Not-so-determined Blogger

Boy have I let this fall through the cracks. In my efforts at domesticity, I have been unable to be a successful blogger.

My downfall started with the tailgating season. We stay so busy going to all the Clemson home games and preparing food for large groups of people, I can barely keep the house in order. In fact if you were to ask my husband, he might say that I did not in fact keep the house in order. So, just don't ask him, okay?

Then, immediately following football seasons, the holidays started creeping up on me. Actually, football and the holidays did a little overlap and effectively kicked my butt.

However, one of the main (and saddest) reasons I have not been blogging lately is that I've been too tired and lacked the self control to plate and take a pictures of everything I cook before the hubs and I scarf it down. A post without a picture just isn't the same, and the fat girl part of me is more powerful than the blogger part. Sigh...

I will try harder folks. Not because I think you care (I do not have the audacity for such bold assumptions), but because I made a HUGE deal about starting a blog only to let it die off after only a handful of posts and now I am embarrassed. I hope to get a few more posts up in the next few days. I will do it for the people and for pride! Haha.

Humbly,
The Determined Domestic/Blogger

Weekly Meal Plan

Holy cow have I been busy! I have so many new cooking adventures to blog about but have not had any time to sit down to do it. I am currently blogging in my car (it is parked) on my iPhone during my lunch hour.

One of my best tools for staying organized and saving time is planning my meals for the week. This keeps us from eating out, eating frozen food, and me from having to make multiple trips to the grocery store for one missing ingredient. Here's this weeks meal plan:

Monday: Sweet apple chicken sausage sautéed with onion and granny smith apples in a maple reduction served with mashed new potatoes and roasted asparagus

Tuesday and Wednesday me and my husband have our respective bible study groups and will be left to fend for ourselves.

Thursday: Chicken Pot Pie and a side salad (gotta get those veggies people)

Friday: Venison Chili and size salad.

Saturday: Probably just candy since it's Halloween Party Night. Just kidding! We are still working out plans, but we probably won't be at home

Sunday: Leftovers Schmorgesborg. Waste not want not folks.

That's my week! Please forgive any typos. Its hard to blog on a teeny, tiny keyboard.

Oatmeal Nutella Whoopie Pies

Did I spell whoopie right? Whoopie pies were this years cupcake. It was the trendy thing to try to get creative with. So, when I saw this recipe on a blog I follow, Fat Girl Trapped In a Skinny Body, I had to give them a try. She is genius! These cookies are inspired! They are like homemade Oatmeal Cream Pies, but with Nutella instead of cream. They were soooooo good.

Oatmeal Nutella Whoopie Pies
from

Fat Girl Trapped In a Skinny Body

Ingredients:

• 1 stick butter, room temp


• 1/2 cup brown sugar


• 1/4 cup Evaporated Cane Juice (or regular sugar)


• 1 egg


• 1 tsp vanilla extract


• 1 1/4 cup quick cooking oats


• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour


• 1 tsp baking soda


• 1/2 tsp salt


• 1/8 tsp cinnamon


• Nutella (about 1 tbsp per sandwich or more to taste)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugars. Beat them for about a minute, then add the egg and vanilla.
   Measure out the oats in a separate bowl, then sift in the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Slowly add the dry mix to the wet mix as you are mixing it until blended.


2. Scoop about 1-1.5 tbsp onto a lined baking sheet.


3. Bake for 9-13 minutes depending on oven. The original recipe calle dor 11-13 minutes, but mine were fully done at 9.


4. Cool on the pan for about 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling. Cool the cookies completely before spread with Nutella and making the "pies".

Strawberry Freezer Jam

I have never had the desire to make my own jam or jelly or can or preserve anything. Well, maybe I've thought about it, but knowing my lack of patience, I have always known I would never make it through the whole process without ripping my hair out. I have had freezer jam in the past, but never realized it could be made so easily. The fact is that I like freezer jam better than regular jam, and had I realized it was so easy to make I would have been making it all the time. I think it tastes so much fresher and true to the flavor of the fruit you use than cooked jam. This was my first attempt at freezer jam and it went off without a hitch. I will definitely be making this again. I can't wait to try other fruits too!

Strawberry Freezer Jam - adapted from Sure-Jell recipe

Ingredients

• 2 cups crushed strawberries (about 2 pints)
• 3 ½ cups sugar
• ¾ cup water
• 1 box of Sure-jell fruit pectin

Directions

1. Wash and rinse 1-2 cup sized plastic containers with tight fitting lids.
2. Crush the strawberries 1 cup at a time using a potato masher. Measure exactly 2 cups of crushed strawberries into a large bowl.
3. Measure sugar and mix into fruit. The Sure-jell box suggests that using less than 4 cups of sugar will result in the jam not setting, but I decided to reduce the recipe to 3 ½ cups of sugar and it set just fine. Let sugar and fruit mixture sit for about 10 minutes stirring occasionally so that sugar dissolves.
4. Stir box of pectin into ¾ cup water in a small saucepan. Bring to boil stirring constantly. Boil 1 minute while continuing to stir. Then remove from heat.
5. Stir pectin mixture into fruit. Stir for about 3 minutes until all sugar is dissolved.
6. Pour into prepared containers leaving ½ inch of space at the top for expansion in the freezer. Put lids on and let the jam stand at room temperature for 24 hours.
7. Put the jam in the refrigerator or freezer. Jam will last in refrigerator for up to 3 weeks and in the freezer for up to one year.

College Football Kickoff Sugar Cookies

Football season is upon us. Yippee! For me and my husband that means providing tailgate food for about 6-10 people every weekend there is a home game for the Clemson Tigers! With my new mission to expand my cooking horizons in full force, I have decided to use my fellow tailgaters as guinea pigs...er...um…I mean a taste testers for my some of my first attempt recipes. Muahahaha! This past weekend I made rolled sugar cookies for the first time (royal icing and all). What a pain in the tushy! It was way too time consuming of a task for my schedule last week and before it was over…wait…what am I talking about!? It’s not over! I still have 2 dozen un-iced football shaped sugar cookies in Tupperware on my counter Beware, this recipe makes a lot of cookies folks! (About 3-5 dozen depending on the size of your cookie cutter). I am not sure what to do with them. I’ll probably procrastinate doing anything with them until they’re stale and have to be thrown away. Anyway, I ended up taking a few short cuts with the icing on the 20 or so that I did ice that made the cookies look less than perfect, but I do think they tasted pretty good. So with out further ado, here is the recipe:

Rolled Sugar Cookies
From Jill Saunders

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups butter, softened
• 2 cups white sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 5 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).

2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on un-greased cookie sheets.
Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.

Royal Icing
From: Martha Stewart Living 2006

Ingredients:

• 1 lb box of confectioners sugar
• 5tbsp meringue powder or 2 pasteurized egg whites (I used meringue powder because we had a pregnant lady attending the tailgate)

Directions:

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine sugar and meringue powder. Mixing on low speed, add a scant 1/2 cup water. For a thinner consistency, usually used for flooding, add more water. A thicker consistency is generally used for outlining and adding details. Mix until icing holds a ribbonlike trail on the surface of the mixture for 5 seconds when you raise the paddle. Use gel food colors to create the desired color for your icing

I was quite surprised at how hard it was to get the cut cookie from the counter to the pan. As you can see these cookies did not all turn out the same size. I was thinking next time I might will try to roll the dough out on parchment paper and remove the excess dough from around the shapes so they don’t have to be picked up and moved. The whole parchment paper could just be moved to the pan. I am not sure how it would effect the baking of the cookies though. We’ll try one day!

So after these cookies are completely cool you must ice them. The cookies themselves are not very sweet and the icing really makes the cookie. You are supposed to use a piping bag to pipe around the out line of your shape and then when the out line dries you are supposed to then thin your icing and fill the middle. This is where I started to cheat. It was about 11:00pm at night when I started this process (like I said busy week) and I do not have a steady hand. So not wanting to completely destroy the cookies beyond recognition by attempting fine decorating techniques I’ve never tried in the last hour of the day, I used a short cut suggested to me by my mother-in-law (Thanks Colleen!). I made my icing according the recipe above, colored it to as close to football brown as I could get them and then dipped the cookies top side down straight in the bowl of icing to coat them. The icing really smoothes itself out evenly over the cookie on its own while it dries. I let them dry on sheets of wax paper overnight and then woke up at 4:00 am to finish them the day of the game (I told you I was cramming this project in to my already busy week). First I had to take a paring knife to cut the cookies loose from the wax paper. Due the unorthodox way I iced these cookies, there was a lot of excess icing dripping over the edges. However once cut free, most of the cookies looked pretty good. Then I had to make another batch of the icing with no color in it for the laces. It was at this time that I discovered I did not have enough powdered sugar to make even half a batch of the icing. Luckily it was 4:00 am so I didn’t care anymore. I made what I icing I could (which turned out to me too thin) and gave laces to as many football cookies as the small batch would allow. The icing came out too thin and the laces did not hold their shape at all. The laces looked more like amoebas. Oh well. I served them at a football game so I figured if people didn’t know what I intended them to be it wasn’t me who would be the dummy. I will try these again, but I’m going to take a break for a while. These are a lot of work and not a good idea to make when you’re in a rush.

Everything Salmon Burgers

My husband and I love everything bagels and when I saw this Recipe I knew I had to make it! It fit perfectly with my efforts to incorporate more fish in to our diets too!

Everything Salmon Burgers with Scallion Cream Cheese Sauce

Ingredients:

• 4 (6-ounce) skinless salmon fillets, cut into large chunks
• 1 tablespoon grill seasoning, (recommended: Montreal Seasoning by McCormick)
• 1 tablespoon poppy seeds
• 1 tablespoon sesame seeds
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
• Extra-virgin olive oil for drizzling
• 1/2 cup softened Neufchatel cream cheese
• 3 scallions, whites and greens, chopped
• 1/2 cup light sour cream
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• Green leaf lettuce, for topping
• Sliced beefsteak or vine ripe tomato, for topping
• Sliced red onion, for topping
• Crusty kaiser rolls, split and toasted

Directions:

Preheat outdoor grill if using to medium high. Prepare hot grill with cooking spray. Indoors, use a large skillet rather than a grill pan and preheat with a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil to medium-high heat.

Place salmon in food processor and pulse to coarse grind meat to form burgers. Transfer fish to a mixing bowl and season with grill seasoning, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, and dill. Mix and form 4 patties. Drizzle the burgers with extra-virgin olive oil.

Cook burgers 3 minutes on each side for a pink center, 4 to 5 minutes on each side for fully cooked fish.

While burgers cook, combine in a bowl the cream cheese and the scallions and fold in sour cream and lemon juice.

Top the burgers with lettuce, tomato, onion and sauce on crusty, toasted buns.

Back On The Housekeeping Horse

No, I don't have a horse that I ride around my house when I clean. Come on people!

I have been a slack on my commitment to learn a new routine to make cleaning part of my everyday. This is a brief statement of intent to declare I am re-committing myself to the process. It's hard to get up so early and be immediately productive, but I really do feel it is important.

I will report back with any new and interesting discoveries I encounter along the way.

Now if I can just get my husband to help...hmmmm.

Stinky Trash Can No More!!

I have struggled with my trash can stinking for so long. The odor had basically absorbed into the plastic and would NOT go away. I had tried EVERYTHING. Bleach, Lysol products, air fresheners, etc. None of this worked.

This weekend, as a last stitch effort, I gave a "green" cleaner a try. I have had very little faith in green cleaning methods (for no good reason) until now. I mixed baking soda and white distilled vinegar in that stinky old trash can, gave it a scrub, then let it soak for a bit. Voila! My trash can smells like plastic. Not stinky garbage, not vinegar (which I was concerned about)...clean plastic!

I was blown away. Maybe there is something to these homemade cleaning products. It has seriously peaked my interest and I may be looking further into this whole green cleaning thing very soon.

Grilled Eggplant Parmesan

I saw this made on the TV show "Just Cook This with Sam the Cooking Guy" on Fit TV. It looked so delicious I HAD to try it. I had one small hiccup though. I had never eaten eggeplant (I know, I know...what planet do I live on right?). Come to find out I may not be the biggest fan of this vegetable, however...I think eggplant lovers would love this, so I am sharing. Let me know! The picture was taken with my phone, so I apologize if it's fuzzy.

Grilled Eggplant Parmesan
adapted from Sam the Cooking Guy

• 1 large globe eggplant - or 2 smaller ones
• 3 large tomatoes
• 4 slices mozzarella cheese
• 4 crusty Italian type rolls, split in half
• 1/3 cup shredded parmesan cheese
• 1 bunch fresh basil
• Olive oil
• Kosher salt
• Fresh Ground Pepper
• Garlic powder
• Italian seasonings

Directions:

Cut eggplant & tomatoes to get eight 1/4 inch slices of each. Brush eggplant and bread with olive oil. Season eggplant and tomatoes with salt and pepper. Sprinkle some garlic powder and Italian seasoning on inside of bread.

Grill eggplant on both sides until soft and marked with grill lines. Do the same with tomatoes, but for about half the eggplant time. Toast the bread on the grill as well.

Heat broiler. Assemble sandwiches in this order...
2 slices of eggplant, 2 slices of tomato, 3 large basil leaves, mozzarella cheese and finally about 2 tablespoons of parmesan.

Place open-face under broiler to melt cheese and brown the top - but don't go far you don't want them to burn. Place tops on and slice in half.

La Bete Noir - Flourless Chocolate cake

La Bete Noir means "the dark (or night) beast". This flourless chocolate cake is so rich and delicious, one slice should do you in. My husband has requested this cake for his birthday dinner this weekend. I made it last night and it turned out the best it ever has for me. Enjoy!

Ingredients

Cake

• 1 cup water
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 9 tablespoons (1 stick plus 1 tablespoon) unsalted butter, diced
• 18 ounces bittersweet (not unsweetened) or semisweet chocolate, chopped
• 6 large eggs

Ganache

• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 8 ounces bittersweet (not unsweetened) or semisweet chocolate, chopped

Lightly sweetened whipped cream for topping

Preparation

For cake:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter 10-inch-diameter springform pan. Line bottom of pan with parchment round; butter parchment. Wrap 3 layers of heavy-duty foil around outside of pan, bringing foil to top of rim. Combine 1 cup water and sugar in small saucepan. Bring to boil over medium heat, stirring until sugar dissolves. Simmer 5 minutes. Remove from heat.
Melt butter in large saucepan over low heat. Add chocolate and whisk until smooth. Whisk sugar syrup into chocolate; cool slightly. Add eggs to chocolate mixture and whisk until well blended. Pour batter into prepared pan. Place cake pan in large roasting pan. Add enough hot water to roasting pan to come halfway up sides of cake pan.
Bake cake until center no longer moves when pan is gently shaken, about 50 minutes. Remove from water bath; transfer to rack. Cool completely in pan.

For ganache:
Bring whipping cream to simmer in small saucepan over medium heat. Remove from heat. Add chocolate and whisk until smooth. Pour over top of cake still in pan. Gently shake pan to distribute ganache evenly over top of cake. Refrigerate cake in pan until ganache is set, about 2 hours.

DO AHEAD: Can be made 2 days ahead. Cover and keep refrigerated.
Run knife around pan sides to loosen cake; release sides. Cut cake into wedges and serve with whipped cream.

Creamy Ham Casserole

I am always interested in a good freezable meal. This casserole is not only yummy, but it is lower in fat than your typical casserole. My friend Erika made it for our bible study the other night and no one could believe it was reduced fat. I just had to share!

Creamy Ham Casserole

from Cooking Light magazine

Ingredients:

• 4 ½ cups uncooked medium egg noodles (I use no-yolks)
• 2 quarts boiling water
• 2 cups broccoli florets
• 1 cup skim milk
• 1 (10 ¾ ounce) can condensed, reduced fat, reduced sodium cream of mushroom soup, undiluted
• 2 cups (8 oz.) reduced fat shredded Cheddar cheese, divided
• 1 (6 oz.) tub light cream cheese with chives and onion, softened
• 2 cups chopped lean ham
• 1 cup chopped carrot
• cooking spray
• 1 cup fat free herb flavored croutons, crushed

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Cook noodles in 2 quarts boiling water for 2 minutes.
3. Add broccoli and cook 3 minutes. Drain
4. Combine milk, soup, 1 cup Cheddar cheese, and cream cheese in a large bowl and stir well with a whisk.
5. Add noodles mixture, ham, and carrot and stir well.
6. Divide noodle mixture evenly between 2, 8 inch, square baking dishes coated with cooking spray.
7. Combine remaining 1 cup Cheddar cheese and crouton crumbs; toss well.
8. Sprinkle crumb mixture evenly over casseroles.
9. Wrap unbaked casseroles with heavy- duty foil.
10. Place frozen casseroles on a baking sheet.
11. Bake, covered at 350 for 1 hour.
12. Uncover and bake an additional 15 minutes.

*You can freeze up to 3 months!

Dr. Pepper Ribs

We made these ribs for Father's Day for my Dad who is an excellent grill master himself. I was a little nervous to be honest. The recipe was passed along to us by our friend Kenny (thanks buddy!). We were so impressed with ourselves (and so was my Dad!), that I just had to share! We will definitely make again!

What You'll Need:

• Ribs
• 2 liter Dr. Pepper
• 1/4 cup of salt
• Chili powder
• 1/2 Tbsp canola or vegetable oil
• 1/2 onion, minced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 2 Tbsp cider vinegar
• 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

How to Make It:

1. Place the ribs in a large baking dish. Pour in Dr. Pepper to cover them, reserving at least 1/2 cup for the sauce. Add the salt and soak the ribs in the fridge overnight.
2. Heat the oven to 350. Remove the ribs from the liquid, dry them, and rub with the chili powder. Place them on a baking dish, add 1 cup of water, and cover tightly with foil. Cook for 2 hours, until the meat nearly falls off the bone.
3. For the barbeque sauce, heat the oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Saute the onion and garlic until they're soft and fragrant, and add the ketchup, Worcestershire, vinegar, cayenne, and 1/2 cup of Dr. Pepper. Simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the sauce thickens.
4. Fire up the grill, and brush the ribs with the sauce. When the grill is hot, cook them bone side down on a cooler part for 10 to 15 minutes. Flip them and cook until lightly charred and smoky. Remove, and brush on more sauce.

Progress Report – Routines

I have been practicing my routines for a week now and I have noticed that my house is staying more orderly. There are some things that I have been doing religiously with very little effort. There are other things that I have been skipping. Some because they do not need to be done and some because I just can’t bring myself to do them. Here’s a rundown of what’s working very well and what still needs tweaking:

Already a habit

Morning: Make coffee (didn’t have to twist my arm too hard), empty dishwasher/put away dishes, Eat breakfast, and the getting ready stuff.

Evening: Clean out car (one day I forgot an empty Diet Pepsi can), sort car stuff, Make dinner, Open mail, and pack gym bag

Have done, but have also skipped

Morning: Vitamin (I only remembered it once), Quiet time and prayer, and Weekday chores

Evening: Doing dishes, scrubbing sink (I couldn’t scrub the sink on the days I didn’t do the dishes since it was full), Wipe stove and counters, weekday chore, checking on my to do lists

Skipped but it didn’t need to be done

Morning: Laundry (Some mornings there was not enough to start a load) and Water plants (it rained all week last week and I only have outdoor plants)

Evening: Changing Laundry loads, Run dishwasher, and Setting out tomorrows dinner (we ate some leftovers)

Just plain didn’t do it!

Morning: Making to do lists (I keep waiting to do this at work. Shame, shame) and abs workout (anyone surprised? Ha!).

Evening: Pack lunches (I kept leaving it until the morning), Fold laundry (I didn’t do this even once. Laundry is my arch nemesis), and layout clothes for next day (I couldn’t bring myself to do it – I didn’t care yet)

So, you can see this is a work in progress. There are some things I just need to buckle down and do and some things I may adjust. For instance, I was thinking of maybe getting showered and dressed sooner in my morning routine so I feel more awake. We’ll see. I am going to work on it this week. I already half failed this morning. I did not put away the dry dishes, have my quiet time, do abs, water plants, or make to do lists. Tomorrow morning I am going to try an adjusted schedule and see if it gets me going better!

The Morning Routine

Now for the dreaded morning routine…It’s really not that bad, but I am not a morning person AT ALL! I used to wake up in exactly enough time to brush teeth, shower, dry hair (very minimal styling), dress, put on makeup, grab something to eat while running out of the house, and make it to the office 5 minutes late. I then digressed to even skipping the makeup (sorry co-workers) for a time. All in all I only needed 20-30 minutes to get out the door. That kind of rushing around gets kind of old though. Plus with my new undertaking of becoming a housekeeping rock star, I have found that the mornings are also a good time to be a little productive. So, without further ado, the morning routine:

• Start/switch laundry loads – on your way downstairs or to the kitchen switch the laundry loads you started last night
• Make coffee
• Empty dishwasher / put away dry dishes – if you put these dishes away now your dishwasher sink will be ready this evening for more dirty dishes
• Eat breakfast – it’s the most important meal of the day
• Vitamins – taking my vitamin regularly is also an area where I have failed. I put them by my coffee pot to try and remember to suck one down when I have a drink in my hand
• Quiet time / bible study – My pastor always says to give God the first part of your day! OK! So I gave some time to chores and coffee first, but this is the first thing I really turn my brain on for.
• Make / review to-do lists for the day
• Abs workout – this will probably get skipped some mornings, but we’re dreaming big here people!
• Water plants
• Weekday chore –sometimes you will not have a chore in the morning and the evening
• Clean breakfast dishes
• Shower
• Get dressedHair / makeup
• Tidy bathroom
• Change laundry loads – keep that laundry moving!
• Grab gym bag
• Grab packed lunch and head to work!
  

That’s it! I have to get up an hour and a half earlier, but it feels good to start your day being productive (once you get used to less sleep that is).

The Evening Routine

I will start with explaining my evening routine. The routines are designed to become habit and include your daily chores. I am starting with the evening because it sort of sets you up for the next day and your morning routine.

• Bring in everything from car – I tend to leave fast food trash, coffee cup, etc in my car for weeks if I don’t make a point to get it out!
  
• Sort car junk – dirty dishes to the dishwasher, trash to the can, drugstore purchases to the stairs to be brought up with you…stuff like that.
  
• Go upstairs (I know we don’t all have stairs) to put gym bag, purse, etc in their places.
  
• Change/start laundry loads
  
• Make dinner
  
• Open/sort mail – file papers
  
• Pack lunches for next day
  
• Eat dinner! YUM!
  
• Do dishes / run dishwasher
  
• Wipe stove & counters
  
• Scrub and polish sink – this is a tip from the FlyLady. She says her shiny sink every morning makes her happy. I say scrubbing all remnants of food bits out of it keeps it from stinking!
  
• Tidy kitchen & living room areas (or hot spots – where ever you and your family spend the most time and therefore making messy)
  
• Weekday chore – I will do the chore assigned to me on my calendar for this day.
  
• Fold laundry – I have decided to try and do some laundry every day. It is so much easier to put away 1 load of laundry then 5. When it gets that big it looks daunting and I keep putting it off.
  
• Pack gym bag for next day
  
• Lay out clothes for next day. – seems silly but you won’t be pondering your closet in the morning when you’re trying to get out the door or pick something out just to find it needs ironing.
  
• Get ready for bed (whatever you do)
  
• Change laundry loads again – I aim to keep laundry going constantly!
  
• Check to-do lists – see what you accomplished, see what you missed
  
• Relax – read a book; watch T.V. or just crash and go to sleep (my personal favorite)
  

This might seem painfully explicit, but I am looking for little victories here too. Yay! I opened the mail!! Check! Yay! I ate dinner (like I was going to forget). CHECK! In addition to the feeling of accomplishment you get from crossing something off your list, spelling it out like this shows me when the things that I have to do (eat) will fit in with all this new productivity. For instance I specifically chose to put opening the mail after making dinner because there is a lull in time while dinner is cooking (unless you brought home pizza). I also realize some days these things can’t happen in this exact order, but doing it in the same order every day helps create habit (I hope). I am also leaving this plan up for revision. I may find serious flaws in my planning or that I forgot to include an important chore. I have this checklist in my iPhone for quick reference. You can’t just make the list you have to refer back to it often.

The Path To Domestic Excellence

When it comes to domestic skills I am pretty low on the totem pole. I am a pretty good cook, I can be pretty crafty (DIY's, small sewing projects etc), and my handyman skills are quite extensive. Basically I am good at everything that creates a mess. I am however, due to my innate procrastination and general disdain for physical labor, horrible at keeping the house clean. I could go so far as to blame this on my mother (I hope she never reads this!). Since she was such a meticulous housekeeper I barely had to lift a finger growing up. Oh we had chores, but we fought her tooth and nail every time we had to do them. Poor Mamma! So, after putting them off for so long or only doing 1 or 2 of my assigned chores, my mother’s OCD would kick in and she would do them herself. I was not a manipulative child by any means. Just lazy. So, my mother (and father btw) is a neat freak and therefore I am not. Interestingly enough, my mother’s mother (Good ole Grandma) is also a little messy and an incessant pack rat. Do you think it goes back and forth between generations? Just a little theory of mine.

Anyway…back to me sucking at life. I can not get it in my routine to do the dishes every day, put away the laundry after it’s washed, or keep up with basic household cleaning. It is just not part of my life. I am a married woman now and for the first time in my life a homeowner. This house is my responsibility. For years my now husband has had someone come and clean his house every two weeks. She is a wonderful lady and excellent cleaner. However, her brain does not work like mine at all and after she comes there are always a handful of things that I can not find. She puts stuff in places that to me make no sense. I have better luck finding things if I look in the last place I think it should go. It is frustrating and expensive! It has to stop. So, now at the age of 25, I am ready to claim my household for my own! I will teach myself how to be a domestic goddess!

I have researched the internet for books on housekeeping, methods, schedules, etc. One of the most helpful sites I found was called FlyLady. I really like the way this lady thinks. I’ve mostly taken her method and modified it for my house. She suggests making “routines”. I have created morning and evening routines that include the daily chores and will hopefully train me to do these things by habit. I have also made a calendar for the month listing the weekly, monthly and seasonal chores I plan to tackle each month. It spaces it out and rotates chores so that it does not feel so overwhelming. After many attempt I have found out that you can not clean you entire house from top to bottom in one day (OK maybe some people can but not me). You can not let it build up, it has to be managed daily.

I know I am not alone in this struggle and do not mind sharing with others if it helps them grow too. I am praying for the spirit to keep this up. My lazy side is going to going to have to be dragged kicking and screaming through this every day, but it can (and will be done). I will let you know how it goes!