In My Home This Week: New Month Old Jobs

This kitchen is from Kitchen Maid cabinets.  It was part of their 1953 campaign.  Let me share what I like about it.  The blue cabinets.  The way the floor has flecks of blue and yellow in it on the brown background.

This again, was meant to be a step saving, most thoroughly modern kitchen.  Note that the laundry, ironing and a television are all located handily in this room.  I'm thinking the big monstrosity next to the TV is an oven.  The cooktop is located on the other side of the kitchen, well away from the sink and oven.  And the fridge is the last appliance on the sink cabinet wall, which means that there can be no further counter top.  Indeed, looking at the stove top there's nothing there beside it.  

The kitchen certainly packs in a lot of the work zones but honestly, I'm not a fan of this one.  I think the color scheme is just off with that super bright yellow.  A softer color might have worked better since the cabinets are also a soft color.  I don't like that the fridge and oven are on opposite sides of the sink and the stove top is way over on the other side and that it's not as well arranged as it might have been.  I'm sharing it because I find it a steep contrast to the kitchens of the 1940's which somehow packed just as much in but in smaller spaces with better more efficient work arrangements.

What do you think?

In my home this week...

We woke this morning to cool, refreshing air.  Truth, it was a little too cool for the orchids to be out but it was just lovely.  It reminded me of a Labor Day weekend about 53 years ago, one of my fonder childhood memories.  We woke on just such a Saturday with cool refreshing air and Mama took us into town to buy school supplies.  It was cool enough to warrant wearing a sweater that morning.  

When we came home, Daddy was in the yard cutting grass.  I recall thinking that it was an end of summer mowing...dry and dusty and obviously end of season.

And then Granny and Big Mama came to visit for the day.  Mama had cooked a turkey and dressing for a big noon day dinner.  I remember the coolness of the house, eating in the dark wainscotted dining room, the joy of having Big Mama on one side of me and Granny on the other, the chatter of my brother and I about school, the sense of all being well.

I've mentioned house love before.  The house we lived in at this period of life was one I loved dearly and which set a standard no other house has ever reached.  It had a lovely pantry with big pull out bins and open shelves and cabinets.  It had a double sided built in china hutch. There were big bay windows on either side of the house and wainscotting in all the rooms and big fireplaces.   There were big porches front  and back.   At the time it was deep in the country, though now it's in a rural suburb.  We lived there for about 5 years.  

Well, no house has ever been mine as long as the Blue House has been and I'm glad I've finally come to love it and accept that it is most likely my forever home...But I shall say that I do believe the houses we live in make as big an impact on us as the life factors we bump up against and that house positively impacted me, as did the house I loved best in my first marriage did.

Work:

The things I don't get done each week...I didn't work on either porch at all.  Not one bit.  Well, I need to get both done and that's a fact.  Back porch floor, outside railings and rafters, front porch floor and railings.  The front porch floor will have to be painted this year before the winter rains come in.  I need to get this work done, so this week I'll tackle it, even if I have to do thirty minutes at a time until I get it done over multiple days.

I've told Katie if I can borrow the truck soon I shall get the two old church pews that are at her house and bring here for my back porch.   Then I'll shift some things around and put the red chairs and cafe table on the front porch and move the pink chairs back down to the patio with the table which is really an ideal spot for the older children to eat together on nice days.

It's our pay week and I need to finish working up my checkbook register and sorting out what bills we need to pay.  I won't have to balance it again just now but I do need to finish the work I started last week.  

I may be returning to keeping Caleb later this week.  I think Katie got info needed from her job to finally begin the full hiring in process...Gracious but it's been a wait!  

I can't help it...I want to do something towards fall decorating.  So I'll start that process of seeing of what I have in my shed and what I can move from other areas and all that sort of thing.  I likely won't begin the actual decorating work but I will gather things to use and determine where and how I might use them.   

Zone work:  I'll concentrate on the living/dining room and front entry area this week.  Dusting, general cleaning, removing some things that I no longer see in the places where they are, figuring out where I'll move things, what I want to put in their place, etc.    The room is looking a bit frowsy to be honest.  How did Emilie Loring describe the girl in her book?  Something along the lines of "She's beautiful and she has nice clothes but she's never quite right.  She always looks as though she needed to tack up a hem or press wrinkles"...Not an exact quote but the idea is the same and of late that's my room.  I have nice things but they just need a good tidy, a slightly better positioning, removing a few accessories and adding in others in spaces that obviously look to be missing something.  In other words, I'm gonna place house in my living/dining room this week!

Finish up the blog post on my genealogy blog that I started months ago, worked on three weeks ago and still left unfinished.

I'll leave off there.  There's all the usual work to be done and I've already promised myself Monday off from hard labor, lol.  No need of thinking I'll cram six days work in four!

Kitchen:

It's grocery week...

What I need to do is concentrate on using what's in my freezer as much as I can.  Mind you I've planned my menu for the second time this weekend and not one item will come from the freezer.  So.  I had it all worked out and then John mentioned wanting pot roast as he shoved a reduced price roast into the cart at the local grocer this morning.  I also found beef brats at our local grocer  and grabbed up a package for us to have.  I haven't even been able to find those at Kroger or Publix.

At the grocery this week I'll concentrate on produce, dairy and filling gaps in the canned/baking goods areas.  No need to purchase more meats when I've nowhere I can put them.

We ate all but one English muffin last week.  And my last batch of bagels was nearly two months ago.  John gave up waiting for me to make more and we bought bagels last pay period.   I'm very low on freezer space these days though and I hesitate to commit to making breads I can't store for a longer period of time, so I'll concentrate on making muffins and biscuits and such if I'm in need of breads of any sort.

Honestly, not big kitchen plans this week.  I'm pretty satisfied with the work I did in the cabinet last week.  I might sort out the non-canning jars I keep for storage and see what I can set aside for now, probably in the shed.   I'm never short a glass jar these days...or a plastic container either.  I won't throw them away but I can only keep so many!  Anyway, the whole upper section of baking cupboard could be better organized and likely decluttered so that will be my focus in the kitchen this week for cleaning/sorting.

Meals this week...

Leftovers meal:  Wild Rice and Chicken Casserole, Salad

Gramma's Fried Chicken, Fried Green Tomatoes, Boiled Corn, Baked Beans,  Watermelon, Brownies

Shoebox Supper:  BBQ'd Spam Dinner, Cheesy Mashed Potatoes, Green Peas, Pudding

Pumpkin Alfredo Pasta, Spinach Salad, Garlic Bread

Brunswick Stew, Slaw, Cornbread

Pot Roast with Vegetables (John's special request...he even bought a roast!)

Brats, German Potato Salad, Apples 

Leisure:

 

Quiet shabbat at home and then Sunday I'll have Taylor and Caleb here for a few hours.  On Monday, I don't have plans for hard labor, and I have invited the three children to come over and spend the morning hours with me.  I know the boys are out of school and it will give the parents a bit of time to do whatever they like of their many chores without a child interrupting them.   On Tuesday, I'll have Caleb  for a bit.

I won't say having grandchildren is so very much leisure but it is when I don't have to work chores around them!   If I have time to just listen and play with them then I really do enjoy them and that's what I mean to do this week.

I'm now reading Island Magic by Elizabeth Goudge and will keep that up.  

I'll continue the two Bible studies I'm doing.  I've replaced my daily reading with the two studies. 

I want to see if John and I can do something special this week.  I'm in the mood for a picnic and I think a breakfast picnic would be nice, especially with the fresh cool mornings we're slated for this week.  I personally would love to dine al fresco here on our porch but John is never keen because the dogs will be present.  They don't beg or jump up and try to take food, but no, he doesn't like eating outdoors with the dogs about at all.  Perhaps I can convince him to go to a local park for a quick meal?   We'll see.

I have a craft idea I want to attempt this week, too.  I won't make more plans than this as I have a tendency to over plan.