Today the cleaners arrived. And Oh, my! They set out their plan and we either agreed or didn't agree. And for the most part, I think we got on the same page.
We did agree to wash the kitchen items inside the cupboards, which we had originally asked them... they said they figured 12 hours to clean the contents and today Dh and I spent nearly 15 hours (our hours together) cleaning and only got the upper cupboards done inside. I have twice as many lower cupboards, so I am like... 12 HOURS??? what were they thinking???
Today they got the upstairs walls and ceilings done and they cleaned a few things that was nice to see... they cleaned off the girls' bathroom sink and the toilet and really the entire bathroom... it just sparkles. The girls' rooms don't really look all that different... they basically cleaned walls and worked around the mess that the girls had left... I don't think they did the upstairs screens however... and I will maybe ask them to do that... as I got soot on the back of my hand checking...(Will I be brave enough to ask??? LOL). They did wash the downstairs screens which was SOOO nice! The big deal about the screens is that for several days, my daughter Chelsea, 16yo, would come up with soot smeared on her face and we couldn't figure out where she got it... well she loves to look out windows and see as much as she can see and often she hits her nose on the screen... and so the nose smudge began and continued until just the day before she left for camp. We figured it out that she was too "nosey" about what was going on outside.
Anyways, upstairs I wasn't super impressed... There are two rooms done real nice and two rooms done OK. The one gal was very particular about her cleaning and she did the two nice rooms. One was just learning and was working with the man who was the boss of the project, I guess you call him?? He says he likes cleaning walls and ceilings, but isn't interested in the details... and it kinda showed. Not that it was horrible, it just didn't sparkle like the other two rooms. And the one room my girls bunk bed in... that room just didn't shine... I offered to move stuff, but they just cleaned around it... so as soon as I pick up the stuff off the dresser, I'll have to clean it again... that kinda clean. Why clean??? Oh well. At least the ceiling is done... I hate doing ceilings!
Downstairs they had a guy working solo in our front room... absolutely love that guy! And he's not coming back!!! He has other work to do the rest of the week... but he was so thorough and that room really shines as well. I still have to clean inside the cupboards and clean the stuff ON the cupboards, but the doors and walls and everything shines! He knows his stuff! One thing we learned is this cleaner just sucks the life out of the wood and he says you have to follow it with murphy's soap to add some oil back into the wood to give it shine. I would have to say that wasn't done upstairs on our railing as it is rather dull... but downstairs, our pantry doors just glow... love it!
Here's the plan for the rest of the week as far as the cleaners go... Wednesday, they will finish the kitchen (walls, ceilings), dining room (walls, ceilings) and the master bedroom (walls and ceilings). Thursday they will clean the carpets and the floors... which he said they'd clean the wood floors, but I'm guessing they are going to leave that to me, because we have so many items that need to be inside because of the outside dog... that he suggested moving those items to our dining room and kitchen area... well, we are moving the stuff and moving it back... so they aren't going to be able to clean under them... so that's another thing added to my to-do list.
Thursday when they clean the carpet, they do not want us in the house at all... especially with Paige... as she will run on the wet carpet, get it dirty and it would just be best if we weren't in the house... he even suggested we sleep in the camper on Thursday night... too bad that is plum packed FULL of blankets and laundry that I have been doing for the last week! Maybe I can find one of the beds... what an ordeal! So after 3 days they will be gone! GONE.
That will leave me with alot of work! I figured the kitchen will take me two more days, even with some help! The entry room is like the kitchen as far as cupboard cleaning... so say 2-3 days in there. The dining room... not so bad, maybe a day, the bathroom... likely a day, the living room... a day (want to polish that wood so it isn't dried out... and I think the piano is my job... they won't touch it... not sure how you clean soot out of a piano!). My bedroom... likely two days. Upstairs... 1-2 days in bedroom 1, 1 day in bedroom 2, 1day in bedroom 3. Bathroom2 - 1/2 day. And the storage areas they are not touching at all... and that will take me at least a week. That's nearly 3 weeks of straight cleaning YET to be done! I think we will make the deductible! I will not be able to do much cleaning the next two days the cleaners are here... being banned from the house one day... and banned from downstairs tomorrow. My girls also thought they might miss out on cleaning being at camp... well they didn't miss out on much! LOL. Perhaps with their help it can go a bit faster... I hope so!
I am beginning to wonder about how the fire is helping me to get my house cleaned in one big swoop... because it isn't going to be one big swoop! I will be cleaning the house until we are ready to start back up with school... no summer break for this MOM! I am still plodding on... the house is getting decluttered. I have one van full of items ready to go to the church garage sale. I'm sure I will have more as I enter more rooms; I've only gone through just the laundry room and part of the kitchen! And the big storage area upstairs... which is the area I NEED to declutter... they aren't going to even try to clean... they even suggested I move everything into that area... now wouldn't that just make the area worse again??? CRAZY!
Well, I better go work for another hour or so. I hope to clean off the kitchen counters and the dining room furniture so that they can move items around and clean. Tomorrow morning I will be emptying bookshelves to my bed so they can clean our bedroom. I then will head upstairs to likely Paige's room to "finish the cleaning", doing the detail work. I'm so tired and so very sore!
Now... you know your house is big when the cleaners joke about hating to break into our house because it is so big and there are so many rooms... even a burglar would get lost! One said that after a lady got lost trying to figure out where to go and she says... there's too many rooms in here! Dh liked the comment... he loves his big house.
I picked up a huge, huge, huge, (boy, do I wish I had a picture to show you), huge box of bananas at Save-a-Lots for $8.00.
I gave a bunch to my father, the kids have eaten bunches and bunches, and my oldest daughter made batches and batches of banana bread.
I am trying an experiment I heard about that said you could freeze bananas. I wrapped 12 bunches of bananas in aluminum foil, then put them into freezer bags. I read that the skins will turn black, but the bananas will stay good.
I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth."
So God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth."
Kelsie is the first of the kids that was insistent that she was going to be mobile. We would put her on the floor and every movement was an attempt to get somewhere else. She turned over early and before long she had mastered sitting up. Then came crawling. Shortly after learning to sit up she could get anywhere she wanted to...backwards. {grin} She could scoot with the best of them. But she wanted to go forward. Last week she figured it out and was even able to move her girth around to make it happen. So at 7 months, she's officially a crawler!
Emily made this yummy blueberry lemon cake last night. I had purchased some organic frozen blueberries from Azure and we used those. The cake was not only delicious but pretty too ....
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Blueberry Lemon Bundt Cake
Crystal Miller
1 cup butter
1 ¾ cups cane juice crystals
4 eggs
2 T lemon juice
¼ t lemon extract
1 t vanilla
2 ¾ cups whole wheat pastry flour
¼ t baking powder
¼ t salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 ¼ cups blueberries, fresh or frozen, tossed with 1 T ww pastry flour
Glaze
1 ½ cups powdered sucanat (powdered sugar would work too)
3 T lemon juice
1 T maple syrup
In a mixer combine butter and cane juice crystals and beat until fluffy, about 2 to 3 minutes. Beat in eggs one at a time. Add lemon juice, lemon extract, and vanilla and mix until all is well combined.
In a smaller bowl combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Add this to the butter/cane juice crystal mixture alternately with the buttermilk. Mixing well after each addition. When all is combined mix for 2 more minutes.
Fold in blueberries. Grease and flour a 12 cup bundt pan. Spoon batter into pan. Bake at 350 for 50 minutes or until a toothpick or fork inserted in the center comes out clean.
When the cake has finished baking let it cool on a wire rack for 20 minutes. Then run a knife around the edges of the pan to make sure it is loosened. Put a dinner plate over the top of the pan and flip the cake over so it is sitting on the dinner plate. Allow to cool completely.
To make glaze, mix all ingredients in a small bowl until smooth. Drizzle glaze over the completely cooled cake... serve and enjoy!
I'm thinking it's probably not a compliment when you arrive at church, and the first thing someone says to you is "When are you due?" You tell them mid-September, and they say with surprise, "OH! You still have quite a ways to go then!"
Hmm. Does that mean I look larger than 29 weeks and 5 days?
And then after church when another lady rushes up to you and asks, "How are you?!?! Are you ready?!?!" A question usually reserved for the last few weeks. So, then you reply, "Well, I'll probably be more than ready before baby gets here, but I'll only be 30 weeks on Tuesday, so I still have 10 or more weeks to go." A not-so-subtle reminder that you really aren't that close to your due date yet.
I was excited that on Tuesday I'll be approximately 3/4 of the way through this pregnancy, with 10 weeks left until my due date. But now I'm just wondering how big that outfit made me look yesterday. Maybe that blouse and skirt aren't as flattering as I thought. LOL!! Or maybe I really am huge for 30 weeks.
I don't feel huge. I think I'm about normal for being this far along. It had to be the outfit. I'm just used to being told I still look small, until the very last few weeks. Although I do have to remind myself that this is a new church and a new community. They don't know what I look like 7, 8, and 9 months pregnant yet. But they will soon enough.
But then again, maybe I should remind myself of how big I got with both my boys. If this truly is another boy, as the sonogram seemed to show, I'm likely going to be larger than I was last pregnancy ... and I'm likely going to get many more comments like those.
Edited to add: I am not upset about these comments. I found it surprising, but also funny. It did make me take a second look at that outfit when I got home, though.
I likely won't be on here much for the next week as cleaning officially begins tomorrow. I have been busy however filling boxes and taking clean wash out to the camper. Boxes are going into the outside mudroom. I am exhausted just for yesterday's filling of boxes. I have no idea where they are going to start, so that is a bit frustrating as well. I may be packing up boxes that I don't need to mess with for a few days. OH well!
I quick checked my measurements from my increased activity...although I wouldn't say I am getting an aerobic workout... climbing the steps and lifting boxes and moving boxes has given me quite a bit of undeliberate strength training. And what happened was just as I suspected... many of my sizes went UP... but I know I had little muscle underneath, so this is beefing up the muscle and for that I am glad. It is noticable. My lower thigh... those muscles above your knee... I can see them now... Woo Hoo and that size went up nearly 1.5 inches. I laughed. My calves went up, my upper chest and my hips went up... which I have big butt muscles when they are toned! I did have two losers... the more important ones... slight loss on my upper arm, which is flabby! And a loss of over a 1/2 inch on my waist. This wasn't an official check, I just wanted to see what was going on...
Anyways, I need to get back to packing. I think I might head out and get our groceries while it is raining this morning and then come back and pack the rest of the day and evening. I was going to stop at Menards and get a few laundry baskets... they are on sale for $2.48 and that would help with moving so many books back and forth. I hope to find some more free boxes as well. I see Menards has throw rugs for a buck... those rag woven rugs... we use them for camping and some are nice colored...browns and my daughter picked out a few pink ones... my other daughter some harvest colored ones... Fun! I likely will use these in the bathrooms as my b-room rugs are disgusting and likely ruined.... My yellow rug is gray from the soot and everyone walking on it. Also on sale are canning jars for $3.48 with a rebate... so I will pick up two of those cases as well.
I need to get going as things won't get done if I am on the computer.
We left the kids at my parents house last Thursday morning. We spent Wed night at my SILs where we had a BBQ, fireworks, and homemade ice cream. lots of fun. So Thurs morning, we dropped off the two eldest (Bug, 6 and Bear, 4) for a week at grandma's. nothing more fun than that! We ot home Thursday evening - we spent the day running around Salt Lake doing errands easier done without children in tow.
Friday I started the cleaning.
I cleaned the basement. reorganized the storage room, moving the paper goods (kleenex, TP, diapers etc) to the top of the kids' closet - it was just empty space collecting junk. this freed up room on my shelves for the food storage I was reduced to placing on the floor for lack of room! hehehe.
I straightened the "moving box" room - you know , the room with all the moving boxes we haven't unpacked after almost 2 years. LOL! maybe I should just toss those unopened at this point.
I cleaned the book room - found 2 socks. cleaned the old toy closet under the stairs. found 4 socks, including 2 church socks. that boy is hopeless with socks. I just bought him a dozen pair of socks. last laundry day, he had 4 pair.
I then moved up the stairs.
On Satuday I cleaned the couch room, including washing the couch covers (1 sock) and the family room (where all the toys are now). I also did the entry, the hallway and the laundry room (no socks).
Yesterday I cleaned the school corner and cubbies. No socks, but a lot of garbage, markers-without-lids, crayons, and some wipies.
I also straitened the toy cupboard where we keep the play-do, dominoes, stickers, puzzles, etc. and the kitchen (which had gotten very filthy since I was neglecting to clean that while I purged the rest of the house.)
Now I have all day today to clean my office. ugh. there was a reason I left that for last. sigh. oh, and I need to go do some gardening. I should do that earlier than later so that it is not too hot.
anyway, have a great day.
Tightening the budget belt has been on my mind lately. With the cost of gas continuing to go up as well as the cost of food and other items it is requiring an extra degree of thought to how the money is spent. One of the things I have been doing is instituting a “No Leftovers” policy. In the past if I had a few leftovers from a dinner I would not think to much of it. But now I have started to scale down how much food I make (especially with Leanne gone and Emily not always home for all meals) and make sure the kids eat what leftovers we have for lunch the next day… or I even serve them for dinner the next night if there are enough. I did this yesterday. I made Yummy Pinto Beans the day before and used 4 cups of dry beans (and a pound of hamburger added to the recipe) so it made a large pot of beans for us. We had enough for dinner last night too. I also will examine all leftovers that aren’t enough to serve a second time and see what new creation I can make from. Stir fry from leftover rice, chili over baked potatoes, goulash from a small amount of leftover spaghetti sauce, fried potato patties from leftover mashed potatoes, adding leftover pot roast to noodles or potatoes and adding a cream sauce to make a casserole. It is amazing how much I can save by thinking creatively with leftovers! I am also watching what I buy so it does not go to waste.. like too many tomatoes or fruit or whatever it may be. I am keeping my meals simple to make with a minimum amount of ingredients. So far my efforts have been noticeable on the budget! And I am still able to buy various organic products and still save.
The next area we looked at was how many cars we have on insurance policies that we don’t drive. My husband has a truck he only drives occasionally and we have a full size 12-passenger van we now only drive occasionally due to that $125 price tag at the gas pump fill up. So we talked with our insurance man and he said it was fine to put the cars on a comprehensive policy only as long as we are not driving them. IF we would want to drive them we just call the insurance company up and let them know we need the vehicle for the day and they adjust the policy for that day. The cost has been about $10 every 6 months for each vehicle.. which has been a huge savings. I have heard that not every insurance company will do this but I do know State Farm is one that will.
Driving with multiple purposes is also one way we are saving money. We live quite a ways from town so combining errands and shopping trips and not going into town more often than necessary is helping. Although things seem to come up some weeks that make this hard to do. So if I need to grocery shop I will also use that trip to go to the bank, the post office, combine the trip with appointments and so on. If Emily needs to go to the local college to take a CLEP test then afterwards we will grocery shop and I try and buy my gas at the lest expensive gas stations in the city when I am out rather than the more spendy ones that are closer to home.
In the home I am working harder at reusing as many things as possible like plastic zip bags or my bread bags. Also when I think I need something I stop and ask myself if there is something I already have that would work just as well. As an example a few weeks ago I made up a batch of homemade disinfectant cleaner and used some paper towels that my husband had sitting in the shop (he got them from cleaning out his dad’s house as normally I don’t buy paper towels). I needed a container to put them in but did not have one big enough to work. So instead I used a gallon size zip lock bag and have been reusing the bag since then. It works fine.
Another thing I already do to save us money is use cloth napkins. They are easy to make and I have a ton of them now. I purchased the fabric from Walmart on the $2 a yard table. I can get 50 napkins made for less than $3. I wash them once a week or so.
On the homestead:
Well my daughter’s trip to the west coast is almost over and I am happy to say I have had several opportunities to visit with her, Jonathan and my grandbaby Caden. We celebrated our holiday a few days early since Tobin had to work on the 4th. Here are a few pics of our time together…
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Leanne sent us another letter.. I think she is feeling a bit homesick and that makes my mama heart sad for her. But I know this will be a wonderful experience when she looks back. She is a real homebody and I figured before she left she would have some difficult adjustments to make. So we continue to keep her in our prayers daily. We all are missing her so much. She has 6 weeks left to go and this week her team leaves for Egypt. I hope to have more pics from the Teen Missions website to post soon.
Hope you all are having a great holiday weekend on your homesteads!
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Our Journey Into The Country - A Faith Walk