Culinary Therapy, Camping edition.

(Our home away from home for the next week. It is sufficiently decrepit that I can still proudly call myself a camper. Ahem. Yes, I have to sew a patch onto it tomorrow.)

We will have a firepit.

We will have a camp stove, fueled by portable propane bottles. (Yay. I love cooking on a gas stove!)

I will have two pots and one frying pan and two bowls.

Meat and fresh food will be purchased every day. (No point trying to manage a cooler at the desired temperature when we have to lug it around in the back of the vehicle all day. Can't leave it at the tent site in Bear Country!)

Breakfasts will be a choice of eggs, omeletes, oatmeal or pancakes. (Made with pre-mixed whole wheat flour mix from home). Sausage.

Lunches will be sandwiches: egg, ham and cheese and fruit, cut up veggies, granola bars. We like to hike while we're on vacation, so lunch will always be a squished sandwich.

Arrival night, Sunday:
Spaghetti sauce (1/2 a jar) with pre-cooked ground beef from home.
Spaghetti and Bannock
salad

Monday:
Chili. (Use up the other half of the jar of spaghetti sauce). Bought corn muffins.

Tuesday:
Balsamic Chicken Breasts, roast potatoes, broccoli, bannock.

Wednesday:
Sausage, Brown Beans and biscuits.

Thursday:
Burritos, Bannock, Spinach Salad.

Friday:
Chicken Pepper skillet.
Salad.

Saturday: leftovers, if any, or pizza from town.

We will be home Sunday night.

NB: The cook reserves the right to cancel dinner at any time in case of heavy rain or extreme fatigue. In such cases, refer to Saturday's plans.

Plodding

I have been busy.

We bought our replacement vehicle on the weekend. That seemed to take a lot of energy and time, somehow. The living room remained in limbo until yesterday when we finally took out the old thermostat. In the interests of documenting history here it is.

(The Canadian Government introduced the Metric system one unit at a time. They started with temperatures in 1975. Notice the dusty mercury bulb. We made a trip to our local hazardous waste site with it.)

That of course, left us with this which took the entire day and much ingenuity to fill. I really didn't mind.

Our annual heat wave has hit. It feels downright silly to complain about temperatures hovering around the 30 degree mark, but honest-to-goodness it's, it's difficult.

Aurelia and I taped and washed the walls and I did the first round of cutting in before bed last night. Then I got up at 7:30 this morning, before the heat hit too hard and spent about two hours applying the first coat. The paint is thick and uncooperative.

I took this to show you the difference in the colour. I feel like I have stripped the room of depth and character. That oak trim, hiding under the green tape, sticks out. It's no longer integrated into the scheme and looks like a marital dispute. (Which it is.)



The upper bit, above the trim and below the stuccoed popcorn ceiling, thus, needs to be a miracle worker. It must provide a bit of colour and intergrate the wood trim without making the room top heavy. Any suggestions?


We're still on track to leave for the mountains on Sunday. (I think. We got the tent trailer out of storage last night and one of the tires is flat and needs repair.)

I wish we'd already left.

Organizing, Cleaning and Decorating.

Three separate things.

One does have to be a tad organized in order to begin to clean: and one does have to have a fairly clean and tidied space in order to decorate. But once you have decorated, it is perfectly possible never to wash the floor or vacuum the furniture. Nor will you suddenly acquire mail management skills and enthusiasm for the laundry. So, these activities are separate. For a long time I have thought that if the room were "nice" I'd be motivated to keep it clean. Well, it certainly is pleasant when a nicely decorated room is kept clean and tidy: but it isn't a sufficient motivation to overcome my innate--what? laziness? perfectionism? depression? inertia?

In an effort lately to address my housekeeping deficiencies, I have been searching the web for help. I came across "The Organizing Junkie." It's a frightening place, really. In November, 2007, the OJ set a 30-day organizing challenge for individuals to tackle a whole room (or a small space). The participants were encouraged to post before and after pictures when the challenge was done. They provided direct access to these blog posts via Mr. Linky.

First of all, "organizing" was an all encompassing term for de-cluttering, containerizing and tidying. Cleaning the space wasn't mentioned too often (though I'm sure that once the surfaces were bare it likely occurred) and there was no noticeable decorating. Which wasn't the point. but, to me, overall, looking at their spaces, it is oddly dissatisfying and disheartening. Perhaps because although beauty is orderly: mere orderliness is not beautiful. But their posts certainly are motivating!

And I too wonder if these posts and web activities reinvent the old "coffee klatch" Wende referred to in her comments in the last post. Sort of. I'm more of a voyeur than a visitor when I "drop in" on these women, but I'm sure at the time of the challenge the women who participated felt connected and were socializing--as far as the web allows. It reminds me of the fun I had doing AT with lots of like-minded individuals.

I don't know. And I don't know if my difficulties will ever disappear. I believe I know everything there is to know about keeping up with the house. My problem isn't a lack of knowledge. No, it is most likely a lack of good habits. That's all. I just don't have the habit (or routine) of getting up off my duff and doing something I may not be remotely interested in doing for ten minutes or 1/2 an hour.

Speaking of which.....

Motivated

It's no secret that I struggle with "keeping" my home. In early January/late December I came across an e-book of housekeeping assignments. Called Motivated Moms, it's a page per week schedule for doing housework. It's available as a download, with or without scripture, in two formats for $8. The woman who thought of it was brilliant, I think.

On the list for Wednesday, among other things, were these:

Wash windows - master bedroom

Clean blinds/curtains - master bedroom

and a little further down the list,

Dust master bedroom

Well!
How could I resist?

I had started cleaning up back in June. My mother loves to give gifts. And she loves to shop Value Village. Every time she comes to visit (and in May and June it was nearly every day) she would have a few items of clothing, either for the kids or me. It was overwhelming. When she found out I planned to lose weight, she started bringing clothes which were too small! "Motivation," she called it.

On June 22, I started tackling it--and took these before pictures.



Last Wednesday, I felt ready to tackle my MM tasks. I took down the curtains, washed, dried, ironed and hung them back up--all on the same day. That was kind of amazing to me all by itself!

Then I washed the windows, the surfaces of the dressers, dusted the walls, pictures and bookshelves. I dry swiffered the floor. I vacuumed the window screen, the lampshades, the couch and the dust bunnies (more the size of small cats. Why do they call them dust bunnies, anyway.? As if they are cute and cuddly. They're not. They're nasty feeding grounds for vermin.) behind the couch, dresser and at the head of the bed. Wow, did that feel good! And the next morning, I took these. Just for you.


I'm getting antsy to finish the living room. I hadn't thought I'd be living with the dining/computer room looking like this:





It's been like this almost a week!

And wouldn't you know it-- on my MM list for today is:

dust dining/breakfast room(s). (Yesterday was "dust office!")

Quick Question about files

Specifically, Auto Insurance files.

As I was putting away our paperwork on the Jeep, it occured to me to throw out some of our past insurance documents, accident reports, etc.... But then I started to wonder--should I?

We no longer even have the vehicles, now. But I'm not sure if we'll need it all some day or not.

Damage Control

The living room continues. I was taping away and about to wash when it occurred to me that we probably wanted to fill the crack in the wall.



Oh and patch a few water damaged spots. (It's fixed. Water had been seeping through cracks in the Stucco outside. More importantly it has stayed fixed through the last two winters!)


And that it wouldn't make any sense to wash the walls today and then have to do it all over again in a few days, so it's Hubby's territory and domain now and things will progress, albeit slowly, as they ought. (That crack is very deep in spots, unfortunately and will take several applications of whatever to be filled in properly.)

In other news, the jeep left us today.

I took one last picture of the damage it took saving the lives of my son and husband. I cannot believe my son was sitting right there--right behind that dangling visor, right next to that caved in and bent windshield.



I will be forever grateful to this big hunk of metal. Thank you. So long.




(We're getting another, the 2009 model, thanks to our Insurance policy.)

A Little Snag

Well, actually, there are a lot of them when it comes to this particular piece of furniture.



I started cleaning it using the upholstery attachment on my Mom's rug cleaner last night. Mom had "Pet stain and odour" cleaner loaded up for me because she had been out of upholstery and carpet cleaning soap. So, after doing the arm and one cushion I judged I needed the proper stuff and went out and purchased it. (Man, is it expensive!).

But this morning, I couldn't get the upholstery attachment to work. And Mom couldn't get it to work when she came over this afternoon. So, she has taken it back home and tomorrow I will get on with the washing of the walls and taping of the wood-which-must-not-be-painted. Sigh.

I had really wanted to give you an "After."