In My Home This Week: Can I?

 

We're back in the 1930's once more with this kitchen.  I just thought it was a very pretty room and wanted to share it with you all.  It is an advertisement for another linoleum company. I think this one might be Armstrong and a Hazel Dell Brown design.  She did many of these sorts of kitchens, well suited to an old farmhouse or historic homes.   We most often see her modern day, cutting edge designs.  This ad is attributed to the Country Gentleman magazine. 

I know why the kitchens we have today came about but isn't it refreshing to see an uncluttered and simpler, far more open, space such as these?  

The tile floor sets the color tones for the rest of the room.  The wall paper for instance has blues and rosy reds in it.  The cabinets also pick up on that blue and red, with cooling creamy white to match the wall paper.  

Here in this room, if we start off to the far right, I believe we see a modern fridge tucked against the wall there, with the dining chair beside it.

Then we move to the window wall.  All that lovely sunlight coming in is not wasted upon a sink (as if there was such a thing, lol!) but is instead reserved for a banquet seat and trestle table.  A cozy rug is there to keep feet from feeling the chill of winter mornings and evenings.

It appears there are built in's either side of the banquet.  The shelf that spans the two upper cabinets and the painted in niche where the statue is set is very pretty.  It raises the kitchen from a work space to a rather pretty room.  As do all the pretty dishes and copper and glass on the shelf above.  It makes me think there wasn't a proper dining room in this home and so this pretty space in the kitchen did double duty as both breakfast/work area and formal dining.  In such a pretty room as this, it would be no hardship to have all meals here, would it?  That they have used wainscotting and a pretty wallpaper just makes me think even more that this was a small house with dining and kitchen combined out of necessity.

Notice the interior of the one upper cupboard we can see has the interior painted red.  How pretty is that with the blue and white dishware?  Just under that we see what appears to be a rather large bread box.  And then neat little drawers underneath where one might tuck away and hide all the utilitarian pieces required in a kitchen that might not be so pretty to look at but are oh so useful.

To the kitchen sink area: here we find the sink rests not on legs but atop drawered cabinets.  Here we find both the clock, a shelf to hold more decorative/useful items and what appears to be a knife holder hung on the wall.   While many of the sinks we see have handy stools where a homemaker might sit, this sink appears to be raised to a comfortable level for doing standing preparations.  

All we can see of the stove is just one partial view of the side.  There are hanging dishtowel bars there so the dish cloths might dry from the heat of the stove.  The steaming kettle adds to the overall feeling of coziness this kitchen has, doesn't it?

In My Home This Week:

I'd forgotten what it was like to be full hands on with a small child in the house.   Not so much so that I didn't feel for Bess and Katie but enough that I had failed to take into account how much harder it is for a 62 year old woman to keep up.   

It's also such a joy to get to see this young personality blooming.  Those temper tantrums I laughed at a week ago?  No more.  I think he realized pretty quickly that Gramma was simply not going to cater to those.   What I have found is that there are just times when nothing but hugs and kisses and dandling on a knee will do and others when he will go off and quietly sit down to play all on his own.  Sweetest moment this past week was when he sat down to use the drum as a stove, put dishes on top and filled them with blocks.  Then he began stirring and talking to himself.  He was fully occupied for a good 45 minutes at that simply play.  

We have fallen into our own routine here.  He arrives and eats breakfast.  He plays and about 10:30 I give him a snack.   He eats around noon and then goes down for a nap and quiet time.  If he wakes before he's been down two hours, I don't get him up.  I leave him to lie and play and possibly sleep again.  About 2:30 I will get him up and give him a snack and about 4:30 he is ready for supper.  Then he snuggles with John and I until Katie arrives to pick him up.   

It's his mama who is missing out just now.  He's as regimental with his schedule as she was with hers at the same age and so when he gets home, he's ready for bed and from what Katie tells me he goes right off to sleep within minutes of arriving home.   

Work:

I've no idea what I might get done this week.  I purposely am keeping August goals very light, not because I don't want to accomplish things but because I find an 18 month child is pretty time consuming. 

Officially it is Zone 1 all over again.  That would be the living/dining room per my schedule last month.  Honestly beyond dusting I'm not really sure what I'll manage to do.  The slipcover for my chair was put on hold last month when I realized that I would be keeping Caleb.  He's not a terribly messy sort of child, but he is a very little boy and play alone is messy.  And who knows what living messes might get made at this stage?  I might in a quiet moment get a chance to organize a shelf or drawer but I'm not going to put too heavy emphasis on any one task beyond just trying to keep the room neat in between play sessions.

Last week an impromptu turning out of the toy box occurred when Caleb began tossing things out.  It was needed.  I put many things in the trash that had gotten broken or which the children had never played with at all.  I have a small box of toys on the other side of the living room which I felt were more suited to infants. I think I'll sort those out and  clean them up.

I guess really my plan for August is to just survive it, lol.  This will no doubt be a short season and I'm old enough to know that indeed rest is necessary and housework truly will wait.

Kitchen:

Few leftovers coming into this week.  The big deal I'm finding, is planning meals for Caleb.  I'm feeding him three meals a day and while Katie is supplying him with some foodstuffs and snacks,  Gramma is incorporating as much fresh veg and fruit as she might for the added variety and nutrients.  I find he likes most things I put out for him. 

Then there is the whole three meals a day thing for the two of us.  Some mornings last week I simply didn't want to bother about food at all.  I tried to whip together as much supper prep as I might during the first part of the afternoon nap and we had plenty of leftovers with which we might make lunch, but this week?  Not so much of the leftovers thing at least not as of this writing.  

I have yet to make time to 'make ahead' much.  Oh no fear...I can always find something to eat and we never go hungry, but my time constraints just now have me reading more and more 20 and 30 minute recipes than longer prep and cooking time things that I typically might make.  

So my big goals this week: Do what I think to do as soon as I think of it if at all possible. Whether that happens to be thawing something to eat, prepping it or pulling a recipe I think might work with foods on hand (leftovers especially).   For instance at one point on Friday, I recalled the acorn and butternut squash in the fridge and poked them full of holes, then popped in the slow cooker to cook. I can use diced squash for Caleb and at the least I can mash and put into muffins or pancakes or something.   Not what I'd originally planned but need was greater than plans made.

Goal two: Stay on top of fragments and potential waste better.  I obviously got carried away with fruit last pay period and to my detriment, some of that went to compost.  That's expensive compost any way I look at it.  I'd heaps rather we got benefit of than to toss it!

Since it appears I am going into this week without a menu plan, then I'll share what we eat on the daily diary post throughout the week.  

Leisure:  ?What?

No plans here, either, really.  I've asked John to take me for peach ice cream and to purchase peaches this weekend, since I know the season is drawing to a quick close.  While it might not sound leisurely, Kroger has some pretty good sales I want to take advantage of this week.  We'll go on Sunday after church when we're in town already and within a mile of the store.  

After that, the rest of the week will be spent resting and recuperating for the next day.   That's all that's important just now.