The boys are both napping, so Ruth and I decided to give a tour of our kitchen cupboards and drawers. :) I'm open to advice or ideas about any of this stuff, too, so feel free to give suggestions! :)

Down-sizing before our move was a lot of fun! I dislike clutter and for some reason, having an excuse to give away things that we used on a less-frequent basis was like a wonderful de-cluttering spree for me! :) And I would much rather do without a few things than to have the cupboards jam-packed and difficult to navigate. :)

(Read more...)

My kitchen is unpacked and completely functional now. Yay! :) After 4.5 years in the same kitchen, it felt strange to be cooking in a different place, now called "my kitchen", that still felt like it must belong to someone else or something! :)

We're in a 2-bedroom apartment, about 900 sq. ft., which is a little smaller than our rental house in Ohio. Here are pictures from our kitchen in Ohio. I was accustomed to having a few more cupboards, plus a nice-sized enclosed porch right off of the kitchen, which I used for storage. There was even a small counter top on the porch where I had my appliances like the toaster, bread machine, grain mill, etc... so that freed up space in the kitchen.

I knew that most likely in our new place, I'd be condensing the kitchen and enclosed porch both into a smaller kitchen, so when we were packing, I tried to get rid of as much as possible to make the adjustment easier. Many of you also advised me to get rid of things before the move rather than after, which was great advice! We sold a few things, but with only 8 days' notice, most of it was given away to family and friends. :)

Okay, enough gabbing. Here are photos of my new kitchen! :) Read more...

(Joshua's Grilled Chicken Pizza,
which we served to guests on Friday)

No matter how much I try to prepare in advance, there always seems to be some last-minute chaos when we're expecting company. I already know better than to plan a bunch of foods that require last-minute care, since I can't visit with folks while I cook without forgetting something important.

But somehow, usually a number of things conspire together to ensure that the floor isn't too clean, the dishes aren't all caught up, my clothes sport a few stains, and my humility level remains intact.

Friday was one such day. Guests were scheduled for 11:30am lunch.

Thursday evening about 9 o'clock, our neighbor knocked on our door and handed me several gallons of dark red sour cherries. She asked me if we could make her two pies with part of them. I appreciated the food, but was already envisioning the many hours of labor required to wash cherries, pit cherries, make pie filling, make pie crust, and assemble the pies.

I got the children off to bed (our summer hours are shorter on sleep than our winter ones!), washed dishes, and cleaned up the kitchen. I was feeling a little overwhelmed knowing that we had to be ready for company the next morning, along with doing up all the cherries (which looked like they wouldn't keep for more than a couple of days... and the next day was Sabbath!).

I went to bed about 1am, leaving a note for Joshua about the cherries and the next day's menu (pizza, fresh bread, cherry pie!).

My AMAZING husband got up early and started on my work. When I awoke at 7am, Joshua had ground flour and made two loaves of bread, made pie crust, and washed the cherries. We pitted the cherries (we both worked for about 1 1/2 hours to pit them all!), finished the pies (recipe coming soon), and then started on the grilled chicken pizza for lunch. My pies were filled too full and ran over in the oven, so I had to clean that before we could bake pizza.

Joshua and I worked as fast as we could all morning and at 11am we were starting to wipe down the table, take out the trash/compost, sweep the floor, etc. I was still in my cherry-spotted shirt and my hair hadn't been touched. As I stepped out the back door with the trash, our guests arrived.

Oh, well, I guess it's not like we're the only people who make a mess of the kitchen when there's work that needs done.

And it's a good thing we have company regularly... it gives me a sort of "deadline" and keeps me on my toes! :) Also: see Meredith's related thoughts here. :)

I guess I'll be doing some dishes tonight.

And folding laundry.

Anyone want to keep me company on the phone tonight (~9-11pm EST) while I work? Email me with your number. :)

Edited to add:

This morning -- the sunlight shining in on my clean kitchen as cream of wheat cooks on the stovetop. :) Even better? I hardly remember the stacks of dirty dishes because I was having a lovely conversation with a long-time blog reader Lyn. Thanks, Lyn! :)

Besides the obvious -- good fellowship, laughter, and fun times -- hospitality has a few other perks that make me anxious to open our home regularly.

Motivation.

Motivation to clean, tackle piles of clutter, and clear the counters.

Motivation to cook an especially delicious meal consisting of more than just 3 things.

Serving a meal with many items (for example, salad and/or soup, main course, bread, vegetable, fruit, dessert) is a fun treat... and such a variety almost surely ensures some leftovers for the next day.

Of course, a 5- or 7-course meal is certainly not a requirement in order to practice hospitality. But because I do keep our daily meals fairly simple, it's fun to have something more elaborate every now and then -- and dinner guests is the perfect motivation! :)

Our menu for yesterday's guests:

Grilled Chicken Salad (a cool summer salad that we made entirely in advance; my mom has been giving us lettuce from her garden, so it's "salad season" for us!)
Italian Cheese Bread (an all-time favorite!)
Waldorf Salad (brought by our guests)
Baked Beans (on the stovetop on low heat... too lazy to dig out the crock pot!)
Fresh strawberries (courtesy of our kind neighbor's garden!!)
Disastrous two-layer chocolate cake

There was enough salad, beans, and cake leftover for our lunch today. (I did make more cheese bread to go with it!) We still have baked beans in the fridge for another snack/lunch.

And my house is still cleaner than it was all last week!! ;) I'm in the middle of several projects that have gotten me a little behind in my regular cleaning.

After posting a picture of my messy kitchen, I turned off the computer and went to nurse Ruth. I almost just went to sleep then, but I wasn't sure I could endure waking up to such a disastrous kitchen with no clean dishes for breakfast.

The kitchen looks so much better!! I even took out the trash and made up a to-do list for tomorrow. Yay! :) Now I'm not dreading getting up in the morning. :)

It's been a while since I've shared a "works for me" type of idea/tip, but today I thought I'd write about how I've gotten the lists and clutter under control on my kitchen counter!

See how lovely my clear counter looks? In the interest of full disclosure, it fills up with dirty dishes every day... I do not maintain a miraculously clean kitchen all day! But, aside from dishes and food stuff, that lovely stretch of counter likes to collect papers. Lists. Bills. Stuff-I-will-deal-with-later kind of things.

So, I came up with a plan. All lists now get written on post-it notes, usually one or two notes per day. I usually have one post-it with big things that need done that week, and another post-it or two with my daily reminders, jobs, etc.

The post-it notes go on my cupboard doors, leaving the counter clear. I would send you to a free sample box of post-its, but that freebie is gone now... sorry! :(

You can make your post-its last longer by turning them over and writing on the back, too. See? :)

I also have my daily routines/schedule written on a dry erase board which is hung in the kitchen. Hanging things on walls sure frees up lots of extra counter and cupboard space, I've found!

(Click to enlarge)

This is what keeps me on track. I write menus on the left, as I described in this post about menu planning with a white board. The top has my morning and evening routines, and the bottom has some general times for meals and bed. :)

It's really simple, but the post-it lists and the dry-erase schedule have helped me immensely to stay focused while fighting paper clutter! :)

I love a clean house! It never stays very clean, though. :) I kept very busy today and enjoyed seeing my very dirty house start to sparkle. ;)

I went to bed extra early last night (8 pm) so that I could get an early start. Amazingly, the children didn't wake up until 6:30 am, and I had already taken a shower, made breakfast for Joshua and myself, done a load of laundry, and cleaned the porch! :) (Read more about my day...)

I guess I'm not the only one whose home is suffering from neglect... today I need to do some plain old cleaning, which is what Crystal also suggests in her challenge for today! Somehow the days just slip past, and I head to bed thinking yet again "I'll have to clean the bathroom tomorrow..." :)

This is my bag of cleaning supplies: a small spray bottle of vinegar (for cleaning glass), a spray bottle of natural all-purpose cleaner called Tough and Tender (which was given to me and I love it!!), a few old rags (which I use to clean the bathroom and mop the floors), and a microfiber dusting cloth.

My younger brother convinced me to buy this microfiber cloth on sale at the hardware store where he works. I love how well it works, and it's easily washed for lots of use. I still dislike dusting, though. I guess the novelty wears off after a while... ;)

This nifty little free sample came in the mail last week. It's going to encourage me to finally dust all of my furniture. (Edited to add: I was not impressed with this. Oh well!)

The house is quiet. Joshua's in the shower, and I hear Ruth squeaking (I'll have to go feed her!). I got up super early today, because I really need to get some housework done today -- the dirt is driving me crazy! :) I'll report back later -- hopefully this afternoon, but you know how that goes -- it'll probably take me longer than I expect! ;)

Two weeks ago, Crystal's Making Your Home a Haven challenge was tackling a pile somewhere in the house. This was my pile. I took a picture of it that day. And finally, today, I got it taken care of... completely!!

This is such a relief, since this box of papers, scrawled recipes, empty teabags (don't ask!), and website-related notes/lists was taking up precious counter space in my kitchen... and I rarely even touched the papers inside.

Having clutter on the counters bothers me (a LOT!), and so I've been on a mission to reduce what gets kept on our kitchen counters. Too many recent days have found my kitchen counters COMPLETELY filled with stuff.

Now, here's where the Housekeeping Hints part comes in. In that pile of papers were these two books -- Heloise's Housekeeping Hints. They have different covers, but are the same book, and I got them both at rummage sales some time back. As in... over a year ago.

My plan all along was to write a review of the book (with some tips for you!) and then give away the two copies. So, read more for my review and some excerpts, and a chance to win one of the books!