Diary of a Homemaker's Week: And July is Done

 

Saturday:  Meal for Friday night:  Leftover Lasagna Skillet, 3 Bean Salad, Bread and Butter

Last night we went out to see a play.  Three of our small group had parts in the play and that was meant to be our small group activity this month.  It was really good.  They performed the musical "1776".   It made me want to come home and study American history, Georgia history and family genealogy lines in that same time frame.  None of my relatives were famous nor notable but it's fun to reference the timeline they were living in.

Another Iced Tea Chat: 31 Days of Summer

Come in and have a cool drink with me.  What shall it be today?  Just anything at all as long as it's cold and full of ice?  I agree!

We've worked hard this summer. In addition to all the mowing and work about the homes we've been doing, I've kept up with housework, taken time out to go with the children to the library, baby sat when needed, worked at sundry little extra jobs, and written up a storm.  I'm ready to slow down and enjoy this season.

I've enjoyed this spate of hard work and creativity, but I know myself well.  If I continue without a break, I'll run dry.  Not only do I not want that to happen, especially creatively, but I have no way of knowing what each season of life might bring and right now there's a lull.  

Beauty Products I'm Using Lately

In January of this year, I noted that my makeup was looking entirely too heavy and that without makeup my facial skin had dark spots, was coarse looking in texture and there were some deep lines in places where I'd never had lines before.  I also noted that where I'd always had t-zone oiliness, my skin had gotten dry and tended to flake or look red.   Makeup appeared to be too heavily applied and accentuated the very things I didn't like about my facial skin. The skin on my arms and legs looked crepe-y and dry.  And my hair, which has always leaned hard on being oily and required daily shampooing, now was dry and flyaway.   I didn't know what to do with myself!  

I resolved I'd find solutions to all of these issues.  Well, it took me until Spring to really tackle all these issues.  I took them one by one.

The Homemaker Plans Her Week: Singing In the Sunshine

 

In my home this week, I'm listening to my daughter Amie chatter happily about her new degree. She's become a CNA with her eye set on working towards her nursing degree.   I think it's awesome.  I'm glad to hear her so very happy over this new direction in her life.

We've just finished off a week of not as much work as we normally have been doing, but a busy enough week all the same.  I didn't get to one job on my list partly due to being busy and partly due to my reluctance to start the project.  Now it's time to start planning the next week, our last full week for this month.

Diary of A Homemaker's Week: Summer Showers

Saturday:  John had started mowing Sam's yard yesterday when a heavy downpour caused him to stop.  Josh, Isaac, and I got caught in the same downpour in town and were all soaked to the skin by it. 

John told Sam he'd finish his yard today and so he went back over to cut this afternoon.   Before he left, Katie and Caleb came in to visit for a brief spell.   I offered up pizza leftovers for their late lunch. 

Caleb's big delight at present is to climb up on our bed and throw himself down amongst the pillows.  The second thing he's excited about these days?  If I pull a blanket over my head and he can get under there with me.  He giggles and laughs and pops in and out again and just loves that.  He made all of us laugh today with his enjoyment.

Lost in Time

I thought I'd share a few more nursing home memories with you today.  I was thinking of the dementia patients we had.  Not those who were depressed but more those who had Alzheimer's or hardening of the arteries, which was an old diagnosis that appeared on paperwork prior to the 1990's.

We weren't equipped to handle Alzheimer's patients at our facility and the field was just changing at the time when I worked in the nursing home.  The medical profession was transitioning out of the old drug Haldol, which was used as a chemical restraint.  The medicine was meant to help those with schizophrenia but was widely used for most all dementia patients.  It gave them a glazed look in their eyes, might cause them to drool and they tended to scuff their feet when they walked, a symptom spoken widely of as the Haldol Shuffle. 

How To Use a Whole Roasted Chicken

 

Last month, Katie brought me a huge roasting hen.  It weighed 7.5 pounds.  I'd offered her some of the meat from this once it was cooked, but she declined, telling me that she wanted only for me to make chicken broth from the frame so she could put it in her freezer.  Katie is a big believer in Mama's chicken broth when it comes to fighting off a cold or illness and she likes to keep a supply on hand.

John and I each had a leg and a slice of breast meat and then there was a ton of leftover meat.  I contemplated that meat for several days and I thought of all sorts of meals I might make with it.  Each breast half weighed in the neighborhood of a pound and a half.  The thighs were big, and each provided enough meat to serve a meal for John and me.  

The Week Ahead: Work, Work, Work

In my home this week, I am thinking we'll have a less hectic paced week ahead.  Fingers crossed.  I know of only two outings, both in the evening hours.   At the moment I'm writing this post, the week ahead appears to be wide open.  Will it stay that way?  

I always love the song "Whistle While You Work", as it denoted a satisfaction with having a job and getting it done.  Granny often whistled as she was working in house and yard.  I've been more prone to singing or at the very least talking out loud to myself which John finds a bit disconcerting but he's gotten used to it.  Goodness, had I not started talking to myself I'd spent days and days without sound of a real person speaking, lol, while he was working long days, or resting on his off days.  I make decent company for myself.

Iced Tea Chat: Hellos and Goodbyes

 

Come in, come in.  I'll offer you a variety of icy beverages today: peach tea, pink lemonade, soda if you like.  Or I could make you an Orange Julius which I assure you is very refreshing and quite a treat.

I've been so busy and on such a writing streak of late that I barely have time or room to offer up a chatty post any longer.  I'm not complaining about the blessing of being inspired.  It's just that at the moment, I have a month of posts already written and scheduled to go out except for the weekly planning and daily diary.  Unless I actively plan in a chatty post, it won't happen.  I'm trying to make sure to plan at least one for every month this summer.  

I've been highly motivated to work with the warm/hot weather upon us.  I'm waking earlier which makes it easier to head outdoors first and get busy there and then, because I know I have work to do indoors, I'll time myself so that I am not outdoors so long that nothing indoors could possibly get done.  I spend all afternoon writing or researching posts I'm about to write.  I suppose this is what happens when you've kept a baby off and on for most of two years, when you are again free to do as you please, you make hay while the sun shines and boy has the sun been shining.

Diary of a Homemaker's Week: The Week Went Where?

 

Saturday:  A longer post for this day's entry perhaps. I wanted to share how yesterday with Caleb went.  He was fine all morning long.  Katie had him dressed in clean pajamas, thinking of his comfort.  When I'm really ill, I want my pjs, too.  It reminds me that I'm ill.  Well Caleb is accustomed to being dressed every day and so while I was folding a load of clothes, Caleb cherry picked his favorite pair of overalls out of the load and said, "I need hep."  I 'hepped' him, lol.  

At one point in the morning, while I was folding clothes, Caleb disappeared.  I called 'Caleb, where are you?' and he replied, in a nasal twang, "I'm inere."  That tickled me so that I called him again and got the same reply.

The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread

 

As I was making bread one afternoon, I was thinking about the homemade bread itself.  I'd heard, when I first got started making bread, that once I had been making bread for a while my bread would get better.  It wasn't experience that would make the bread better.  My home would begin to help the bread because I'd have a natural yeast in the air and on the equipment I typically use.  I wasn't terribly sure what that meant but I can say with assurance that indeed I now have a 99% success rate with my bread and dough making efforts.  It is a rare day indeed to have a batch of bread not rise beautifully well.

The Homemaker Plans Her Week: Let's Try Planning Again

 

In my home this week, I'm still reeling from the twist and turns of last week.  Very little went to plan.  I ended up with Caleb here three days. Another day Katie's new living couch was being delivered a week early.  I had to run pick up Caleb's toys and shove the old couch out of the way and then return when the actual delivery took place.  My plans with Millie and the boys never worked out.  They had a previously planned outing on Tuesday and today I had Caleb to look after.  

I think we've pinned his low fever to teething.  We've ruled out everything else.  He's fever free all morning, but he kept getting increasingly warm (never hot) after his nap, same as what's happened at school twice this week.  His cheek and ear were red and hot when he woke, and that cheek stayed pink as a blushing apple all afternoon long.  

Diary of a Homemaker's Week: Bing Bang Boom

 

Saturday:  It's been an odd day.  We were up past midnight last night because I am a Deep Space 9 junky.  We've been watching an episode each night for over a year.  Last month we suddenly started getting a running notice across the top of the screen that the program wouldn't be available after July 1.  John and I realized last week that we had two full seasons to go, so we pushed hard and made it through season 6.  At the beginning of this week, we started pushing to get through season 7 but Friday afternoon, we realized there was no way we'd see every episode.  At 11pm last night we made the decision to watch the final episode of Season 7 and call it good.  It was a double episode, and we were sure we'd lose it at midnight, but we didn't.  Apparently, it was due to stop on Pacific time and not Eastern. We finished that episode around 1:30 am this morning.  Then we lay in bed talking over the ending.    

Subscription Clothes Services

The new clothing subscription I tried out after I put a hold on Stitch Fix has interested many of you and you've asked what I thought.  Here's my honest review.

I joined this group after seeing Katie's order and she told me about it.  It's a Texas based company female owned business called Nadine West.  I was interested when I saw what Katie received. I didn't see the receipt to know what prices were like.  

Happy Fourth of July!

 

I will be back later this week with routine posts but wanted to wish you all a happy holiday!

The Homemaker Plans Her Week: Thinking Ahead

 

In my home this week, I am already planning ahead.  I'm going to take the weekend off, so I thought I'd go ahead and get my first post for July written out and have it ready to go.  

We aren't planning to do a single thing this weekend.  I'd tentatively started planning a family gathering so all the cousins could have a get together and then I discovered that Taylor wasn't going to be down, the children across the field had plans to visit their Papa and GrandNessa.  I just quietly let my plans drop and never told anyone I'd been tentatively making them.  I know my 3 grandchildren from South Georgia like Gramma and Grandpa visits, but the real draw is the time with their cousins, and I felt pretty sure the weekend would fall flat.

Diary of a Homemaker: Everything and Nothing

Saturday:  We had a perfectly rotten night last night.  Who knows why?  It rained, gently, not pounding and with a minimum of lightning and thunder.  You'd think the rain alone would have been a huge relief.  Yet I can assure you that John and I both were like popcorn in a hot pan.  He'd toss and I'd turn, and I'd toss, and he'd turn.  I finally moved to the back room for a bit, then got back to bed, then got up again and back to bed and we'd begin again.  Neither of could find a comfortable spot to rest.  I had a bunch of aching joints.  I've no clue why.  I've felt pretty well lately but ache those joints did and ache they continued to do.  I fell asleep somewhere after five just after John got up and went to make himself a coffee.   

I finally came out of the room around 9am.  He'd been awake for hours and was ready for breakfast and I wanted nothing at all to eat.   I made lunch and he could barely bring himself to eat it.  Ah well.