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Kitchen cupboards and fridge need a good cleaning

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Sometime in the near future- probably this month, my kitchen is going to get a thorough cleaning out.

By this I mean, not only scrubbing the floors, the oven and counters, but I plan on emptying out the fridge and all of the cupboards.

Unless you have a bare fridge, I think most of us can say that we all have a jar or two or ten that has been sitting in the back of the fridge or in the fridge door for God only knows how long. Did you know that most items such as jams, mayonnaise and relishes are only good for three or four months once they’re opened? If you’re like us and you don’t us them up that fast they could be in the fridge a heck of a lot longer than that, right? Not good.

So between the fridge and all the stuff I find in the back of our cupboards I’m sure there will be a lot of stuff thrown out. I know there are things in my cupboards that I haven’t used in years. That includes foods like muffin mixes and small appliances.

Once I do get around to clearing out my cupboards I might take a serious look at my pots and pans. I have Lagostina pots and I love them, but they’re getting old or at least some of the ones that I use most often are getting a little worn out. Maybe I could add one or two new pieces of enamel cookware to my collection? I know I’ll have more room for them once the cupboards get cleared out.

Whens the last time you totally cleaned out your fridge and or cupboards? Big job, isn’t it?

Good Bye heat wave

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I’m so glad this heat wave that we’ve been going through all week finally seems to be coming to an end.

I can’t wait to give not only the air conditioning but maybe our new Hunter ceiling fans a bit of a break this weekend.

Oh and it will be nice to have the doors and windows open – get some fresh air inside the house.

I love air conditioning when it’s hot outside. It’s a necessary evil … but the longer it’s on and the doors are sealed shut the staler the air inside the house seems. It’s so nice once we can open the doors and windows and I can feel a breeze on my skin.

Don’t you love it when the weather is nice enough that you can let some fresh air into the house?

Time to put that stinky organic brew on my garden

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I’ll be spending some time in the garden this weekend. It’s time to put some alfalfa tea on the garden beds.

I have two big plastic garbage cans of alfalfa tea brewing in my driveway. Alfalfa apparently has some kind of organic growth hormone in it and it just gives plants a huge boost. It’s the only thing I use to fertilize my garden. Well .. other than some home made compost and sometimes manure. LOL

It’s easy to make too – just add about four cups of alfalfa pellets to a large garbage can, fill with water and stir daily for two to three weeks. I also add some molasses ( it helps combat some of the fermentation) and sometimes – usually in late spring, I add some Epsom salts to the mix.

the only problem with the alfalfa tea is the smell. If you don’t stir it and aerate it daily as it’s “brewing” it can really get stinky. Even well stirred brew smells. When I put it on the garden I have to put on protective clothing to guard against smell splashes, and I tend to apply it to my garden in the evening – usually after dinner time. Why? Well since it smells I’m trying to spare my neighbors some of the bad smell … if I put it on the garden after dinner most of my neighbors who would be affected by the smell are indoors watching tv.

So .. sometime this weekend I’ll be applying the smelly alfalfa tea that I’ve been brewing to my garden. I’ll give it a little water afterwords – as it seems to help ton down the smell. Then .. about four or five days after my application my garden will start to look great. I’ll see new growth on my roses and the leaves of all my plants will look nice and healthy.

Do you ever treat your garden to an organic fertilizer like alfalfa tea?

When will the new neighbors move in?

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I think our new neighbors might move in sometime soon. They’ve had possession of the house next door for about two weeks now and they’ve been coming by to clean and paint the house.

I’m not sure what they’re doing as far as renovating or repair the house goes. I’ve heard a lot of hammering and banging, but it doesn’t seem like they are doing a lot of new work. unlike us when we got our house – we were at our house every day for three weeks tearing down walls, refinishing floors, plastering and painting before we finally moved in … whereas our new neighbors have only visited their new home about four times since they got the key.

Anyway, since it doesn’t seem like they’re doing a lot of work to the house I expect that they must be almost done cleaning and painting so maybe they’ll move in this weekend. If not perhaps the following weekend. It can’t be much longer.

One thing that I liked about moving to our house when we got it was that it was a chance to get new furniture. LOL I loved preparing the rooms and then picking out new contemporary furniture that would look great in each room. As it turned out we didn’t have to buy a lot of new furniture as we had quite a bit in our apartment, but I did get to get all new master bedroom furniture and a year later we got new living room furniture.

We haven’t talked to the new neighbors very much, but they seem nice enough. That’s all I’m hoping for anyway … I mean, we have to share a tiny driveway and our houses are very close to each other so it’s important that we’re at least on friendly terms with our neighbors. Hey … they’ve got to be better than the awful renter neighbors that we’ve had to deal with for the last year.

I don’t think I could live through a huge home renovation

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I’m watching a show on TV about a contractors point of view on big home renovations. The show goes over a renovation from start to finish.


The episode I’m watching is about a couple that wants to add an addition to their house, expand the house out over their garage and put a pool in their backyard. Big job. Naturally they’re having problems with their neighbors over the trees of all things.

I think if I was going through a reno that big I’d be dipping my face in the best wrinkle cream I could find each night … so stressful! So expensive. Plus whatever estimate a contractor give you at the start of a job always goes up. I’ve heard you should plan for at least a 25% increase … so if you’re getting a renovation done and a contractor estimates that it will cost $100,000 to complete the job be prepared to end up paying out $125,000 or more.

I’m so glad we were able to do most of our own renovations ourselves. Of course when it comes to renovating our kitchen we might have a professional come in and do half the work. We’ll see.

Have you ever gone through a huge renovation .. like tearing half your house down and adding an addition? How long did it take? How much did you age as you worried over things?

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