This Week In My Home: Mid-July

 

Here is a snug little kitchen but I think it's super functional...It's another Armstrong Kitchen design by my favorite designer.  She obviously chose her floor pattern and worked from there.  The way the floor is framed with the red/white/blue stripe is clever.  It clearly marks the kitchen area.  I love that the floor around that 'rug' is black which blends up into the lower portions of the cabinets.   The walls are covered with a textured white linoleum product and the dusty blue used as an accent on the sink wall is used on the cabinet interiors and then  carried right up onto the ceiling.  

I'll start at the right and work my way around.   First the fridge is included in the kitchen and this is one of the first where we can clearly see the 'work triangle' theory in practice.  Appliances do not have to be equidistant in order to be in a triangle but the 3 appliances are generally located on opposing walls. 

Next we have classroom type chairs used as a breakfast area.  I think that is so clever.  But notice how snug that space is.  You can see that opening the lower cupboards on the cabinet would be nearly impossible, but the designer has chosen to use a sliding louvered door on the lower cabinets.  It saves much needed floor space and it allows that little breakfast area in the room.

This room gains a ton of light from the glass block wall and if you'll peek in the cabinet underneath the sink...It's a full wall!  I personally wonder how that wall looks at night.  Is it dark then?  I will say that in the daytime, which is generally when a kitchen is most in use, you'd have light enough in those cabinets to see just what you need to find.   Dark cabinets are so frustrating!

I love how they have incorporated a proper window and shelves for plants and tray and canisters so you have added storage in a kitchen that is, quite honestly, short on cabinet space and storage overall.

The stove is to the left of the sink.  I'm sure it's one of those nice big broad stoves.  And finally just around the corner from the stove is that nice rolling storage cabinet which appears to be handy to pull around to the stove to serve as additional work space.  Note that they've stored spice canisters and eggs on the one side here.

Now honestly, I'm not sure how I'd function in a kitchen quite that snug but I do like it a lot!  What do you think? 

The Week Ahead:  

I don't have any hard and fast plans this week.  I didn't get quite all I wanted done last week.  Some weather, some being under the weather and some just being disgusted with myself, lol.  Here's hoping the week ahead is a much better one!

What's remarkable to me is that this week marks the middle of the month of July...Goodness but the weeks are flying and the months slipping away from me quicker than I can grasp at the moment.   

Work:

John will be mowing three lawns this week.  It hasn't even been a full week but our lawn is looking pretty shaggy already thanks to the rain and we know that means Samuel's also will be looking shaggy and then there's the back yard in town that he hasn't cut in a month's time.  Fortunately that yard is shaded and doesn't grow quite so tall but rain can only force the issue.   Since he'll be busy so much of the week I'm planning most of this week to be on my own.

I didn't grocery shop last week.  I'm going at some point this week.   I can't say at the moment if this will be a big shop or just a produce refresh.  It entirely depends on others and if one doesn't come through then the other plan will be the order of the day.  I have a list.  I can shop big or small from it quite easily.  Either way, I'll be in the grocery store this week.

I'm determined to buy as much mulch and weed mat as I possibly can this week.  I know I can fit 8 bags of mulch in the trunk of my car and 8 I shall buy.   I think that might be just enough to do the one flower bed.   If I can also buy weed mat, I can at least cover the other two beds and protect them from weed growth.  I'm not sure how much of the work I'll have to redo but it certainly won't be as much as I did initially!   I'd be stoked to get ALL the mulch but I know it's many trips worth.  I'm not going to make extra trips but if I'm in the area...then I'm going to go get more.  I'll lay all I can reasonably get done.  I'm not going to over do it but the weather has truly been very mild so I should be able to manage.

This week will be a new Zone 2 Porches and Patio.   There's plenty of work required on both porches.  All three spaces need work of some sort on them.  I likely won't get finished with every job that is required but I can certainly do a bit here and there.

I need to  work out a third quarter budget.  I typically don't wait until Mid-July to do this.  I need to get it done. 

I need to work on the check book register, bills and such.  

I'm not going to plan another thing into this week.  There will be lots to do.  Typically we work hard five days out of seven and work gently the sixth day and then we rest.  I don't expect this week will be without other things to fill in the empty spaces.  There's the things I didn't quite get done last week and my monthly goals list to work upon if I find time on my hands and there's always the routine things that must be attended to as well.  

Kitchen:

Gathered Fragments:

1/2 large zucchini

1/2 tomato

Pizza leftovers

1 cup Sloppy Joe mixture

1/4 green bell pepper

1/2 red onion

1/2 heart of romaine lettuce

Green Onions

1/2 can diced tomatoes mixed with 1/2 can tomato sauce

1/2 punt sliced mushrooms

Heel end of a loaf of homemade bread

Tortillas, flour and corn

Meals:

Cubed Steak, Mashed Potatoes, Gravy

Gramma's Fried Chicken, Green Beans, Potato Salad, Sliced Tomatoes, Peach Cobbler

Soup and Cornbread Every summer I start wanting soup.  We don't do cold soups in this household. I've enough fragments and enough scraps saved in the freezer to make up a decent pot of soup.  A good budget meal and one that always satisfies.

Italian Sausage, Pan Roasted Vegetables, Garlic Toast

Roast Chicken, Rice, Salad

Chicken Pot Pie, Pear Salad

Beef and Bean Burritos, Salad

Leisure and Personal:

I've been reading a lot and enjoying it.  I finished another Bridgerton book, To Sir Phillip with Love.   I skip the parts I typically wouldn't want to read but I can say honestly that I've not had to skip so very much of these Bridgerton books.

Now I've begun Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher.

This week I mean to make tea or a soft drink and sit on the porch.   The rabbits and deer are so undisturbed by Maddie (who cannot see them apparently) that they are coming nearer and nearer the house.  

Putter about my yard...There's something very restorative and peaceful in deadheading and checking plants over.  

Cut flowers and greenery for a home bouquet.

I'm not planning too heavily in this area either.  There are all sorts of things I'd like to do.  It's all dependent upon how tired I am at the end of the day and that's the truth.