Don't Faint When You See This Hoarders Craft Room!

Well, the Great Clean-Up continues. Here are some pics of the work in progress in the craft room. All the bins on the floor are now in the other bedroom. Trying to cajole Hubby into looking at my Pinterest board 'craft rooms' and to get him downstairs to look at the room for built-in options and various cupboards and shelves I have around here. This was formerly my sons room and as you can see some of his posters are still on the ceiling. They are also on the wall behind the shelves. Just in case he ever wanted to move back home? And those ugly popcorn ceilings! Whose idea was that to invent those? I've scraped the ones upstairs and it is sooo much nicer! Really easy to do. I mist a small area with water from a squirt bottle, Take a wide taping knife or putty knife and hold a waste basket underneath you attack! Comes right off! Why did I wait so long to do this? I thought it would be hard.

Procrastinating Again!

These are some pillows my dear friend made for me from my Stepmothers wedding suit. She also made some from her pretty sweaters. This is also to throw you off from the fact I should still be doing some cleaning, organizing and purging.

Bumps In The Road

The Great CleanUP: Well slight detour in the organizing because someone who will remain nameless accidentally unplugged the freezer in the basement while they were moving things around. Don't know for sure how many days it was thawing, but several black bags of what was food went out to the garbage can. Did salvage a container of Costco mini cinnamon roll and brownie bites, but chucked them outside just so they didn't tempt me! Got to Wallyworld yesterday for more bins. Not the one closest to me 'cause they were out. Even this store didn't have the ones on sale so of course paid more for the same ones, just different colors. Binned up more in the craft room. Basically done packing everything up; just a few things here and there. Now am waiting on the bins of Christmas to be put away so I can haul bins out of craft room so we can build storage and haul storage furniture in. Showing Hubby ideas from Pinterest for the best solution to my storage woes. Worked on the kitchen till the wee hours this morning. Sorting through all the utensil drawers and baking dishes and such. Today pulled out the new steamer cleaner I got for my birthday. Tackled the big lazy susan corner cupboard. I don't know where all that goo came from but it was coated. Took Ajax plus steam to get it clean. Then started playing around the stove, in the oven, dishwasher, fridge, sink. That thing is amazing! Really gets into corners, edges. Even cleaned the built-up dirt and grime off the plastic flap on the dog door. The one I have is the Shark portable Steam Pocket. It was $64.99 at Fred Meyers. I think it will be a great cleaning tool if I keep at it. It does take a little longer than spraying down a surface and wiping, but no chemicals seems the way to go. Plus it sanitizes. Great for mattresses, etc. you wouldn't think of doing on a regular basis. Hopefully it won't end up in the back of the closet with alot of other gadgets!

Are We Done Yet?

Well the 'junk drawer' in the kitchen is done! Dumped everything out on the counter and sorted thru it. Added a silverware divider and small plastic containers to sort things into. Now if we can keep it that way. The recycle man came this morning and took my whole bin of magazines away. I am in mourning! Hubby said it weighed like 600 pounds! More straightening in the office because I can't find my box of checks for the business account and staples for the stapler. Very frustrating! UPDATE: found staples (they were behind the stapler) but no checks. Will have to call bank and order. I got a Shark steamer for my birthday and am going to try it out. If it works as well as I'm hoping, I'm dumping out all my cleaning chemicals! Besides vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, and baking soda I shouldn't need anything else! Trying to talk Hubby into taking me to Wallies in Post Falls. My little one by my house is all out of bins I need for the craft room. Don't think it's going to happen today tho. Hmm. Tomorrow is 75% off the dish room at the St. Vinnie's on the way. Back to it.

Ups and Downs of Cleaning

Day 10 of the Great Clean Up and still organizing and throwing away. Today was the dresser in the office that holds the pet supplies, candles, air fresheners, potpourri and wax melts. I ran out of bins to continue in the craft room, so I'm flitting around cleaning out various cupboards and drawers. Gotta keep going; garbage and recycle pickup is tomorrow! Anybody have any cupboards, dressers, armoires, etc. they need to get rid of? I'm looking for a Cheap way to add storage in the craft room.

Signs Christmas is over :(

I'm exhausted! The kids came over and we took away every sign that it was ever Christmas. So sad! But a clean slate and ideas for redecorating. But I miss the tree and laying in bed and seeing the lights on the greenhouse. And why doesn't the same amount of stuff fit back into the same amount of bins? And now it's all downstairs in the hall waiting to be stuffed in the back of the storage room for another year. And I need the space for all the stuff coming out of the craft room! Well, off to bed and back down to the craft room tomorrow!

The Great clean-Up continues

Day 7 of the CleanUP. Still binning up stuff in the craft room. Had it all out in the hall and other rooms, but couldn't get to the laundry room or the back bedroom for more bins, so it's all stacked back in the craft room. I wanted everything out so we could build cupboards and shelves. Oh well, we'll work around it. Ordered some space bags from Amazon for the bedding, curtains, tablecloths, etc. That will help tremendously for the limited space in the closet. Well, second load of bins are full, so just more organizing till I can get back to Walmart tomorrow for more.

Great Clean-Out/Up (or how I want 2015 to go)

DAY 3 of the GREAT CLEAN-OUT! Well, this morning saw me downstairs going thru the kitchenware shelves. Baking pans,Corningware, dutch ovens, old coffee makers, espresso makers, spatulas, serving utensils, Tupperware, platters, and various meat grinders and other small appliances. (still didn't find the jerky gun.) Brought the seed sprouter upstairs and started some sprouts for the chickens. Found the silverware pieces I was missing for Christmas, plus the turkey baster. I thought about getting started in the craft room, but it's way too overwhelming without some storage bins for fabrics and the like. We were supposed to go get some this morning but Hubby forgot his meds last night so under the weather today. Will try tomorrow. So instead I headed into our closet. Well, I am now the proud owner of 86 empty hangers. That's right. I am getting rid of 86 shirts! Either don't fit quite right, don't like, or have nothing to go with them. I'm at the age where I don't want to walk around sucking my tummy in. I want to be comfortable. Wonder if I can sneak Hubby's ratty undies and tshirts away without him noticing? Probably not so I'm off to work on the sock drawer. Toodles!

Fall is for nuts!

Fall is for nuts! Really. Fall is nut harvesting time. What did you think I meant?

Many happy memories surround this time of year and those tasty treats. My Dad lived in the Willamette Valley in Oregon and occasionally when visiting him, we would go get nuts. We especially liked the walnuts and filberts (hazelnuts). Nuts are harvested differently from tender fruits that bruise if they hit the ground. Not so nuts. The trees are shaken furiously by a machine that goes down each row. The nuts fall onto nets on the ground and are gathered up. Or another machine comes along and sweeps them up. We would go in after the harvest and pick up the strays for a lot cheaper price. Nothing wrong with them; they had just been left behind. When we got home we would lay them out in single layers on the back deck to dry, which could sometimes be quite a task as fall could be quite damp at times.

Dad loved inventions and had an impressive array of nutcrackers, some better suited for cracking then others. We would spend hours talking and cracking nuts, sifting through the shells for the nutmeats. Everyone always got bags of nut for Christmas, some still in the shell so Dad could include that years best nutcracker design! Back home, I would sell some at Farmers Market while more went into breads, fruitcakes, and cookies. Still more were sugared and spiced. I will share a quick and easy way to make a delicious snack. And maybe you too can start some memories of your own.

Take a large saucepan and to it add 1 cup of water, 1/2 cup of white sugar and about 1 T. of ground cinnamon. Stir well and bring to a gentle boil (kinda oxymoron don't you think)? To this add 2 cups of nuts. I use anything from almonds, filberts, pecans, walnuts. Whatever you have. Stir every once in a while and continue cooking until most of the water has evaporated. Then pour out onto a wax paper lined cookie sheet and spread in a single layer. As they cool and harden, break individual nuts apart from each other. I find using two forks for this works quite well. When they are completely dry, I put them into pretty gifts bags tied up with ribbon and a handmade gift tag. They go really well into gift baskets for friends, the mail lady or people at work. And the grandkids Christmas stockings, of course! If there are no nut trees where you live you can find them bulk at a grocery or fresh market. Sadly, as Dad has passed, I no longer make that trip to Oregon to be with him and to have adventures in the nut orchards. Just the memories to sustain me. And the nuts, of course!

Apple Butter tutorial. It's That Time of Year!

Since I am known at the Farmers Market for my jams and preserves, I get alot of questions about them. So I thought I should show some of my techniques. This is more for the newbie but you never know when an idea might work out for the best; even for us old-timers. Case in point. I have always made my butters on the stove. Cutting the apples and pears up and simmering with apple juice in stock pots till they are tender. Running them thru the Foley mill and then adding sugar and spices and either canning as applesauce or continuing to cook down into butters. Well, this time I decided to try it another way. I was pressed for time as I am racing against the weather to get all my plants inside and the decks cleaned off before the hard frosts that are on their way. I couldn't be inside stirring pots of apples and be outside hauling carts of plants and planters. So I went downstairs to the canning room and looked around. I couldn't put it in the electric roaster to cook down because I was using that for some butters already cooking. The crock pots weren't big enough to handle all the fruit. But I did have several turkey roasters that go in the oven. And I thought. If I could cook on top of the stove, why not in the oven? I put the oven to about 200 degrees F. and put the roasters in. I also added some cranberries to one of the batches. Then I went outside and got to work. When I got back inside after several hours of work, the house smelled yummy! Like a crisp Fall afternoon. I put those batches thru the Foley and into crockpots to begin the cooking down operation. And started the process in the oven all over again. If anyone is wondering, I use a mix of apples for my butters. I grow Delicious, Fuji, Gala, and Braeburns here. The lady down the road had a huge box of Granny Smiths she was giving away and I bought some Pippins, Cameos, and Honey Crisps from the orchard down the street. You can also add pears and as I mentioned earlier, I added cranberries to a batch. I make cranberry apple pie, so why not butter? Anyway, I digress. So apples bake quite well in the oven. In fact, I turned the oven down a smidge more and baked some thru the night. So to make apple butter, which is really what I started out to talk about. Take a mix of apples, cut them in quarters, leaving the peel, core and seeds in and add them to a pot, crockpot, roaster with apple juice, cider, or even water if that's all you have on hand. Just enough liquid to keep it from sticking and burning. Cook until very soft. Now I should again go back and say if you don't have a Foley or jelly strainer, you can peel and core and cook the apples that way. Then mash or use a blender. I like the extra nutrients and flavor you get with all the other stuff, plus it's alot easier. So keep an eye out at yard sales and invest in a Foley mill. Once you have the fruit cooked and smashed into pulp, you have some options. You can eat it that way, or you can add some ingredients to it. If I am making it for my family, I just add some cinnamon red hot candies to it for color and flavor. Then I can it or freeze it. Mom left me wonderful memories of frozen applesauce with ice crystals throughout. Nothing better! Or the kids eat it straight from the pot so you don't have to worry about any further steps! When I am making it to sell, I add white sugar, brown sugar, maple syrup, or Splenda, depending what kind I am making. I use cinnamon, cloves, even some nutmeg and cardamon, again depending on what I am making. This is now applesauce. If you want butter, begin the cooking down process. Depending on the size of the batch and what and where you are cooking it, this will take from an hour to several hours. When I do my electric roasters, they can simmer for days. The juicier the fruit and the amount of liquids you use all determine the length of time to cook down. For a butter, you want it thick. Thick enough to stay on the spoon. It will darken and smell heavenly! I usually reduce it by at least half. Stir it to make sure it doesn't burn. Trust me, if you scorch it, you will taste it! And that's alot of time and effort to have ruined. I hope thru all my wandering off subject, you decided to try your hand at this. It really is fun and there's no better aroma to scent a home. And think of the compliments you'll get when you offer someone some warm applesauce or butter from the pot! Or give as a gift. We are having our annual pumpkin carving party tomorrow and you better believe I'll have some in a crockpot for the kiddos! Have fun and Happy Fall Y'all!