true story.
We have started letting ourselves take a time off when we feel we need it. We work up to a certain time of the day then for several hours our time is ours. I usually sit and read., do hand mending or such light things. I would love to nap but can never seem to sleep easily during the day hours. Hubby naps easily {I envy him !} or does something easy he wants to. We come back refreshed for the rest of the day. It has never seemed to interfere with our sleep at night.
Thanks for showing that adorable picture of the two boys. Precious !! :-))) Sarah
My apologies to all for the delay in replying to comments. Busy met sick and BOOM I lost ground. Mabel I love the story of how you began to embrace your love of cooking. Is it wrong of me to confess I enjoy housework? I think it's because my grandmother C. always kept such a neat organized home and after going to clear out her things following my uncle's death, I really began to embrace an appreciation of who she was and emulated her.
Lana, A lot of people have mentioned using the candles to cozy up the home. Thank you for the information on oils. I had planned to refollow the free 10 lesson course by Dr. Eric Zelinsky and here I am too sick to pay full attention. However, anyone else interested in basics of essential oils should check out Dr.EricZ.com He does not sell oils but he does instruct in how they use them, has bible based health principles etc.
Dora, I know that the stores usually receive several shipments a week but gracious it's ridiculous that they stack the stores so full. Our local store is quite small and the eye can barely take in all of the stuff there is in the place as it is without seeing clutter. I know too that they are not well staffed so the girls and guys who work there are continually running from stocking shelves back to the registers to work and back to the stocking. It's no wonder they seldom get the aisles clear or the shelves organized!
Pecans are not just grown in Georgia, though I do love yours were from Macon. They are prolific across the south and I know Rhonda has mentioned that they have loads of trees in Oklahoma, as well as trees in Texas...So whatever of our Georgia crops might be affected, there are likely plenty of pecans out there to be purchased as well as peanuts and it's merely the middle man between farmer and consumer who is jacking prices.
Susie, the cooler weather pushed into our area last night. It's meant to be quite cool over the early part of next week but for now is at least back down to seasonably cool weather. I think the reason this illness blossomed so was that the weather got hot and humid and boom! prime growth weather for germs. I have no problems avoiding sick grandchildren. It was just that I was the only one who seemed to be aware that Josh was not feeling well. His parents just thought he was overtired. Well no, he wasn't. Taylor at least knew she felt unwell but again, she had no symptoms other than telling her mama that she was sick. I'm glad that Matt took her on to urgent care and discovered that indeed she was ill before it got worse.
Sarah, I think one of my aversions to used clothing is the aroma of laundry detergents and softeners that linger forever upon them. I've had some lovely things given to me, really nice, but I cannot wear them as they create such an ill feeling. Dr. Eric Zelinsky actually talked about this in lesson one. It's because the detergents, soaps, etc are scented with synthetic perfumes and our body simply cannot handle them. Some people are obviously more sensitive to this, and it's a certain part of the brain that actually reacts to it and sends signals out to the rest of the body. I use unscented laundry detergents, am super cautious with perfumes (real ones only for the most part, which is pricey but I'd go without if I couldn't afford it), smell of soaps and shampoos before I purchase etc.
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