Summer Clean-Up Challenge, Volume 2, Chapter 1

Okay, Lisa's challenge really got me motivated. So I decided I had so much fun yesterday, that I'd do it again today. The messy living room was just practice. Child's play. Today I decided to start the REAL worst room in the house - my kitchen/dining room.

Technically, the kitchen part wasn't bad. There's very little counter space, so I TRY to keep it cleared off. Our dishwasher doesn't work, so I need to wash and dry the dishes by hand and prefer them put away and my sink dry and shiny (a la FlyLady). I like FlyLady, but it's obvious from my mess that I've become a backsliden FlyBaby.

Now, there is no way I can clean up my entire Worst Room in just one day. It's really a doozy. So this will be a series. This will be the Summer Clean-Up Challenge, Volume 2, Chapter 1.



One thing FlyLady talks about is HotSpots. My kitchen/dining room is chock full of HotSpots. What is a HotSpot? Any horizontal surface that is a magnet for STUFF. The biggest HotSpot in our kitchen/dining room would be the bright yellow, 14 foot long counter that separates the kitchen from the dining area. It is a BIG HotSpot and attracts STUFF from every member of the family. And some visitors, too. So I figured this would be a perfect place to start.

I have a love/hate relationship with this counter. I love the expanse of horizontal space, but hate that it ALWAYS collects STUFF. Right now because of lack of space, I use this counter for my scrapbook classes. It works great. And next Friday I will be having my monthly scrapbook class. I traditionally wait until, oh, say Thursday to clean up. I hate that I wait until the last minute. But I always do. So Lisa's challenge is going to help me break my bad habit.



Have you noticed that I've been rambling and putting off the moment of truth? Okay, here it is....

Yipes! What a lot of STUFF!!!

Okay, here's after:

Hey! Even the hanging laundry is gone from the background and the door to the laundry room is closed! (It won't remain thus - the cat box is in the laundry room. Plus the door doesn't stay closed for some weird reason.)

Okay, these are close-ups because the immediate view might not have been quite shocking enough. Some things on here are from the last time we went grocery shopping - they were "planted" and I think have grown roots! Brooke's friend's toothbrush, left from a sleepover. The girls' chore chart that has OBVIOUSLY not been used except for doodling. A volt meter that Steve added. Craft projects, construction paperwork, food, half-drunk bottles of water.

Oh my. It just gets worse. Scrapbooking paraphernalia. Folded work shirts. More water bottles. Embossing stuff. A cake plate that was borrowed by my SIL for Father's Day and returned.

Another view of the disaster. See Morgan in the background NOT HELPING.

Wow! Where'd everything go?

Here are my ink pads for scrapbooking, surround by all sorts of STUFF.

Now you see it, now you don't! The ink pads "live" here, along with my scrapbooking essentials bag. Steve cannot wait for our new house, where we will have a place for my scrapbooking stuff that will NOT encroach upon the kitchen. Or dining room. Or living room. Or any other room where Steve wants to be.

Here's the end of the counter, covered with Pampered Chef stuff.

Still the Pampered Chef corner, but much neater.

This is my cutting/embossing station. Nowhere else has a flat surface near an outlet. At least now you can get to it! No longer buried! Hurray!

More From Saturday

While I was hard at work, cleaning my counter, washing dishes, cooking supper, and doing laundry, my children were hard at work too....You've already seen Morgan "helping" by playing on the computer. Here's Brooke's contribution to the cause.....

Yes, she is sharing a sucker with Libby. I'm not sure which one is stranger, the kid or the cat.

On another note, here's the latest photo of the house. The framers are finished and today the plumber came to start topping out the pipes.

A Recipe NOT for Cynthia!

Shrimp Scampi Pasta

Can you tell we love shrimp here in Louisiana? This is, what, my second shrimp recipe in a week or so! Yes, we certainly do love our shrimp. And this recipe was very EASY!

Ingredients:
1/4 cup olive oil
1 pound peeled and deveined large shrimp (raw, 20-25 per pound)
4 large garlic cloves, left unpeeled and forced through a garlic press
1/2 teaspoon dried hot red-pepper flakes
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cracked black pepper
5 tablespoons UNSALTED butter
3/4 pound capellini (angel hair pasta) *I didn't have this, so I substituted fettucini
1/2 cup chopped fresh flat leaf parsley *Also didn't have fresh parsley - used a little dried

Bring a 6- to 8-quart pot of salted water to a boil.

Meanwhile, heat oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over moderately high heat until hot, but not smoking, then saute' shrimp, turning over once, until just cooked through, about 2 minutes, and transfer with a slotted spoon to a large bowl.

Add garlic to oil remaining in skillet along with red pepper flakes, wine, salt, and pepper and cook over high heat, stirring occasionally, for one minute.

Add butter to skillet, stirring until melted, and stir in shrimp. Remove skillet from heat.

Cook pasta until just tender. Reserve 1 cup of pasta cooking water, then drain pasta in a colander. Toss pasta well with shrimp mixture and parsley in a large bowl, adding some of the reserved cooking water if necessary to keep moist.

Makes four servings. This was VERY yummy! We will make this again!

And I finished off my pasta with a handful (or three) of fresh figs!

Summer Clean-Up Challenge

Okay, my cyber friend, Lisa in Jax, posted a summer clean-up challenge. She said to pick your worst room and show before/after pictures. There'll be a prize for the "most improved." There's nothing like an Amazon gift certificate to motivate a book addict, so I decided to face the humiliation and post ONE of my worst rooms. It was hard to decide. So hard that I may have to post more than one. So I started with the first room people see when they walk into my house - my living room.

*I* do not LIVE in my living room. I like the kitchen/dining area and the bathtub! I hardly EVER sit down on my sofas except to occasionally read a book and rarely ever watch television. But my children....that's another subject. And because of that, I will blame MOST of this mess on them. Not all. But most.

Now to also further qualify, we ARE building a house and are soon to be moving. We have zero storage in our current house. And I am currently storing food/drinks for the swim team until our banquet. With that in mind, here we go.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Now this was unwanted stuff left by Josh's friend who was staying with us. He has moved back out of state with his family. I guess we qualified for Goodwill:

The dogs' toy basket had seen better days, so this plastic bin was put to better use.

Most of this stuff is for the swim team - bottles of water and other assorted drinks that we will need for the banquet. *I* am the lucky mom who gets to store it in her spacious home.

Stuff's still there, but at least we can get to Cosette's crate without tripping! And it is straight.

Because we have no storage, out of season clothing and things Brooke has outgrown, but Morgan has yet to grow into has been stored in Rubbermaid bins behind the front door. Lovely. But it has to go somewhere. The girls have started just tossing out of season/outgrown clothing on the top of the stack because they are all full. Stewart loves this cushy perch - he can see everything from there!

After. The pile of clothing were folded and put into another box. I really MUST cull these clothes.

Okay, this is just a disaster and it is right when you walk in the door. We had to wash all the horse blankets (those red things). Two have been done. They WERE folded. Someone has tossed them onto the floor. And the "squirrel cage" fan from LAST MONTH when the a/c went out. This has GOT to go! Only I cannot lift it!

Now there is nothing there but a box of school books for next year. Even Stewart approves.

All of this was done after 3 p.m. and before 10. And in case my girls would try to convince you otherwise, I did it ALL BY MYSELF. Down to sanitizing the dog crates, vacuuming, and dusting. If you don't believe me, ask Stewart.

My Favorite Fruit

My favorite fruit is rarely found fresh. It's a seasonal delicacy and imagine my joy when a sign went up virtually across the street from me.....

FRESH FIGS FOR SALE! I called the elderly lady yesterday and they had none left. I was so sad. But she said they would pick more in the morning and I asked her to save me two.....GALLONS!

Today Brooke, Morgan, and I went across the road and bought our figs. Fresh figs also happen to be Brooke's favorite fruit and she was ecstatic. She ate a quarter of the gallon before we got home (okay, we went to the barn before coming home, but still - that's a lot of figs).

Tonight the girls ate leftover pasta salad my MIL made for the Fourth of July bash at my SIL's. Supper for Steve and me tonight was quesadillas made with leftover crispy duck from Monday night's sushi extravaganza, fresh tomatoes, sauteed yellow peppers and mushroom slices, and gouda cheese. Yummy! Oh - and a side of sliced, fresh figs. Followed by whole, fresh figs. Followed by more whole, fresh figs. And now I'm full as a pig - I mean FIG!

And our big news of the day......we finally got a letter from Joshua! It sounded just like him - made us laugh all the way through.

And Now, For a Commercial Break

We interrupt this blog to post pictures of the differences in bindings from Kinko's and Office Depo. For all my non-Stampin' Up! demonstrator readers, please skip this post, as it'll probably have you scratching your head and saying, "What is the big deal?" For SU demos, the new catalog - and having it spiral bound - IS a big deal!

Last year's catalog with the plastic covers over front and back and the coil binding. This was done at Kinko's.

Close up of the binding.

Here's this year's catalog with the laminated covers and the coil binding, done at Office Depot on Siegen.

And a close up. Notice that this binding is smaller. I can already tell I prefer the larger binding.

And here are the two. Even though the catalogs are not that much different in their thicknesses, it definitely appears that last year's catalog is much bigger. I think I am going to prefer the laminated covers, although their corners are SHARP! I think I'll file them down a wee bit. But I like the Kinko's larger binding. And I can say I used last year's bound catalog all the time - kept it on my computer and flipped through it very frequently. The binding held VERY well. Since this is my first Office Depo binding, I don't know about how well it holds up. I'm hoping it does well. Otherwise it'll be back to Kinko's for me!

And now, back to our regularly schedule blog. :^D

Grown-Up Night

Tonight Susie and her boyfriend, Mike, took Connie, Greg, Steve, and me out to eat at our favorite sushi restaurant overlooking the Mississippi River. You can see the lights to the Mississippi River Bridge through the windows behind us.

We had a GREAT time and the food was SUPERB!!! We had quite the assortment of appetizers, sushi, entrees, and desserts. Everything was delicious, everyone shared everything, and our meal lasted for about three hours! Three hours of fabulous food and loads of laughter. What a great grown-up night out! Such a treat for Steve and I. Although I must say that our daughters were very disappointed to be left out - Tsunami's is their favorite restaurant, hands down.

Susie and Mike

Greg and Connie

Me and my honey

Cat Drugs

Here's Libby, meowing like crazy at Brooke's door. Now, this in and of itself is not unusual. At night if Brooke is in there and didn't let Libby in, she will meow at the door until I let her in. Sometimes when she is IN the room, she'll meow to come out because she needs to use the litter box. But this was different. She was meowing very loudly and continuously, not an occasional "Open this door, please." This was an "Open up! Open up! Now! Hurry!" kind of meow.

Okay, she really wants in this bedroom. What's in there - kitty drugs?

Yup. Sure is. Here's her "drug of choice" - the Cat Teaser! LOL! This is so funny. Brooke has been playing with Libby and Stewart all morning with that thing! You'd think they'd be exhausted and sick of it. I guess not.

(Okay - let me make a qualifying statement here - because when we move into our new house, we will be removing all the wallpaper from this room and repainting it, Brooke decided she couldn't bear the pink beribboned wallpaper - not our choice - that was there and ripped it off herself. This is the wallpaper that was there before us and the crayon marks were added by the toddler who lived here before we moved back in. Just didn't want anyone to think we were white trash. :^P)

Libby really, really likes this toy. Really. Can you tell?

After these pictures were taken, Brooke took Libby out of her room AGAIN. She was still crying at the door. When Brooke let her back in, STEWART started crying at the door. Stewart NEVER cries at Brooke's door - he's not allowed in her room EVER. This is so weird. Yup. Brooke has cat drugs in her room.

Food, Family, and Fun

The first fun family thing today had to do with food - our cats are eating too much of it! So Brooke bought a "cat teaser" toy to help them with exercises. Here's Stewart doing one of his yoga stretches called "Reach the Birdie."

Libby is now demonstrating the "Whirling Cat Dervish" exercise - kind of like Spinning, but not quite. :^D She was really going fast! She would just chase it around in a circle - I put the camera on high speed for action and she was still a blur! That's one fast, fat cat!!! Note Delilah watching intently from the sidelines. But it was making Cosette sick and she was headed for her crate!

Two of the things you can always count on when Steve's family gets together are FOOD and FUN! Steve's family loves to laugh - a lot! I like that in a family. :^D

Tonight the whole family went to a Cajun restaurant with a dance floor and nightly Zydeco bands. Here's Steve's sister, Connie, and her husband on the dance floor. This picture makes it look like a very sedate dance - they were actually moving pretty fast to try to keep up with the bouncy, choppy beat of the music - and were laughing just as hard.

Steve's mom and other sister, Susie, took a whirl on the dance floor. All this after a full meal. These are some brave women!

And because a full meal of gumbo, fried and grilled alligator (yes, we did order that), on top of yummy entrees of crab au gratin or shrimp and oyster en brochette wasn't filling enough, we went out afterwards with Susie and her boyfriend, Mike, for beignets and cafe au lait. At the same little coffee shop Steve and I went on our very first date, almost 24 years ago! (Although it's not exactly in the same location - it was relocated by a new Super Walmart. Hrrmph!)

Beignets (pronounced ben-YAYS) are kind of like a cross between a donut and a popover. They are deep fried squares of dough that puff up and are basically filled with air in the center, like little pillows. Okay, so they are not so little. Three fill a plate. This plate just has two. And then, because fried dough isn't bad enough for you, so we dust them quite liberally with powdered sugar!

Cafe au lait is New Orleans French Market blend coffee and chicory with scalded milk. Mmmm.....the perfect accompaniment to beignets. And, no, latte is NOT the same thing. Trust me on this one.

The key to eating beignets is remember NOT TO INHALE WHILE BITING INTO THEM!!! This is very important. If you inhale, that big mound of powdered sugar will be sucked into your lungs causing you to cough. When you cough, the rest of the mound of powdered sugar flies off the beignet and you look like Puff the Magic Dragon. Here is Steve showing that even beignet-eating professionals are expected to get some powdered sugar on their lips.

Susie and Mike, showing the plate of beignets we did NOT eat. Susie doesn't like coffee and opted for the non-traditional side of milk. On ice. We'll just suffice it to say she's lived away from Louisiana for a number of years. :^D (Just teasing, Susie!)

Here is Brooke NOT eating beignets and NOT getting powdered sugar on her. Even though she was dressed appropriately in white. My children must not be true Louisianians - Brooke says beignets have too much fat. Perhaps she's not actually my child after all. (Just teasing, Brookie!)

Now THIS is my child! Enjoying a big cup of cafe au lait. Wait, I didn't order you that! Hey! That's MINE!!!!

Note that Morgan has powdered sugar on her shirt. She didn't even EAT a beignet - not even one bite - and STILL managed to get powdered sugar on her. On second thought, she must be STEVE'S child!