Category Archives: housework

daily Fallon #10

Posted on by

I know I sometimes write about the laundry here under the Big Top. Trust me, there is ALWAYS laundry that needs to be done here under the Big Top. There is always a random laundry basket full of clean clothes that just BEGS to be sorted, folded and put away. Of course this is why my clowns believe that I live for laundry…every day. Well if I find a treasure like this in my laundry basket every day then yes, I definitely would live for laundry! Of course not much laundry would be done then because I would have to cuddle and love on this sweet baby girl.

In other news Fallon is two weeks old…today!

thankful day 4

Posted on by

Just in time for our Thanksgiving holiday, Fallon has arrived. She arrived just in time for me to rush out to Safeway late last night to finish shopping for all the feasting fixings required for a Big Top Thanksgiving feast. Holiday food shopping in a crowded supermarket after 10 o’clock at night when you have been on your feet for the last twelve hours supporting a laboring woman is…

So.

Much.

Fun.

Making a batch of The Pioneer Woman’s Favorite Turkey Brine after 11 o’clock at night and waiting for it to cool to put in the fridge when all you want to do is crawl into bed is almost as much fun.

Finally after editing and uploading all the pictures I took of Fallon’s arrival…because I had to get that done…because I know y’all wanted to see how gorgeous she is…I crawled into bed at 2 A.M. just dreading the reality that my alarm would go off in just four hours because, dang it, the kids had to go to school…the day after their sister had her baby…the day before Thanksgiving. And damn it all, that alarm did go off at 6 not caring at all how exhausted and sore I was.

There just wasn’t enough coffee to help me get the kids off to school and Jagger the turkey rinsed and safely nested in his 24 brine soak but I somehow got it done. I got it done just in time to go pick up Jodie to take her to the DMV to take her Learner’s Permit test.

I know. That means there will be yet another teen driver here under the Big Top.

Yee!

Yes, she passed.

Yee!

Another trip to the grocery store because, of course I forgot some things the night before. After that trip I resolved that I wasn’t setting foot in a store again until Saturday…maybe Sunday. Yes, that means I had to go back out to the store two more times. But soon enough, after a visit to the hospital to get me some Fallon-love, I was back home in time for kids to come home from school and to begin prepping food for tomorrow’s feasting.

By dinner time there were two fairly epic holiday meltdowns. Yes, my meltdowns. It was then that my darling husband stepped in and tells me I need to take a break…now!

Awww!

Actually he was doing it more for the sake of my circus than for me. Nevertheless I took the break and I gave thanks.

Seriously, I have a pretty sexy, fine dishwasher. He even makes last minute runs to the grocery store because, yes, I still was missing a couple key items.

So thankful for him!

wiping away ten years

Posted on by

It is amazing what one can find on Pinterest. It is even more amazing when one actually does/make/create/perform what they find on Pinterest. My latest find might suggest that I have too much time on my hands…okay, here’s where I confess that perhaps it is true that I have too much time on my hands. I mean having only worked, what three shifts since August only to be cut or put on call all the rest, it just might be true.

It sucks you know when you try to pay the bills but my house has never been cleaner. That could be a good thing.

I also have time to hang out on Pinterest where I am discovering all kinds of crazy things including the magic of ammonia. I make no secret that although I am liking the new Big Top, it needs work. It needs lots of work. I hate the lame-assed paint job on the staircase. Yes, I’m still procrastinating working on that project. It will be done soon. I hate how the baseboards, doors and trims are painted different shades of white. I hate the blinding white walls in a home that has an east-west orientation. I really don’t like my kitchen stove and oven. But, be it ever so humble…and blindingly white…it is the Big Top. I just have a lot of work to do on it…and time on my hands. Which brings me to my latest Pinterest discovery: Cleaning with Ammonia.

Our kitchen stove and oven is most likely the original model in this ten-year old home. It works just fine so the landlord is fine with it. The stovetop might be ugly and gross with years and years of cooked on grease, but it cooks up dinner just fine. Still it is gross and even when I clean it, it still looks nasty.

I know. This is rather small compared to world problems. But in my world this is a big problem.

Ammonia to the rescue! You take the stovetop burners and place them in large ziplock bags. To the bags add about ¼ cup of ammonia and seal the bags up. Leave outside on a cookie sheet overnight for 10-12 hours. The ammonia fumes will work their magic inside those plastic bags and loosen, melt and dissovle all that hardened grease and oil.

No kidding!

In the morning remove the burners from the bags and rinse thoroughly in warm, sudsy water wiping off the remaining yuck with a sponge.

The same burner, no kidding!

How easy was that? So easy. Although I think I am going to have to do again perhaps in a couple of weeks. We are talking about ten years of hardened, cooked-on grease and given the empty lard tubs the former tenants left behind, that is a whole lot of cooked-on grease. Still, isn’t this so much better?

It is.

Just a reminder: do not mix ammonia  with ANY other cleaning product please. I don’t want to responsible for any deadly, toxic clouds y’all might create trying this nifty trick out.

Perhaps I might have inhaled a little bit too much ammonia but you can’t believe how happy this makes me. In the words of Kim of Emergiblog, it is like I invented Penicillin or something awesome like that. It is…just like that!

Yeah, I think I need to work…in the NICU…soon!

the laundry gods’ punishment

Posted on by

You know how somewhere between the washing machine and the dryer a single sock or two or three or more becomes lost…lost forever? Sure you do! If you do laundry with any regularity you know of this phenomenon very well.

This is why people have a basket full of single socks in the hopes that someday, some how, some way, the lost socks shall be found and paired up once again with their mate…together at last!

But the reality is that the single lost socks are sacrificed to the angry laundry gods kind of like a sacrificial virgin is offered to the angry volcano. Sure we can cleverly clip socks to their mates or toss them all into zippered laundry bags in an effort to prevent the loss of a single sock but that only means that there must be another sacrifice. It could be a rogue red t-shirt ending up in a load of white clothes or it could be something worse…the laundry gods demand it.

Don’t believe me?

I ask you, who loses a pair of Misses size 12 skinny white jeans in the wash?

I do!

It sucks. It really does. I have only worn these twice…and they looked a-ma-zing the two times that I have worn them. But somewhere along the way they have been lost somewhere between the washer and the dryer.

What the WTF?!

Yes, I have considered the possibilities like perhaps somehow my big-assed skinny jeans ended up in my little Juniors size 3 daughters’ laundry and they haven’t noticed. I have even gone through Daniel’s and Bill’s closets and drawers and the linen closet.

But no.

My skinny white jeans are gone.

Apparently I haven’t sacrificed enough single socks lately and thus the laundry gods have exacted their punishments upon me. It couldn’t be a pair of my daughter’s rattiest sweats or perhaps my husband’s nastiest, worn-out Harley Davidson t-shirt?

No, it could not.

Tonight I am leaving a pile of random socks on top pf the washing machine. Perhaps the laundry gods will accept my humble offering.

Yeah, I’m desperate.

because Tuesday is ironing day

Posted on by

That hysterical laughing that you hear as you read the title of this post? That’s me. That’s me and my family…and my friends who know me best.

Back in the day when Holly was my only child, I found myself at the home of a dear friend…a dear friend who just so happened to be, in my eyes and the eyes of so many others, the most perfect woman, wife and mother ever. One might imagine that it would be easy to hate her in her perceived perfection but she was such an all-around nice person it was impossible. Anyway, I was in her home picking up a bag of neatly pressed and folded stylish maternity clothes because she wanted to share with me…and I imagine get me out of the surgical scrubs with the drawstring waist that I was wearing pretty much all the time.

Don’t judge. Those scrubs were comfortable and very forgiving with my growing pregnant belly and backside back in the day. They still are..no I am not pregnant!

But my friend cared and because she cared, she shared. I’m glad that she did because as comfy as those scrubs were they sure weren’t cute and stylish. Not at all. My friend’s bag of maternity clothes though were cute…very cute…very stylish…for the early 90′s. I was beyond grateful.

While picking up the bag of clothes and visiting I noticed that her family room was set up like a mini-dry cleaners/laundromat. Clothes were perfectly, freshly pressed and hanging everywhere and in the middle of the room was an ironing board and iron set up with a basket of freshly laundered clothes nearby just waiting to be pressed and hung up.

“Wow! That’s a lot of ironing.“, I quip.

“Well Tuesday is ironing day here.“, she cheerfully answered back. “What day is your ironing day, Laura?“

Ironing day?! What in the heck is that?

I mumble something about there not being an ironing day in my house but instead everyday is toss-whatever-needs-to-be-pressed-into-the-dryer-for-a-few-minutes-to-get-the-wrinkles-out. She smiles at me and laughs a little. I’m still pretty sure nearly two decades later that she thought I was joking.

I wasn’t.

As a rule, I don’t iron.

I don’t.

I am the proud owner of a great iron and an ironing board but they usually remain hanging on a hook in the laundry room because I am also the proud owner of a great dryer so why not use the toss-whatever-needs-to-be-pressed-into-the-dryer-for-a-few-minutes-to-get-the-wrinkles-out method almost all the time because it works…pretty much all the time? Except for the occasional blouse or slacks or dress shirt that stubbornly begs to be pressed.

Damn those clothes!

Today I pull out of the dryer my son’s laundry full of his favorite tees, polos and shorts. The kid LIVES in this stuff! I’m folding them up to put away…perhaps I am humming a happy, doing-the-laundry kind of tune…It might have been Florence and the Machine’s The Dog Days Are Over because that is a perfect doing-the-laundry kind of tune don’t you think? As I’m folding them I come across the rogue pair of shorts that are hopelessly wrinkled…wrinkled beyond belief. I spritz them a little with water and toss them back into the dryer…to iron out the wrinkles, of course.

Damn dryer!

The shorts are still wrinkled…very wrinkled. Of course these are the shorts that the boy wants to wear to school today. Of course they are!

So, reluctantly, and maybe bitching a little along the way, I break out the ironing board and the iron and I iron them.

Yes, I do know how to iron. No, I don’t like to iron.

Soon enough, Daniel’s shorts are freshly pressed. Hurray for me! Then I look over at the basket of my freshly laundered, air dried clothes…mostly the pretty, fashionable clothes I wore to BlogHer…definitely not my scrubs. These dresses, blouses, scarves and skirts are all wrinkled but nothing a quick run in the dryer couldn’t handle…still the ironing board is set up…the iron is hot…and it is Tuesday…and Tuesday is ironing day.

Nobody tell my friend that it was actually FUN ironing that basket full of clothes. yes, I was singing The Dog Days Are Over at the top of my lungs because it is the perfect song to sing while one is ironing.

This is kind of fun! Who knew?!