Category Archives: household

Outside Office

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One of the drawbacks to the house I live in is that we have almost no yard, and none of it is really flat. What? None? What about this area?

This was an area we used for extra parking. Then we used it for parking a car we were going to get rid of. But we got rid of the car and the area was kind of a junk area.

I commented back at the end of the winter that what we really needed was a patio, and why didn’t we turn that former parking area into one? We only have one car, after all, and we park that in the garage.

My husband agreed, and we talked about it for a while, and decided that we really couldn’t afford to brick in an area and give our landlord a present. (He’s a nice guy, but that would be an expensive present and we really couldn’t afford to do that.) Then my mother, when was talking to her about the idea, suggested using mulch for the patio area.

Brilliant! We could afford to mulch a 12×12 area with no real problem.

So we got some plastic garden edging, some peat moss to mix with potting soil, and some petunias.*

After much travail on the part of my husband – mostly involving digging a shallow trench and putting in the edging, we had ourselves a patio. I like to work outside, and this will be a wonderful Outside Office.

It took about a day’s work and has been totally worth it. I shall be drinking my coffee and reading my email out there tomorrow.

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* I suspect I will come to regret the petunia decision when it comes time to squat down and deadhead the little monsters.

Would have baked a cake

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I’m baking a cake for my son’s birthday party tomorrow. Now, today was a busy day and I had to do a lot of shopping, so when I was making the list, I considered picking up a box o’ cake mix and making one from that.

I didn’t.

This isn’t a “go me, look at what a good Mommy I am” moment. The cake I am making probably won’t taste much different from a mix. It’s your incredibly basic chocolate cake that I’d be perfectly comfortable talking a ten year old through making. The reason I didn’t buy the boxed mix was nothing more than looking in my pantry, realizing I had everything I needed to make a cake anyway and figuring it was stupid to spend the money, plus the knowledge that in terms of time, it would have been six of one, or a half a dozen of the other. If I hadn’t had all the ingredients, it might have been a box o’ cake.

I would have felt no guilt about that, either.

It did get me to thinking, though, about how we perceive the effort involved in making a meal as well as a book I’d read recently.

When researchers watched thirty-two two-income families cook dinner for four days, here’s what they saw: It took people an average of fifty-two minutes from the time they opened the refrigerator door to the time they sat down at the table, whether they used a box kit like Hamburger Helper or cooked everything from scratch. The only difference was that meals cooked from scratch required about ten minutes more active time— minutes spent chopping and sautéing, for example— than box mixes.

McMillan, Tracie (2012-02-21). The American Way of Eating (pp. 211-212). Simon & Schuster, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

While it’s partially a matter of perception, she goes on to say something else that’s a really interesting point:

Box meals don’t save us time any more than going out to eat does, and they don’t even save us money. What they do instead is remove the need to have to come up with a plan for dinner, something that’s easy when you’re a skilled cook— and bafflingly difficult when you’re not. The real convenience behind these convenience foods isn’t time or money, but that they remove one more bit of stress from our day.

McMillan, Tracie (2012-02-21). The American Way of Eating (p. 212). Simon & Schuster, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

It’s why I, who am definitely a skilled cook, considered choosing a box mix for a cake when preparing for a party. It wasn’t that it was going to save me time, really. What it meant was that I wouldn’t have to go to the trouble to look up a recipe for the materials I already had on hand. (My smartphone has become my cookbook. What can I say?)

Though one thing Ms. McMillan may not have considered (and this is probably because as she mentions in her book, kitchen skills played no real part in her childhood or growing up years) is that even skilled cooks will order out or have an easy go-to when tired or stressed. There are ways to avoid it if one knows how, of course. Meal planning, shopping to a list, planning meals based on likelihood of how busy one will be on a particular day – all of these things are necessary to being able to have cooking be less of a stressful chore and more of a pleasant routine. And this isn’t a skill that’s generally taught, even in home ec classes these days.

Clean All the Things

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I am not particularly neat by nature or general habit.

I am neat by taste. I like order. You can see the conflict, yes?

I do have some habits to take care of this adapted from Flylady. We do have a slightly different approach, but the goals are similar. We’re messy packrats who really would prefer to live in a neat home, and frankly made a pig’s ear out of the attempt for most of our lives.

Part of what I do is daily routine. (Make my bed the minute I get up, make sure the kitchen is cleaned up once a day, etc.)

Part of what the household does is weekly routine. Clean All the Things. (Declutter, dust, vacuum, change bedsheets, give hard floors a quick damp mop). Depending on how bad things are, this can take from 20 minutes to an hour. It’s not enough for white glove inspections, but it keeps the house from degenerating into chaos, and getting used to piles of clutter in corners to the point where we don’t even “see” them as we climb over them. I’ve lived like that and I didn’t feel good with it. Hence the change.

This week was definitely a 20 minute week, especially as my son and I did a very thorough Clean All the Things last week.

In fact, so much so that when I commented it was time to Clean All the Things, my son objected, saying the house wasn’t very messy. (It wasn’t). I said that he was right. The house wasn’t all that messy, so if we did Clean All the Things, it wouldn’t take very long. Neither would it next week. Stuff wouldn’t pile up. He still disagreed.

We took a vote1, and his father and I carried by a 2/3 majority, so All the Things got Cleaned.

I talk a lot about the mundane keeping up of stuff, I know. It’s something I never learned as a child. Not that no-one tried to teach me, mind. It’s just that it was really difficult for me to learn, and I didn’t even really see the value of it. I was into epics, for pity’s sake! Heroic effort, I could value, and get into. Moderate, patient, long-term effort? Not so much. It’s why being able to keep my house clean on a regular basis was such a victory for me and one I still reflect on a great deal.

Now, my pleasure centers still light up at the intensity of effort stuff, and I think that’s okay. I can pour everything into the few hours I’m in front of a class. That’s not hurting anything. In fact, it’s good. But then I need to go home and be patiently moderate about studying for the next class, writing the handouts, and dealing with the other aspects of my life.

I think the theme of this year is going to be learning to be moderately immoderate.

Though I swear, I thought you were supposed to have everything sorted out by the time you were in your forties?2 Goodness knows, my grandparents seemed to in their own minds. I wish I could ask them what they were working on personally (if anything) when they were my age. My parents had my brother and I to deal with. NO-ONE could possibly feel like everything was sorted with us as children. We were kinda challenging to rear.

 

1 Unlike many homes, that vote was not fake. If 2 out of the three of us voted not to Clean All the Things, None of the Things would have been Cleaned.

2 At least, it’s what I used to think at sixteen. Yes, I know, in many ways I’m mentally still a teenager. Stop laughing at me. It’s not nice to laugh at people who can’t help it.

Decorating for Halloween

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My husband and I have been talking about doing some sort of yard decorating for Halloween since… oh gosh, since we got married, I suppose.

Other than pumpkins, we really never have.

This year, our son decided he was too old for trick-or-treating,  and asked what we were going to do for Halloween. I asked him if there were some parties he wanted to go to or anything like that, or if he had any suggestions.  He didn’t have any ideas, so I asked if he’d like to make some tombstones with goofy sayings on them like Disney’s Haunted Mansion.  He was enthusiastic.  So, when I put it to his father, of course we got an enthusiastic yes as well.

This was goofy, but fun.  We got some foamboard, Peter cut them into shape, we all painted them gray, Peter did the layout and outlines, then Samuel and I painted, coloring very nicely in the lines.

Garbage Bowl

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I don’t watch Rachel Ray. I don’t watch television. But in noodling around the Internet, I did come across the concept of using a garbage bowl while cooking.  No, it wasn’t Rachel, but a chef.

Even though when I saw the idea and lights came on, angels sang choirs of hosannas and I realized it Made My Kitchen Complete, it’s a stupidly simple concept. Have one or two large bowls[1] on the counter beside you to throw scraps and garbage in while you’re cooking. When you’re done, dump everything from the bowl into the garbage. Clean the bowl. Simple, easy and so goofily obvious that I’m amazed that in nearly 30 years of cooking I never thought of it.

I was making spaghetti tonight and used one. Friends, this really does streamline not only cooking, but cleanup. My trash can really won’t “go” anywhere but across the kitchen, and yes, I’m a “clean as you go” cook[2].  So, this method saves me a lot of steps, and interestingly enough, makes clutter containment while cooking much easier.  Even though I’m hardly a professionally-trained chef, I do ascribe to the mise en place philosophy of cooking.  I do not like a mess while I’m making a meal.

I think this would actually be a great technique to teach kids when cooking, as one of the big issues with kids in the kitchen is mess!  Teach ‘em this, and at least some is contained.

So, my faithful readers, do you use a garbage bowl?  Where did you hear of the concept?  How much do you like it?

[1] I think Rachel Ray markets some, but at $15 for a damn plastic bowl, I think that’s useless.  I have LOTS of large bowls, so just haul out a couple (or only one if you’re not saving anything for stock) and use them.

[2] The rest of my household, however, is not.  Instead a CLEAN UP OR DIE sign in my household, I’ve chosen to pick my battles and let this be a Designated Control Freak issue.  It makes household harmony easier to attain.

Whose Job is the Housework?

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“The guys just don’t feel the same way we do about the house. They don’t have the guilt that eats away at them.” Flylady in an answer to a letter about the Husband’s clutter.

Oh boy…

Here’s the problem.  Do you know why men don’t feel guilty if the house looks like shit?  It’s because quite often they feel it’s the woman’s job to clean the house.  You can’t feel guilty about something you feel isn’t your responsibility!

Now, as it happens, I am the one who takes charge of how the house looks.  There are several reasons, and yes, one of the reasons is that I’m the one who cares the most about it and I’ve made some life choices that give me the time.  But you know what?  If I had something else I was doing that I considered important[1], I would consider that the important thing to do.  I will, have and do react incredibly badly to the automatic assumption that having a uterus means that I’m the one who should automagically be in charge of how the house looks.  Lack of help cleaning up after dinner would have me quite disinclined to cook another single meal.   I haven’t the slightest problem with asking people to pick up after themselves, and consistent refusal to do so is definitely a relationship-killer with me.

But the guilt thing?  Friends, that’s some sexist socialization there.  Partnerships and equitability are one thing, but you wouldn’t establish a business partnership with the relationship  and responsibilities unexamined.  Why shoot yourself in the foot with your life partners?

[1] A book deadline, for instance, would mean that instead of me doing the lion’s share of the household chores, we’d be splitting housework up in thirds Or There Would Be Serious Trouble.

 

Disposable?

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I’m not a big fan of disposable stuff in general. No, it’s not some tree-hugger thing, though I’m totally fine with things I do being less wasteful or polluting.

It’s a money-saver.  I don’t use paper towels.  I have cleaning cloths made of old towels.  They’re not just cut up old towels, though.   You take an old towel, cut it in eighths. Then you sew a zig-zag stitch all around the edges to prevent fraying and sew the long ends together into a loose tube.  Depending on how you fold it, this gives you more cleaning surface per cloth, so you don’t go through as many cleaning.  I’ve preferred those for years.  They last a long time, and you can just toss them in with the regular laundry with no problem.  (I don’t use bleach or bleach-based products in cleaning.  You would have to handle them with more care in terms of laundry if you did).

But I always associated cloth napkins with formal dinners until I went to visit a friend in Portland a few years ago.   In the kitchen, there was a basket of clean, folded napkins in cheerful colors and patterns.  I remember seeing it and having to restrain myself from smacking my forehead at the casual sensibleness of cloth napkins.  You buy a set once, then you’re all good for napkins for many years.  They’re so small that it’s insignificant in terms of extra laundry and for me they wouldn’t really cost any extra to acquire.  I mean, I sew.  I’ve always got fabric lying around, so it’s not even as if it would have cost anything for me to have some.  But if you buy paper ones, you’re buying napkins about once a month or so.

I made a set of sixteen.  Since I usually do a load of darks about every two to three days (my napkins are dark burgundy), that’s more than enough.  We never really run out.

What really gets me to thinking about it, though, is how often disposable products are pushed.  The Swiffer Wet-Jet not only needs those disposable pads (well, okay, I use my cleaning cloths with mine, and just attach them with some old hair ties) and the special bottles of cleaner (and I just have a spray bottle of all purpose cleaner to squirt the floor down well), but then there’s the dispoable dusting rags, toilet wands and what have you.  This stuff is silly and wasteful.  It’s not even safer in terms of germs.  If you’re really concerned, use a disinfectant cleaner, spray the surface and let it air dry.  Do you do that? No, of course not.  So don’t be silly about germs and disposable cleaning products.