Today I pondered the question, "How many things can we make into popsicles?"
While planning our upcoming family vacation in the mountains, my sister and I suggested we bring out popsicle molds so we can whip up yogurt popsicles for the kids for an easy, healthy and cheap snack. But then I thought about the boundless potential we were met with and decided that I needed to investigate this further. And I'm so glad I did.
Popsicles are an obviously simple treat to whip up. Technically, if you can fit it and freeze it, it will work. Now, I've seen people walk down the 'savory popsicle' road, but I'm not going to go so far today; when we eat popsicles in our house it's for a snack or dessert, so that's what I will be focusing on.
The first, and likely easiest popsicle, is the yogurt popsicle. It can be as simple as spooning store-bought yogurt into a popsicle mold and freezing it. Or, you can choose to have a bit more fun (which I usually opt for).
Try these Yogurt Pop combos:
Greek yogurt + Honey
Lime yogurt + coconut + honey
Vanilla yogurt + cream cheese + raspberries
Strawberry yogurt + strawberries + mini chocolate chips
Peach yogurt + lime rind and juice
For those coconut lovers, coconut milk or coconut cream can be used to make yummy, creamy popsicles too:
Coconut milk + crushed pineapple + banana
Coconut milk + lime rind and juice
Coconut cream + kiwi
Coconut cream + passion fruit + guava
Coconut cream + toasted coconut flakes
For other creamy options, try:
Peach + Ricotta + brown sugar
Cooked apple w/ cinnamon + Ricotta + Maple syrup
Triple layered Pudding pops: Chocolate + Vanilla + Pistachio
Cream Cheese + Strawberry Jam
Root Beer + Heavy Cream + Vanilla
If you're not into creamy popsicles, you can always go with the more fruity varieties:
Peach + Orange + Mango
Raspberry + Melon + Cucumber
Strawberry + Mango + Lime
Watermelon + Strawberry
And just for fun, why not try adding a bit of booze to your pops? (but not too much or they won't freeze!):
Rum + Coke
Lychee + Peach + Sparkling White Wine
Coconut Milk + Crushed Pineapple + Coconut Rum
Peach + Orange + Light Beer
Happy Popsicle making!
Mrs. VanderLeek ;)
Friday, June 7, 2013
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Fun with the boys
As a stay-at-home Mom, nurturing, entertaining, teaching and caring for my boys is literally my job. And I've got to be honest - I love it. I love watching my boys play, and hearing them tell stories about all the fun they had that day. I love when they learn how to do something new, and get so excited about the small things that we adults have long forgotten are amazing. And it's going to be really fun this Summer, not just at the events and activities I listed tomorrow, but right in our own backyard as we play and create!
The play sometimes is more structured; from time to time we'll do something that involves instructions, like making nature collages, corn syrup + food coloring butterflies, or face sandwiches.
This is an important part of play, since it helps them to learn new techniques, it provides a goal for them to work towards, and helps develop their ability to follow directions. Playing Simon Says, or even simple card games, and doing activities like planting seeds for your garden can be fun and educational for your kids.
Sometimes the play is a little more free. Sometimes, all I do is provide the supplies and see what the boys dream up. We paint the fence with water, we draw on the chalk table, we build block towers as high as they can go... This is an important part of play, too. This is where we watch the kids adapt, and figure things out on their own. It can be hard for some parents to sit back and let the kids take over the art projects. We may be tempted to guide their finger painting efforts so that the picture looks as intelligible as possible. But sometimes the kids just need the chance to do things their way. And when they're ready, their way will improve.
Sometimes the play is totally unguided - I sit back and watch my two oldest boys make up their own game and laugh at the things they come up with. Some of this play is based around shows they've seen, or stories they've heard (there's a whole lot of My Little Pony going on in our house right now...). Some of this play is re-enacting things that they've done in the past. This is where we learn :) This is when we get to listen to what is in our kids' heads and hear how they see the world. This is where we find out that our kids know that if the trout is black we have to put it back in the water, and that the stars are made of gas and are on fire in the sky. This where we can also hear things that need correction, and work our correction into their own play, as we guide them, instead of being harsh and rebuking them for something they didn't know was wrong. It's super important to listen to our kids, for so many reasons. Watch them play, and then get in there and play with them too!
And lastly, sometimes the play is messy. And it needs to be that way sometimes. We need to let our kids dig in the dirt. We need to let them stir the cake batter. They need to learn the worms are slimy, that dandelions can be picked and that puddles should be splashed in.
They need a chance to be loud and dirty and wild. And sometimes the cookies won't look great, and you'll have egg all over your floor, or the face sandwich you wanted them to make is just a mound of chocolate chips and raisins, but trust me, they're learning, and they're likely having fun :)
Here's a quick list of some activities to do with the kids in your own yard. Lots of these fall under the 'more guided' category, but if the kiddos lose sight of making anything of sense out of their craft, follow their lead, and let them learn the way they want to!
Paint activities:
Collect rocks and then paint them - either do with a theme, like monsters or bugs, or just see what they come up with!
Blow paint blots with straws to make splatter art
Make little dots of paint on your paper, then once it dries, use a pen to draw on each dot, making it into a creature of some sort
Put paper down in the bottom of a Tupperware container or tin, add some blobs of paint and a marble. Let the kids tip the container to roll the marble around and spread the paint around the paper.
Add food coloring to bubble solution and blow the bubbles against a large sheet of paper taped up on your fence
Color on coffee filters with markers, then spray the filters with water, letting the ink bleed. Once the filters dry, twist the bottom of the filters together and wrap with a pipe cleaner to make a flower.
Yard activities:
Pick up all the sticks in the yard and make a pile of them
Pick dandelions
Do a mini scavenger hunt - try naming as many different things for the kids to find as possible
Plant seeds
Dig in the dirt
Rake up leaves
Just through the sprinkler - all of you
Water plants with a watering can
Maintain a water garden
Fill a kiddy pool with water and see what things in the yard float, and what will sink
Buy ice cream when the ice cream truck goes by
In the home:
Write letters/make cards for people, just to tell them you appreciate them
Make cut-out cookies and ice them together
Let the kids crack the eggs :)
Make face sandwiches - spread peanut butter or cheez whiz on bread, and let the kids top it with a mix of chocolate chips, mini marshmallows, sliced celery and carrots, raisings and dried ramen noodles.
Color your food different colors, just for fun (green eggs, pink milk, etc)
Make up popsicles together
Messy:
Make mud pies
Go puddle jumping together
Do face painting - they get to paint yours too
Walk the Plank - set up a board on a tarp filled with jello, cooked spaghetti, or corn flakes - walk across, or else!
Slip and slide - again with the tarp, this time on a hill, covered with soap, and keep the water coming!
Mrs. VanderLeek ;)
The play sometimes is more structured; from time to time we'll do something that involves instructions, like making nature collages, corn syrup + food coloring butterflies, or face sandwiches.
This is an important part of play, since it helps them to learn new techniques, it provides a goal for them to work towards, and helps develop their ability to follow directions. Playing Simon Says, or even simple card games, and doing activities like planting seeds for your garden can be fun and educational for your kids.
Sometimes the play is a little more free. Sometimes, all I do is provide the supplies and see what the boys dream up. We paint the fence with water, we draw on the chalk table, we build block towers as high as they can go... This is an important part of play, too. This is where we watch the kids adapt, and figure things out on their own. It can be hard for some parents to sit back and let the kids take over the art projects. We may be tempted to guide their finger painting efforts so that the picture looks as intelligible as possible. But sometimes the kids just need the chance to do things their way. And when they're ready, their way will improve.
Sometimes the play is totally unguided - I sit back and watch my two oldest boys make up their own game and laugh at the things they come up with. Some of this play is based around shows they've seen, or stories they've heard (there's a whole lot of My Little Pony going on in our house right now...). Some of this play is re-enacting things that they've done in the past. This is where we learn :) This is when we get to listen to what is in our kids' heads and hear how they see the world. This is where we find out that our kids know that if the trout is black we have to put it back in the water, and that the stars are made of gas and are on fire in the sky. This where we can also hear things that need correction, and work our correction into their own play, as we guide them, instead of being harsh and rebuking them for something they didn't know was wrong. It's super important to listen to our kids, for so many reasons. Watch them play, and then get in there and play with them too!
And lastly, sometimes the play is messy. And it needs to be that way sometimes. We need to let our kids dig in the dirt. We need to let them stir the cake batter. They need to learn the worms are slimy, that dandelions can be picked and that puddles should be splashed in.
They need a chance to be loud and dirty and wild. And sometimes the cookies won't look great, and you'll have egg all over your floor, or the face sandwich you wanted them to make is just a mound of chocolate chips and raisins, but trust me, they're learning, and they're likely having fun :)
Here's a quick list of some activities to do with the kids in your own yard. Lots of these fall under the 'more guided' category, but if the kiddos lose sight of making anything of sense out of their craft, follow their lead, and let them learn the way they want to!
Paint activities:
Collect rocks and then paint them - either do with a theme, like monsters or bugs, or just see what they come up with!
Blow paint blots with straws to make splatter art
Make little dots of paint on your paper, then once it dries, use a pen to draw on each dot, making it into a creature of some sort
Put paper down in the bottom of a Tupperware container or tin, add some blobs of paint and a marble. Let the kids tip the container to roll the marble around and spread the paint around the paper.
Add food coloring to bubble solution and blow the bubbles against a large sheet of paper taped up on your fence
Color on coffee filters with markers, then spray the filters with water, letting the ink bleed. Once the filters dry, twist the bottom of the filters together and wrap with a pipe cleaner to make a flower.
Yard activities:
Pick up all the sticks in the yard and make a pile of them
Pick dandelions
Do a mini scavenger hunt - try naming as many different things for the kids to find as possible
Plant seeds
Dig in the dirt
Rake up leaves
Just through the sprinkler - all of you
Water plants with a watering can
Maintain a water garden
Fill a kiddy pool with water and see what things in the yard float, and what will sink
Buy ice cream when the ice cream truck goes by
In the home:
Write letters/make cards for people, just to tell them you appreciate them
Make cut-out cookies and ice them together
Let the kids crack the eggs :)
Make face sandwiches - spread peanut butter or cheez whiz on bread, and let the kids top it with a mix of chocolate chips, mini marshmallows, sliced celery and carrots, raisings and dried ramen noodles.
Color your food different colors, just for fun (green eggs, pink milk, etc)
Make up popsicles together
Messy:
Make mud pies
Go puddle jumping together
Do face painting - they get to paint yours too
Walk the Plank - set up a board on a tarp filled with jello, cooked spaghetti, or corn flakes - walk across, or else!
Slip and slide - again with the tarp, this time on a hill, covered with soap, and keep the water coming!
Mrs. VanderLeek ;)
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Summer in Central Alberta
If you live in Central Alberta, and you're looking to have a fun Summer, you're definitely in luck this year!
Apparently a lot happened 100 years ago around Central Alberta, meaning that a number of towns, including Red Deer and Rocky Mountain House, are celebrating their Centennial years. In light of this, there seems to be a record number of great events going on this Summer. So mark your calendar and your maps and check out some of these great events, and some mainstay destinations, during Summer 2013!
Local Events:
June 15th in the Red Deer Artwalk Festival
June 29th and 30th - Red Deer River of Light + Homecoming festival. As part of the Red Deer Centennial Celebrations they are having pancake breakfasts, public picnics, outdoor movies and they will float hundreds of lit up rain barrels down the river for what should be a pretty neat show
July 1st - Red Deer Canada Day celebrations down at Bower Ponds - check out the multi-cultural food booths!
July 3rd - the Mayor's Garden Party at the City Hall gardens
July 7th there's a free concert with Fred Penner! At Bower Ponds in Red Deer
Westerner Days are July 17 - 21 in Red Deer
July 24 - Rocky Mountain House Air Show
CentreFest in downtown Red Deer, the annual Street Performer festival, is July 27-29
August 9-11th is Shake the Lake, a weekend of live music and Action sports in Sylvan Lake
Country Drive - August 10-11th a number of destinations around Central Alberta will step up their activities and services for the day to help showcase some great enjoyment just a short drive away.
August 17 - Pioneer Days Festival at Sunnybrook Farm. Homemade pie, a tractor pull, pioneer breakfast and fun for kids
August 17 - Norwegian Laft Hus Festival - Red Deer - they'll have face painting, dancers, skits, food, etc
August 18th is Fiestaval - a Latin-American themed street festival downtown Red Deer
September 21 there's an old-fashioned fair as one of the Centennial events at Fort Normandeau. Games, crafts, market and entertainment
Places to Go:
The Jungle Farm - u-pick berries and flowers, coupled with an outdoor play area for kids, makes for a fun afternoon excursion!
Markerville Creamery - check out this heritage site for a guided tour where they show you how ice cream and butter are made! Go on Sunday, August 11th during Country Drive for some more activities!
Discovery Wildlife Park - a wildlife facility in Innisfail that is home to a number of 'movie star' animals and daily demonstrations with the trained animals.
Kraay Family Farm - Opening July 26th, visit this corn maze, complete with loads of activities for the kids, ranging from pig races and play centers to a pumpkin blaster and farm animals
Danish Canadian National Museum and Gardens - Beautiful scenery with a fairy tale based Children's garden
Ellis bird farm - mini interpretive center, really pretty walk with lots of birds and flowers, and a tea house
For fun events on a regular basis, check out live music on the Ross Street Patio, weekly activities for kids at the Red Deer Museum, and The Bard on Bower - live theater performance of Shakespeare at the Bower Ponds stage (performance dates to be set)
This list is by no means exhaustive! There is plenty going on around Central Alberta during the summer. For more information, and to find out about more events, check out TourismRedDeer.com
Mrs. VanderLeek ;)
Apparently a lot happened 100 years ago around Central Alberta, meaning that a number of towns, including Red Deer and Rocky Mountain House, are celebrating their Centennial years. In light of this, there seems to be a record number of great events going on this Summer. So mark your calendar and your maps and check out some of these great events, and some mainstay destinations, during Summer 2013!
Local Events:
June 15th in the Red Deer Artwalk Festival
June 29th and 30th - Red Deer River of Light + Homecoming festival. As part of the Red Deer Centennial Celebrations they are having pancake breakfasts, public picnics, outdoor movies and they will float hundreds of lit up rain barrels down the river for what should be a pretty neat show
July 1st - Red Deer Canada Day celebrations down at Bower Ponds - check out the multi-cultural food booths!
July 3rd - the Mayor's Garden Party at the City Hall gardens
July 7th there's a free concert with Fred Penner! At Bower Ponds in Red Deer
Westerner Days are July 17 - 21 in Red Deer
July 24 - Rocky Mountain House Air Show
CentreFest in downtown Red Deer, the annual Street Performer festival, is July 27-29
August 9-11th is Shake the Lake, a weekend of live music and Action sports in Sylvan Lake
Country Drive - August 10-11th a number of destinations around Central Alberta will step up their activities and services for the day to help showcase some great enjoyment just a short drive away.
August 17 - Pioneer Days Festival at Sunnybrook Farm. Homemade pie, a tractor pull, pioneer breakfast and fun for kids
August 17 - Norwegian Laft Hus Festival - Red Deer - they'll have face painting, dancers, skits, food, etc
August 18th is Fiestaval - a Latin-American themed street festival downtown Red Deer
September 21 there's an old-fashioned fair as one of the Centennial events at Fort Normandeau. Games, crafts, market and entertainment
Places to Go:
The Jungle Farm - u-pick berries and flowers, coupled with an outdoor play area for kids, makes for a fun afternoon excursion!
Markerville Creamery - check out this heritage site for a guided tour where they show you how ice cream and butter are made! Go on Sunday, August 11th during Country Drive for some more activities!
Discovery Wildlife Park - a wildlife facility in Innisfail that is home to a number of 'movie star' animals and daily demonstrations with the trained animals.
Kraay Family Farm - Opening July 26th, visit this corn maze, complete with loads of activities for the kids, ranging from pig races and play centers to a pumpkin blaster and farm animals
Danish Canadian National Museum and Gardens - Beautiful scenery with a fairy tale based Children's garden
Ellis bird farm - mini interpretive center, really pretty walk with lots of birds and flowers, and a tea house
For fun events on a regular basis, check out live music on the Ross Street Patio, weekly activities for kids at the Red Deer Museum, and The Bard on Bower - live theater performance of Shakespeare at the Bower Ponds stage (performance dates to be set)
This list is by no means exhaustive! There is plenty going on around Central Alberta during the summer. For more information, and to find out about more events, check out TourismRedDeer.com
Mrs. VanderLeek ;)
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Upcoming Projects
Today is... well, today is slow. And lazy. And a little bit boring. Just... blah.
Part of what has me so 'blah' is that I have lots of upcoming projects - but I can't start them yet!
For starters, this weekend I have a fundraiser that I'll be selling my tea products at. Since I don't want to be tied up the whole time constantly making pots of tea, I've opted to prepare individual bags of the tea and let people make their own. That will take some time to individually portion out 30 bags each of 3 different varieties, but the real catch is that I can't do that until the day before, or risk the tea going stale before the party!
In my garden I'm waiting for more weeds to grow, but since an epic weekend of gardening, there aren't any up yet! On Saturday hubby and I worked hard - while he took down Christmas lights and mulched the flower beds, I dug up some snow-on-the-mountain, which is quite the task itself thanks to its never-ending root system! Once the roots were all pulled I transplanted some larger clusters and moved a rose bush into the bed that I pulled them out of. My legs still hurt from stepping on the spade to dig up those roots! We trimmed hedges and bushes, checked on all our plants and beds, and everything was in good order by Saturday evening. But that means that it will be at least a few more days until I can trim things, weed things, or even turn the compost!
In a short while we'll be going on vacation to the mountains, but it's far enough away that to start packing right now would be ridiculous. I've got packing lists made already, but that's about as much preparation as I can get done.
As far as crafting projects go, there are plenty of things I'm excited to get started on. For example, I'm going to finally learn to crochet... on vacation in the mountains. My mom and my sister will be there with me, so I'll have the benefit of people who know what they're doing to instruct me. I'm also going to make a couple more quilts! The first one will be for my oldest boy, who, despite being the very reason I decided to try making a quilt in the first place, is still the only child who does not have a quilt-by-Mommy. The catch is, he's super excited to pick out his own material... on vacation in the mountains. There's an adorable quilting store in Canmore that we'll visit and they have tonnes of cute prints, many of which focus on the outdoors, hunting and fishing - all things which my four-year-old boy is quite enthusiastic about. But without even an idea of what this quilt will look like, there's nothing I can do to start. The second quilt is also a labour of love: my dear hubby decided to downsize the number of t-shirts he had and surprisingly opted to part with some shirts that he really loved, but they had holes in the armpits so he figured he should get rid of them. I couldn't bring myself to trash them though - so I hid them. Some of these t-shirts are from high school, one he even made himself, so I'm going to make a t-shirt quilt for him. Soon each boy will have one! And while I could technically start prepping this one, I really want to use a rotary cutter and cutting mat - neither of which I have. So I'll likely buy those... on vacation... in the mountains. Gee - there seems to be a lot hanging on this vacation!
I have big plans for rearranging our basement - but that is waaaaaay too big of a job to do on my own. Or, at least, on my own while I also try to juggle caring for three little boys. I'm planning to move an exercise bike, a filing cabinet, storage shelves for toys and a shelf full of DVDs, but first I need to put 8 Rubbermaid bins away in the crawl space. I definitely need my hubby for this one. Last night we tackled the living room by fixing some chairs, moving some lamps up from downstairs and rearranging some stuff so I could get rid of a corner shelf, that's presence was strictly aesthetic. So perhaps some evening this week we'll get to the basement, but it's really not something I should do on my own.
So you see, I have lots I want to do, but nothing of that sort that I can embark on right now. I suppose I might a well just clean!
Mrs. VanderLeek ;)
Part of what has me so 'blah' is that I have lots of upcoming projects - but I can't start them yet!
For starters, this weekend I have a fundraiser that I'll be selling my tea products at. Since I don't want to be tied up the whole time constantly making pots of tea, I've opted to prepare individual bags of the tea and let people make their own. That will take some time to individually portion out 30 bags each of 3 different varieties, but the real catch is that I can't do that until the day before, or risk the tea going stale before the party!
In my garden I'm waiting for more weeds to grow, but since an epic weekend of gardening, there aren't any up yet! On Saturday hubby and I worked hard - while he took down Christmas lights and mulched the flower beds, I dug up some snow-on-the-mountain, which is quite the task itself thanks to its never-ending root system! Once the roots were all pulled I transplanted some larger clusters and moved a rose bush into the bed that I pulled them out of. My legs still hurt from stepping on the spade to dig up those roots! We trimmed hedges and bushes, checked on all our plants and beds, and everything was in good order by Saturday evening. But that means that it will be at least a few more days until I can trim things, weed things, or even turn the compost!
In a short while we'll be going on vacation to the mountains, but it's far enough away that to start packing right now would be ridiculous. I've got packing lists made already, but that's about as much preparation as I can get done.
As far as crafting projects go, there are plenty of things I'm excited to get started on. For example, I'm going to finally learn to crochet... on vacation in the mountains. My mom and my sister will be there with me, so I'll have the benefit of people who know what they're doing to instruct me. I'm also going to make a couple more quilts! The first one will be for my oldest boy, who, despite being the very reason I decided to try making a quilt in the first place, is still the only child who does not have a quilt-by-Mommy. The catch is, he's super excited to pick out his own material... on vacation in the mountains. There's an adorable quilting store in Canmore that we'll visit and they have tonnes of cute prints, many of which focus on the outdoors, hunting and fishing - all things which my four-year-old boy is quite enthusiastic about. But without even an idea of what this quilt will look like, there's nothing I can do to start. The second quilt is also a labour of love: my dear hubby decided to downsize the number of t-shirts he had and surprisingly opted to part with some shirts that he really loved, but they had holes in the armpits so he figured he should get rid of them. I couldn't bring myself to trash them though - so I hid them. Some of these t-shirts are from high school, one he even made himself, so I'm going to make a t-shirt quilt for him. Soon each boy will have one! And while I could technically start prepping this one, I really want to use a rotary cutter and cutting mat - neither of which I have. So I'll likely buy those... on vacation... in the mountains. Gee - there seems to be a lot hanging on this vacation!
I have big plans for rearranging our basement - but that is waaaaaay too big of a job to do on my own. Or, at least, on my own while I also try to juggle caring for three little boys. I'm planning to move an exercise bike, a filing cabinet, storage shelves for toys and a shelf full of DVDs, but first I need to put 8 Rubbermaid bins away in the crawl space. I definitely need my hubby for this one. Last night we tackled the living room by fixing some chairs, moving some lamps up from downstairs and rearranging some stuff so I could get rid of a corner shelf, that's presence was strictly aesthetic. So perhaps some evening this week we'll get to the basement, but it's really not something I should do on my own.
So you see, I have lots I want to do, but nothing of that sort that I can embark on right now. I suppose I might a well just clean!
Mrs. VanderLeek ;)
Monday, June 3, 2013
Use it Well
Most of us probably feel like our time and our money don't come flowing in endless amounts; these are limited resources that we can only spread out so far. It's hard not to compare our situation with others'. We can often feel like our homes aren't as clean as someone else's because we spend more of our time doing things like volunteer work, or driving our kids around to activities. And when we go on Pinterest we may see beautifully appointed rooms and begin to envy those people who 'obviously have so much more money than we do to afford a house that looks like that!'
While it may be true that the house with the wine cellar hidden under the kitchen may have cost more than yours, in many instances we can achieve the beautiful home by using our resources better; with some extra thought and planning, our time and money can go towards building up our home in more effective ways than previously.
For example, do you feel that it takes hours already to clean your home, so someone who has a perpetually clean home must spend their whole day cleaning it? In many instances, that's just not true. But the difference lies in how those 'neat' people use their time. Starting with a tidy house makes a huge difference in how long it takes to clean. It's much easier to sweep your floor when you don't have to pick up a ton of toys, some socks, the flyers that got pushed off the coffee table and all of the random knick-knacks that migrated there from other rooms. Tidying as you go is a huge part of keeping a house clean. If you are walking from room A to room B, try to find anything that has migrated from room B and return it while you're headed there anyway. And when you're done using something, put it away. It's a simple concept, but for many people (myself included) it takes a lot of training to make it a habit. I had long been the person who would carry the dirty dishes into the kitchen after dinner, but would stop short of putting them into the empty dishwasher while I had them in my hands. But I've since learned that it's quicker and easier, and definitely getting done, if I do it while I'm already there, instead of trying to find time later in the evening to come back to it.
One of the other tricks to cleaning in less time is to look for convenient opportunities. If you're in the kitchen waiting for the tea kettle to finish boiling, why not put away those clean dishes in the dishwasher? Or if you've finished giving the kids a bath, and you already have wet cloths in your hands, why not wipe down the tub and sink while you're there? (Some people might refrain from cleaning like this because it's not 'deep cleaning enough' since you may not use the right cleaners if you're just giving a quick wipe with washcloths, but if you are the type who never gets around to cleaning their bathroom more than every couple of months, don't hold out for a 'better' clean - just get it clean.) Likewise, if you have to make a phone call and get put on hold, use that time to pick up toys, or fold laundry.
Some chores take up real time, like vacuuming, or cleaning upholstery, but if your house is already tidy, then the cleaning tasks take less time since you don't need to do any preliminary clean-up. And if you get an early start on your day before your kids get up, you can likely get most of your cleaning done in that time since uninterrupted work is always the most productive.
Once your house is tidied and clean, the next step to those picture-perfect homes is decorating. Some of my favorite pictures from home magazines are the homes that look so streamlined and open. The secret? Those people don't have clutter! I have far too many decorations. I always see things in catalogues or at garage sales or at HomeSense and think of wonderful ways I can use them, and so they end up in my home on a rotating display. The joke's on me though, because with so many decorative pieces out, they just add to the cluttered feel of my house, and instead of having eye catching pieces, I just end up with a collection of mess. Thoughtfully placed and neatly coordinated mess. I used to look at every surface as a blank canvas for a new decorative display, but the funny thing about canvasses is that they are more welcoming when they allow your eyes a place to rest. It's the age-old rule for interior designers, painters, and graphic designers alike: you need some 'white space' for the eyes to rest in, or the whole picture consumes itself and the beauty is overlooked in the busy-ness. Our ceiling should not be the only 'white space' in our house. Our walls can be adorned with artwork, but unless you are going for an intentional gallery arrangement, or a cluster of portraits, the pictures should be hung sparingly for the biggest effect. Particularly in a house like mine, which doesn't have an open-concept floor plan or high ceilings. Our problem has been that since we had so many nice decorative pieces and beautiful pictures we felt obligated to display them. And I believe our answer is that we need to get rid of some of them, and hold on only to the pieces that we truly love, and display those with pride, in smaller numbers. What this practically means is that any picture in our household that came from Walmart or IKEA is gone unless we adore it. We're working on building our collection of fine art from local artists, which means that wall space is a precious commodity in our home. And anything that is widely reproduced that we bought in our first year of marriage just to fill the walls of our rental space that did have the open-concept floor plan and tall ceilings? Yah, those can go. And all those little glass displays I bought through PartyLite over the years? I don't need all of them - so those can go too. Hopefully I can make better use of the space I have, to make my home feel more open and less frantic.
One of the other things I love about other peoples' homes are their color schemes. Not simply the colors they use, but how they use them, and how they can pull together whole rooms using the same pallet! When I look at my home I think... well, I think it looks pretty ugly sometimes :) The individual elements are quite charming: our pallet table is fun and practical, our walls are a beautiful blue color with dark tealy/green accent walls, our white trim is clean and fresh, and the sideboard that we set up in the dining room a couple months ago is gorgeous! But they all feel disconnected, like they stand on their own without any consideration for the furniture beside them. I realized today that what my house really lacks is direction. My tastes are eclectic, and I believe that's reflected heavily in my decorating, but there's a right way to do eclectic decorating, and a wrong way - and I've been doing it the wrong way. Granted, many of the pieces we have in our house, we have out of opportunity and necessity; our furniture was all given to us, excepting the pallet table that Matt made. Our light fixtures were original pieces, or hand-me-downs, and the color of our flooring was something we didn't have much say in since we got such a good deal on some overstocked product, so our only real choice was "do we want this new flooring, or no new flooring?" But we are coming up to a point where we are planning on spending some money on fixes to our living room, and how we choose to spend that money can either add to the chaos, or help bring some order to our haphazard home.
Today I sat down and, for the first time, wrote out what our color scheme for our living room was. I didn't base this necessarily off of what it is right now, but rather what it should be, using some of the colors that are sticking around more permanently. Our accent walls and our couches and chairs are that similar dark teal-green - which is one of the only conscious color choices I made in this room. A couple months ago we need a runner for the sideboard and drapes for our front window, so I opted to get both in a fabric with a similar teal color, and a bit of a metallic sheen (which is the other conscious color choice I've made in the room). Our trim is white, our pictures are all blues and browns with yellow accents (purely by coincidence), and somehow, in the past year we have acquired a borrowed sideboard, a hand-me-down piano and a gifted dining room table, all of which have a similar dark reddish wood, which happened to match the wood arms and legs of our living room furniture. Things are looking up from last year when we had red wood on our couches, unfinished pine on our pallet table, a dark walnut colored dining table, a black bookcase, and a wrought iron corner display stand. This occurrence of matching woods helps us to determine what color we should stain our pallet table; as far as I'm convinced, it should only be either the same dark red stain that the rest of the wood in the room is, or a white ash color to play off of the white trim. But to paint it black or even dark brown would be out of place in this room now, and giving us one more thing that doesn't fit together well.
Another upcoming expenditure will be a new dining room light fixture. And while our first instinct was to buy whatever was cheapest off of Kijiji, I observed that we have a bit of an accidental trend of chrome accents in this room. By throwing in a chrome light fixture, this won't look like an accident anymore! So while we won't splurge on a $1000 chrome fixture of the dining room, we will at least hold out until we find something that will work together with our home.
From the information I listed above, I made up this summary of the pallet in our living room: Primary colors - Teal/Green, Dark Cherry (woods) Accent colors - yellow, white (trim), Chrome (metals). So if there is anything more that we plan to add to our living room, like pillows for the couch, or a new picture, we'll work on making sure it falls into one of those points on our pallet.
Bear in mind, this is coming from someone who is working hard to make their house coordinate better, not someone who has an established pallet and is working on finding some accent pieces; it's totally okay to introduce new colors, but when your house looks as random as mine, it's best to regroup before you choose to branch out anymore!
And one of my last point regarding using resources well to attain the beautiful home is to sometimes spend a bit more of those resources.
Yes, you may be able to find a light fixture for $20, but is that really what you want in your house? Or are you going to want to change it so soon afterwards that you might as well have not bought it in the first place? And yes, technically you can find couches at the thrift store, but if you don't need to buy those a) leave them for someone who can't afford more, and b) save your pennies and buy something you'll be really happy with. Saving $100 to buy a sofa that you can 'make work' hardly seems worth the sacrifice of the sofa that you would really love to have. But we can't have it all - so pick the pieces that matter most to you. For myself, I'd rather keep my old French Provincial style couches than buy something new, just because it's new. When we do upgrade our couches we'll likely get a soft-leather set, but that's a lot of money, so I've opted to stay content with my couches until we can save up enough - which may be a number of years yet based on how low 'new couches' are on our priority list! But something like our light fixture? So long as it's chrome, I don't much care what else it looks like! We'll go fairly cheap on that since it's not a huge concern for me.
Whenever we renovate a room, we typically pick one 'splurge' item, where we opt to get exactly what we want - regardless of cost (within reason). In our main bathroom it was our faucet, and in our bedroom it was our ceiling fan. Knowing that you have one perfect thing helps you to swallow some of the other cost-effective compromises you might choose to make. In our living room, our artwork is our 'splurge' area; I don't care about the name of the company I buy my furniture from, but I do care who is painting my pictures.
After re-examining my living room all day, I've identified some things that I'm willing to part with, which I never thought I would get rid of, and I've also decided to make a pallet for each major room of our house. Somewhat surprisingly, our main bathroom and master bedroom will actually have a very similar pallet to our living room, just with different woods and metals (dark walnut and oil-rubbed bronze in our bedroom, and ash and brushed nickel in our bathroom).
By rethinking the time we already have for maintaining our home, and setting a direction for our house that will help determine how we invest our money in it, we can use our limited resources well and come out with the home of our dreams - in the one we already have!
Mrs. VanderLeek ;)
While it may be true that the house with the wine cellar hidden under the kitchen may have cost more than yours, in many instances we can achieve the beautiful home by using our resources better; with some extra thought and planning, our time and money can go towards building up our home in more effective ways than previously.
For example, do you feel that it takes hours already to clean your home, so someone who has a perpetually clean home must spend their whole day cleaning it? In many instances, that's just not true. But the difference lies in how those 'neat' people use their time. Starting with a tidy house makes a huge difference in how long it takes to clean. It's much easier to sweep your floor when you don't have to pick up a ton of toys, some socks, the flyers that got pushed off the coffee table and all of the random knick-knacks that migrated there from other rooms. Tidying as you go is a huge part of keeping a house clean. If you are walking from room A to room B, try to find anything that has migrated from room B and return it while you're headed there anyway. And when you're done using something, put it away. It's a simple concept, but for many people (myself included) it takes a lot of training to make it a habit. I had long been the person who would carry the dirty dishes into the kitchen after dinner, but would stop short of putting them into the empty dishwasher while I had them in my hands. But I've since learned that it's quicker and easier, and definitely getting done, if I do it while I'm already there, instead of trying to find time later in the evening to come back to it.
One of the other tricks to cleaning in less time is to look for convenient opportunities. If you're in the kitchen waiting for the tea kettle to finish boiling, why not put away those clean dishes in the dishwasher? Or if you've finished giving the kids a bath, and you already have wet cloths in your hands, why not wipe down the tub and sink while you're there? (Some people might refrain from cleaning like this because it's not 'deep cleaning enough' since you may not use the right cleaners if you're just giving a quick wipe with washcloths, but if you are the type who never gets around to cleaning their bathroom more than every couple of months, don't hold out for a 'better' clean - just get it clean.) Likewise, if you have to make a phone call and get put on hold, use that time to pick up toys, or fold laundry.
Some chores take up real time, like vacuuming, or cleaning upholstery, but if your house is already tidy, then the cleaning tasks take less time since you don't need to do any preliminary clean-up. And if you get an early start on your day before your kids get up, you can likely get most of your cleaning done in that time since uninterrupted work is always the most productive.
Once your house is tidied and clean, the next step to those picture-perfect homes is decorating. Some of my favorite pictures from home magazines are the homes that look so streamlined and open. The secret? Those people don't have clutter! I have far too many decorations. I always see things in catalogues or at garage sales or at HomeSense and think of wonderful ways I can use them, and so they end up in my home on a rotating display. The joke's on me though, because with so many decorative pieces out, they just add to the cluttered feel of my house, and instead of having eye catching pieces, I just end up with a collection of mess. Thoughtfully placed and neatly coordinated mess. I used to look at every surface as a blank canvas for a new decorative display, but the funny thing about canvasses is that they are more welcoming when they allow your eyes a place to rest. It's the age-old rule for interior designers, painters, and graphic designers alike: you need some 'white space' for the eyes to rest in, or the whole picture consumes itself and the beauty is overlooked in the busy-ness. Our ceiling should not be the only 'white space' in our house. Our walls can be adorned with artwork, but unless you are going for an intentional gallery arrangement, or a cluster of portraits, the pictures should be hung sparingly for the biggest effect. Particularly in a house like mine, which doesn't have an open-concept floor plan or high ceilings. Our problem has been that since we had so many nice decorative pieces and beautiful pictures we felt obligated to display them. And I believe our answer is that we need to get rid of some of them, and hold on only to the pieces that we truly love, and display those with pride, in smaller numbers. What this practically means is that any picture in our household that came from Walmart or IKEA is gone unless we adore it. We're working on building our collection of fine art from local artists, which means that wall space is a precious commodity in our home. And anything that is widely reproduced that we bought in our first year of marriage just to fill the walls of our rental space that did have the open-concept floor plan and tall ceilings? Yah, those can go. And all those little glass displays I bought through PartyLite over the years? I don't need all of them - so those can go too. Hopefully I can make better use of the space I have, to make my home feel more open and less frantic.
One of the other things I love about other peoples' homes are their color schemes. Not simply the colors they use, but how they use them, and how they can pull together whole rooms using the same pallet! When I look at my home I think... well, I think it looks pretty ugly sometimes :) The individual elements are quite charming: our pallet table is fun and practical, our walls are a beautiful blue color with dark tealy/green accent walls, our white trim is clean and fresh, and the sideboard that we set up in the dining room a couple months ago is gorgeous! But they all feel disconnected, like they stand on their own without any consideration for the furniture beside them. I realized today that what my house really lacks is direction. My tastes are eclectic, and I believe that's reflected heavily in my decorating, but there's a right way to do eclectic decorating, and a wrong way - and I've been doing it the wrong way. Granted, many of the pieces we have in our house, we have out of opportunity and necessity; our furniture was all given to us, excepting the pallet table that Matt made. Our light fixtures were original pieces, or hand-me-downs, and the color of our flooring was something we didn't have much say in since we got such a good deal on some overstocked product, so our only real choice was "do we want this new flooring, or no new flooring?" But we are coming up to a point where we are planning on spending some money on fixes to our living room, and how we choose to spend that money can either add to the chaos, or help bring some order to our haphazard home.
Today I sat down and, for the first time, wrote out what our color scheme for our living room was. I didn't base this necessarily off of what it is right now, but rather what it should be, using some of the colors that are sticking around more permanently. Our accent walls and our couches and chairs are that similar dark teal-green - which is one of the only conscious color choices I made in this room. A couple months ago we need a runner for the sideboard and drapes for our front window, so I opted to get both in a fabric with a similar teal color, and a bit of a metallic sheen (which is the other conscious color choice I've made in the room). Our trim is white, our pictures are all blues and browns with yellow accents (purely by coincidence), and somehow, in the past year we have acquired a borrowed sideboard, a hand-me-down piano and a gifted dining room table, all of which have a similar dark reddish wood, which happened to match the wood arms and legs of our living room furniture. Things are looking up from last year when we had red wood on our couches, unfinished pine on our pallet table, a dark walnut colored dining table, a black bookcase, and a wrought iron corner display stand. This occurrence of matching woods helps us to determine what color we should stain our pallet table; as far as I'm convinced, it should only be either the same dark red stain that the rest of the wood in the room is, or a white ash color to play off of the white trim. But to paint it black or even dark brown would be out of place in this room now, and giving us one more thing that doesn't fit together well.
Another upcoming expenditure will be a new dining room light fixture. And while our first instinct was to buy whatever was cheapest off of Kijiji, I observed that we have a bit of an accidental trend of chrome accents in this room. By throwing in a chrome light fixture, this won't look like an accident anymore! So while we won't splurge on a $1000 chrome fixture of the dining room, we will at least hold out until we find something that will work together with our home.
From the information I listed above, I made up this summary of the pallet in our living room: Primary colors - Teal/Green, Dark Cherry (woods) Accent colors - yellow, white (trim), Chrome (metals). So if there is anything more that we plan to add to our living room, like pillows for the couch, or a new picture, we'll work on making sure it falls into one of those points on our pallet.
Bear in mind, this is coming from someone who is working hard to make their house coordinate better, not someone who has an established pallet and is working on finding some accent pieces; it's totally okay to introduce new colors, but when your house looks as random as mine, it's best to regroup before you choose to branch out anymore!
And one of my last point regarding using resources well to attain the beautiful home is to sometimes spend a bit more of those resources.
Yes, you may be able to find a light fixture for $20, but is that really what you want in your house? Or are you going to want to change it so soon afterwards that you might as well have not bought it in the first place? And yes, technically you can find couches at the thrift store, but if you don't need to buy those a) leave them for someone who can't afford more, and b) save your pennies and buy something you'll be really happy with. Saving $100 to buy a sofa that you can 'make work' hardly seems worth the sacrifice of the sofa that you would really love to have. But we can't have it all - so pick the pieces that matter most to you. For myself, I'd rather keep my old French Provincial style couches than buy something new, just because it's new. When we do upgrade our couches we'll likely get a soft-leather set, but that's a lot of money, so I've opted to stay content with my couches until we can save up enough - which may be a number of years yet based on how low 'new couches' are on our priority list! But something like our light fixture? So long as it's chrome, I don't much care what else it looks like! We'll go fairly cheap on that since it's not a huge concern for me.
Whenever we renovate a room, we typically pick one 'splurge' item, where we opt to get exactly what we want - regardless of cost (within reason). In our main bathroom it was our faucet, and in our bedroom it was our ceiling fan. Knowing that you have one perfect thing helps you to swallow some of the other cost-effective compromises you might choose to make. In our living room, our artwork is our 'splurge' area; I don't care about the name of the company I buy my furniture from, but I do care who is painting my pictures.
After re-examining my living room all day, I've identified some things that I'm willing to part with, which I never thought I would get rid of, and I've also decided to make a pallet for each major room of our house. Somewhat surprisingly, our main bathroom and master bedroom will actually have a very similar pallet to our living room, just with different woods and metals (dark walnut and oil-rubbed bronze in our bedroom, and ash and brushed nickel in our bathroom).
By rethinking the time we already have for maintaining our home, and setting a direction for our house that will help determine how we invest our money in it, we can use our limited resources well and come out with the home of our dreams - in the one we already have!
Mrs. VanderLeek ;)
Monday, May 27, 2013
A Totally Normal Monday
I very often write about my exciting and productive days. People get to hear about when I make fancy meals, and finish quilts, and manage to get my whole house cleaned. But what does a totally normal Monday look like for me? Observe:
8:30 a.m. - Obviously I stayed up too late last night watching Arrested Development... Besides the 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. feeds, this is my wakeup time today. What woke me up? Oh yah, a child that woke up crying. I guess my day officially starts now.
8:45 a.m. - One kiddo is still asleep, but the rest of us are dressed and downstairs, getting ready for breakfast (cold cereal today). I sit down to send out a few quick emails before child #3 wakes up: one to book a meeting about Sunday School, one about scheduling for Sunday School, one about repairs for my guitar so I can use it to lead worship in church on Sunday and I throw in a quick phone call to book a play date for this week.
9:30 a.m. - Little Dude finally wakes up. Man, he didn't even stay up for Arrested Development last night! While he eats breakfast I get the baby settled and list some household items on Kijiji, because I really don't need to hold onto a spare china tea set or a dress I'll never wear again. And I guess I should probably organize some of the pictures I put on my computer when I uploaded the pictures for Kijiji.
10:00 a.m. - Time to get these kids outside. What's that? The baby decides to wake up right as we're walking out the door? After committing all the time to getting sunscreen all over the other boys, I'm definitely going outside at this point. Let's see how long the little guy can stay happy while I plant my garden... Yellow beans, carrots, beets, peas, green beans, spaghetti squash..
10:45 a.m. - Done! And not a minute too soon... that little baby sure sounds grumpy now. And the older boys are done playing outside. Apparently 'outside' isn't that much fun when they know they're not allowed to dig through Mommy's garden. Well, maybe they can come inside now and we'll head out again later. They get a show inside, and I get to try to do more work. This time, going over the Sunday School budget, researching a curriculum and contacting our sales rep regarding a few questions.
11:30 a.m. - The rep is out of her office. I guess that means I have to put that on the back burner now? That's okay, I need to send out emails to my family regarding our vacation next month. Who is bringing what? Well, I guess we all know now that I sent out a comprehensive list!
12:15 p.m. - Little Dude is crying. Man, he's tired today! Good thing it's nap time. Oops - the kiddos got a bit more 'screen time' than I meant to give them today! I'd better get my eldest fed some lunch. Maybe some pasta? And maybe I should clean that kitchen while I'm at it. Clean dishes away, dishwasher emptied, dirty dishes put in... I figure I'll whip up a salad for myself for lunch. Drat. It's big enough that I opt to save it for supper. I guess I'll have pasta too.
1:00 p.m. - Oh yah. Laundry. Totally forgot! I'll throw the load that got washed last night into the dryer now and throw in another load in a bit. The baby is fussing again.
1:30 p.m. - A good time to check on my flyers and see what's on sale at the grocery stores this week. I glanced briefly when the flyers came on Thursday, but now I can't even remember what I circled. And I got an email saying Ricki's has a sale on dresses this week - a good thing too since I need one for my sister-in-laws wedding next month. Oh, and we might get a cargo box to go on top of our van... time to do a little comparison shopping online I guess.
2:00 p.m. - Suppertime is getting closer and I still don't have meat pulled. What goes well with that Santa Fe salad I made? Oooh - ribs! I've got a huge rack of them in my freezer and I bet it would fit in my stock pot. I love boiling ribs before I cook them - it makes them more tender. But given that little sun shower we're experiencing right now, I might be baking them instead of BBQing, so I'd best get them boiling now. Maybe when I'm in the kitchen this time I'll remember to put away that clean cake platter I've got on the counter...
2:45 p.m. - Baby's fussing again. Growth spurt or sore tummy? Not sure yet. Well, since I'm sitting down, I might as well go on Pinterest. There were a couple activities for the kids to do in the mountains on our vacation that I want to print off. And since I'm on the computer (and just remembered we'll be celebrating Father's Day in the mountains) I'd better make up a card for my husband and my dad from me. I'll read a sermon by Spurgeon about Fathers and find excerpts that depict both of them. That'll be nice :) Oh, and I managed to sit down with a coffee this time - lucky me!
3:15 p.m. - Little Dude is still asleep and the baby just spit up all over me. Like, record amounts. Time to throw in that other load of laundry apparently. That silly cake platter is still on the counter.
3:25 p.m. - Ah yes, I finally hear my boy waking up from his nap. Time to get him some food. And, incidentally, I started writing this.
3:45 p.m. - Round 3 of food fetching for my boy. And I'd better get that rib rack cut up and in a baking dish so I can get it in the oven for supper. Good thing I have some BBQ sauce in the fridge - totally forgot about needing that! And in between I'm going to help the older kid fetch toys, finish going potty and search for food himself. Oh, and I just remembered a work-related message I was sent today that I forgot to deal with - I'd best respond ASAP. And since I'm back on the computer I should check out what time the music store is open until tonight so I can drop my guitar off.
4:00 p.m. - I'm back to the kitchen attempting to clean. Why is this stupid cake platter still here??? I'll deal with that, but first I have to finish with the ribs and fill the sink so I can wash dishes. And I should put away the clean dishes. I just found the other two cake platters that go with the one that's taking up residence on the counter. Now they can all go away together... except the baby started screaming again. The older boys are drawing now so at least they seem happy.
4:20 p.m. - Okay! The baby is asleep! Let's get those dishes washed and FINALLY put those cake platters away. And clear the table while we're at it!
4:30 p.m. - Sigh. The baby is awake again. Not screaming yet though. But Little Dude has a dirty diaper. And I still have to plan the rest of supper. Good thing I've got another hour before Matt gets home - the boys are starting to make a mess and it's going to take some time to get all this put back together!
That brings me back up to present time (notice I started writing this at 3:25? Yah, there were lots of other little distractions I forgot about before I even sat down to write again...). I still have to research phone plans to help me decide what changes need to be made to our account before I phone the company over a billing error, I have to fold a couple loads of laundry that should have been folded over the weekend, I'll need to finish supper, eat supper, and then clean up from supper, and hopefully I'll get out tonight to drop my guitar off for repairs, drop my ring off for refinishing, take back a quilt to HomeSense that we've decided not to keep, and maybe try on some dresses at Ricki's.
Granted, every day has different tasks I need to take care of (Monday's housecleaning tends to be more about playing catch-up from the weekend than embarking on any huge tasks), but this is a pretty fair portrait of how a normal, tiny-bit frustrating and mostly scatter-brained day goes for me. I'd say out of a 5 day work-week, at least 3 of my days go like this.
And now you know how a totally normal Monday goes in our household.
Mrs. VanderLeek ;)
8:30 a.m. - Obviously I stayed up too late last night watching Arrested Development... Besides the 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. feeds, this is my wakeup time today. What woke me up? Oh yah, a child that woke up crying. I guess my day officially starts now.
8:45 a.m. - One kiddo is still asleep, but the rest of us are dressed and downstairs, getting ready for breakfast (cold cereal today). I sit down to send out a few quick emails before child #3 wakes up: one to book a meeting about Sunday School, one about scheduling for Sunday School, one about repairs for my guitar so I can use it to lead worship in church on Sunday and I throw in a quick phone call to book a play date for this week.
9:30 a.m. - Little Dude finally wakes up. Man, he didn't even stay up for Arrested Development last night! While he eats breakfast I get the baby settled and list some household items on Kijiji, because I really don't need to hold onto a spare china tea set or a dress I'll never wear again. And I guess I should probably organize some of the pictures I put on my computer when I uploaded the pictures for Kijiji.
10:00 a.m. - Time to get these kids outside. What's that? The baby decides to wake up right as we're walking out the door? After committing all the time to getting sunscreen all over the other boys, I'm definitely going outside at this point. Let's see how long the little guy can stay happy while I plant my garden... Yellow beans, carrots, beets, peas, green beans, spaghetti squash..
10:45 a.m. - Done! And not a minute too soon... that little baby sure sounds grumpy now. And the older boys are done playing outside. Apparently 'outside' isn't that much fun when they know they're not allowed to dig through Mommy's garden. Well, maybe they can come inside now and we'll head out again later. They get a show inside, and I get to try to do more work. This time, going over the Sunday School budget, researching a curriculum and contacting our sales rep regarding a few questions.
11:30 a.m. - The rep is out of her office. I guess that means I have to put that on the back burner now? That's okay, I need to send out emails to my family regarding our vacation next month. Who is bringing what? Well, I guess we all know now that I sent out a comprehensive list!
12:15 p.m. - Little Dude is crying. Man, he's tired today! Good thing it's nap time. Oops - the kiddos got a bit more 'screen time' than I meant to give them today! I'd better get my eldest fed some lunch. Maybe some pasta? And maybe I should clean that kitchen while I'm at it. Clean dishes away, dishwasher emptied, dirty dishes put in... I figure I'll whip up a salad for myself for lunch. Drat. It's big enough that I opt to save it for supper. I guess I'll have pasta too.
1:00 p.m. - Oh yah. Laundry. Totally forgot! I'll throw the load that got washed last night into the dryer now and throw in another load in a bit. The baby is fussing again.
1:30 p.m. - A good time to check on my flyers and see what's on sale at the grocery stores this week. I glanced briefly when the flyers came on Thursday, but now I can't even remember what I circled. And I got an email saying Ricki's has a sale on dresses this week - a good thing too since I need one for my sister-in-laws wedding next month. Oh, and we might get a cargo box to go on top of our van... time to do a little comparison shopping online I guess.
2:00 p.m. - Suppertime is getting closer and I still don't have meat pulled. What goes well with that Santa Fe salad I made? Oooh - ribs! I've got a huge rack of them in my freezer and I bet it would fit in my stock pot. I love boiling ribs before I cook them - it makes them more tender. But given that little sun shower we're experiencing right now, I might be baking them instead of BBQing, so I'd best get them boiling now. Maybe when I'm in the kitchen this time I'll remember to put away that clean cake platter I've got on the counter...
2:45 p.m. - Baby's fussing again. Growth spurt or sore tummy? Not sure yet. Well, since I'm sitting down, I might as well go on Pinterest. There were a couple activities for the kids to do in the mountains on our vacation that I want to print off. And since I'm on the computer (and just remembered we'll be celebrating Father's Day in the mountains) I'd better make up a card for my husband and my dad from me. I'll read a sermon by Spurgeon about Fathers and find excerpts that depict both of them. That'll be nice :) Oh, and I managed to sit down with a coffee this time - lucky me!
3:15 p.m. - Little Dude is still asleep and the baby just spit up all over me. Like, record amounts. Time to throw in that other load of laundry apparently. That silly cake platter is still on the counter.
3:25 p.m. - Ah yes, I finally hear my boy waking up from his nap. Time to get him some food. And, incidentally, I started writing this.
3:45 p.m. - Round 3 of food fetching for my boy. And I'd better get that rib rack cut up and in a baking dish so I can get it in the oven for supper. Good thing I have some BBQ sauce in the fridge - totally forgot about needing that! And in between I'm going to help the older kid fetch toys, finish going potty and search for food himself. Oh, and I just remembered a work-related message I was sent today that I forgot to deal with - I'd best respond ASAP. And since I'm back on the computer I should check out what time the music store is open until tonight so I can drop my guitar off.
4:00 p.m. - I'm back to the kitchen attempting to clean. Why is this stupid cake platter still here??? I'll deal with that, but first I have to finish with the ribs and fill the sink so I can wash dishes. And I should put away the clean dishes. I just found the other two cake platters that go with the one that's taking up residence on the counter. Now they can all go away together... except the baby started screaming again. The older boys are drawing now so at least they seem happy.
4:20 p.m. - Okay! The baby is asleep! Let's get those dishes washed and FINALLY put those cake platters away. And clear the table while we're at it!
4:30 p.m. - Sigh. The baby is awake again. Not screaming yet though. But Little Dude has a dirty diaper. And I still have to plan the rest of supper. Good thing I've got another hour before Matt gets home - the boys are starting to make a mess and it's going to take some time to get all this put back together!
That brings me back up to present time (notice I started writing this at 3:25? Yah, there were lots of other little distractions I forgot about before I even sat down to write again...). I still have to research phone plans to help me decide what changes need to be made to our account before I phone the company over a billing error, I have to fold a couple loads of laundry that should have been folded over the weekend, I'll need to finish supper, eat supper, and then clean up from supper, and hopefully I'll get out tonight to drop my guitar off for repairs, drop my ring off for refinishing, take back a quilt to HomeSense that we've decided not to keep, and maybe try on some dresses at Ricki's.
Granted, every day has different tasks I need to take care of (Monday's housecleaning tends to be more about playing catch-up from the weekend than embarking on any huge tasks), but this is a pretty fair portrait of how a normal, tiny-bit frustrating and mostly scatter-brained day goes for me. I'd say out of a 5 day work-week, at least 3 of my days go like this.
And now you know how a totally normal Monday goes in our household.
Mrs. VanderLeek ;)
Friday, May 24, 2013
Broccoli Cheese Soup
A quick tip for when you're making cream soups for supper: plan what else you're making for supper in advance so that you don't leave your soup cooking too long and let it curdle!
Whoops!
I chose last night to make up some Broccoli Cheese soup from scratch, and was so excited to make my first cream soup in a few years, that I forgot to think about what else I would serve with it! So the soup turned out a little less than perfect as I ran around the kitchen frantically trying to throw together a balanced meal. (the gouda is what did me in...)
But, just because it didn't look pretty doesn't mean it wasn't incredible!
I used the recipe for Sketch-Free Broccoli and Cheese soup over at Peas and Crayons as my starting base. And while I intended to follow the recipe... well, you know how that goes. So I wanted to share the recipe that I ended up using! I made a couple basic changes, like upping the amount of liquid, cutting out the carrots and switching up some of the flavors, just simply because that suited my tastes better. The end product was a great, filling soup that caused my husband to say, "That smells great!" as soon as he walked into the house, and that my toddler INHALED. Seriously, he ate as much as I did in half the time I did. The recipe makes 4 moderate servings.
Broccoli Cheese Soup (adapted from Peas and Carrots):
3 c. chicken broth
1 large bundle broccoli (2/3 finely diced florets, 1/3 larger chunks)
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves crushed garlic
1 bay leaf
3 tbsp butter
3 tbsp flour
1 c. half and half
1/8 tsp chili powder
1/8 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp basil
1 c. grated cheddar
1 c. grated gouda
Fresh cracked pepper
Fresh snipped parsley
In a small pot, bring chicken broth to a boil. Add broccoli, onion, garlic and bay leaf. Simmer, covered, until large broccoli pieces are just fork-tender. Remove from heat and set aside.
In a larger pot, melt butter over medium heat and then whisk in flour. Cook for an additional minute. Next, whisk in broth that you cooked the veggies in. Once incorporated, stir in veggies. Slowly stir in half and half and spices. Bring up to heat again, and, when hot, whisk in cheese until fully melted. Add parsley and pepper and serve promptly.
This is a quick recipe, especially if you work mise en place. Heat some buns in the oven while it's cooking and serve it with a salad, and supper will be on the table in 30 minutes!
But remember to plan the rest of supper before the soup is done cooking, or you'll be serving curdled-cheese soup... just like I did.
Mrs. VanderLeek ;)
Whoops!
I chose last night to make up some Broccoli Cheese soup from scratch, and was so excited to make my first cream soup in a few years, that I forgot to think about what else I would serve with it! So the soup turned out a little less than perfect as I ran around the kitchen frantically trying to throw together a balanced meal. (the gouda is what did me in...)
But, just because it didn't look pretty doesn't mean it wasn't incredible!
I used the recipe for Sketch-Free Broccoli and Cheese soup over at Peas and Crayons as my starting base. And while I intended to follow the recipe... well, you know how that goes. So I wanted to share the recipe that I ended up using! I made a couple basic changes, like upping the amount of liquid, cutting out the carrots and switching up some of the flavors, just simply because that suited my tastes better. The end product was a great, filling soup that caused my husband to say, "That smells great!" as soon as he walked into the house, and that my toddler INHALED. Seriously, he ate as much as I did in half the time I did. The recipe makes 4 moderate servings.
Broccoli Cheese Soup (adapted from Peas and Carrots):
3 c. chicken broth
1 large bundle broccoli (2/3 finely diced florets, 1/3 larger chunks)
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves crushed garlic
1 bay leaf
3 tbsp butter
3 tbsp flour
1 c. half and half
1/8 tsp chili powder
1/8 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp basil
1 c. grated cheddar
1 c. grated gouda
Fresh cracked pepper
Fresh snipped parsley
In a small pot, bring chicken broth to a boil. Add broccoli, onion, garlic and bay leaf. Simmer, covered, until large broccoli pieces are just fork-tender. Remove from heat and set aside.
In a larger pot, melt butter over medium heat and then whisk in flour. Cook for an additional minute. Next, whisk in broth that you cooked the veggies in. Once incorporated, stir in veggies. Slowly stir in half and half and spices. Bring up to heat again, and, when hot, whisk in cheese until fully melted. Add parsley and pepper and serve promptly.
This is a quick recipe, especially if you work mise en place. Heat some buns in the oven while it's cooking and serve it with a salad, and supper will be on the table in 30 minutes!
But remember to plan the rest of supper before the soup is done cooking, or you'll be serving curdled-cheese soup... just like I did.
Mrs. VanderLeek ;)
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