Salad Spinner for my Delicates

A salad spinner has been on my kitchen wish list for a few months (years) now. The item has been passed over by more necessary kitchen appliances such as garlic presses and doughnut makers. While the salad spinner is quite cool and I hate soggy salads, I have to be true to myself and admit that I don't particularly care for salad and really love garlic sauces and doughnuts a whole heck of a lot better.
Recently, I came across an invention that has the same properties as the spinner but would be way more useful to me and my life style.

THE LAUNDRY POD

If you read through the instructions you will totally see the connection. This is a salad spinner for laundry. I don't care that it costs 5x as much as the lettuce version. I want one, and I want one now...or for Christmas...but definitely soon...ish

Summer Resolutions

This past weekend QVC had Christmas in July - my mom's a fan. Which made me think about if we can have Christmas in July, why not New Year's Eve. Ok, so the countdown to midnight would be pretty anti-climatic, but honestly what makes July 1st 12:01 am so special? My thought was now that we are half way through the year, I have new resolutions in mind that I would like to declare out loud so that I can feel the public pressure of following through with them.

1. Wash my dishes every day

Basically I have found that I go days without washing my dishes. This normally doesn't get too bad, but when I don't do them for a few days and then go away for the week - eeeeep is my sink funky.

2. Strengthen my core

A friend sent me the link for Two Hundred Situps. It is a perfect solution to my dilemma of what to do. In terms of finding the time, why not jump onto my floor while I watch all my trash tv. Think about it, between The Real Housewives, Bethanny's Getting Married, Bridezillas, and Teen Mom (who am I kidding, I will so watch season 2 of the Jersey Shore) I have have hours each week that I can devote to a strong midsection.

I am not deluded to think I can have rock hard abs or some crazy lady six-pack. But I do want to feel tone and get rid of that pouch that shows up when I eat too many potato chips.

If I can think of any other resolutions, I will let you know. But really, I think anything more than two is just being way too ambitious about changing my lifestyle. :)

Emotional Shredding

Emotional Shredding is a term that I created over Memorial Day weekend. I have been living up here in the Boston area since graduation, but when I left my parents' house I didn't exactly clean out my room completely. There were still pictures hanging on the walls, books in the shelves, and some emergency clothes stashed in the drawers. Now that my parents are planning on renovating their bedroom, having my sister move from her room to mine, and turning her old space into a real guest room, they needed "the shrine", as they like to call it, cleaned out.

My mom and I slowly tackled the bureau, night stand, shelves, drawers and closet. I was able to let go of a number of nick-nacks, papers, and the like. Every so often there were moments that my mom had to urge me a little harder to let go and for the most part, I would let her win. It was hard, but it was time.

RIP - phone bank from my 5th birthday party and jewelry box with small brown bear with bow tie that twirled while song played.

Part of the reason she won on these items was that the momentum to throw away was so strong. I received positive feedback when trashing items, as I have a habit of saving objects that contain memories. I became a junkie and even though I wasn't really ready to let go, I did because it felt good to purge. During the drive home, I felt pretty awful that some of those items were heading to the dump shortly. Thankfully my mom realized that there were some things she shouldn't have pushed on and took them out of the piles. Yay, the phone bank and jewelry box were saved!!

I have found that I have to be careful when I clean, I become an emotional shredder when I am in the mood to really clean house. One time I destroyed a journal from high school, I immediately regretted trashing my personal thoughts like that. Now, whenever I am in the mood to purge out my possessions, I hold off before bringing the items to GoodWill and keep the items in a pile for a week or so. This strategy has worked wonderfully for me.

My next big project will be dealing with the filing cabinet that I brought back with me from home. It needs to be gone through, but I am just not ready to deal with the papers that I have been holding onto and would rather give myself some time to process exactly what is trash, and what is treasure. While I know old credit card and utility bills can be shredded without a second glance, I don't want to accidentally destroy financial docs that need to be kept because I get in the zone. Maybe the next big rainy day will be set aside for this project.

Snacking in the Grocery

The general rule is that one shouldn't go grocery shopping on an empty stomach. Everything looks so tasty and the trip always ends in at least $15 worth of impulse purchases. The only time I think that you can ignore this rule is if you plan on hitting up the Deli. Basically the deli gives you free snacks and help tied you over on the way home to make dinner.

I was busy having fun on saturday and then opted to not leave the apartment on sunday, leaving me with an apartment with no food. Thus, I had to eat some baked beans, and cheese & crackers for lunch. It was actually way tastier than it sounds. On the way home, I stopped at STAR Market to pick up just a few items. I always start in the produce section and in this market the deli is right there. As I passed by I thought I would get some salads, and the meat section just stared back. I asked for some samples of provolone and turkey. Delish. I did go forward and buy some of each as well, but there really is nothing as satisfying as snacking on some good cheese while browsing through the grocery store.

Sock Bucket?

Sometimes I see items on the market, and wonder why I didn't think of it first. The $30 missing sock bucket is a perfect example of such a thing.

For the last few months, I have had a missing sock pile in my living room next the tv. (I thought that was as good of a spot as any) But I would agree that a bucket would make me appear a little more organized. And the graphic is rather cute.

Change for a Dollar??

Before I moved out of my parents' house, I didn't mind doing my own laundry. At home, the laundry machines were in the room next to mine so very little was needed to get the clothing from my floor to the washing machine. At school, stairs would often need to be used to get to the laundry room, but at least I just needed my ID card to activate the machines.

Now, not only do I need to go from my second floor apartment to the basement, which involves walking down a narrow set of winding stairs. But, I also need the country's rarest form of currency.

Quarters.

Trying to acquire enough quarters to do all my laundry is damn near impossible (excuse my French). Part of the problem is that I probably do my laundry about once a month. One of the reasons this happens, is that I put off trying to get these magic coins for as long as I can. Here are my problems.

1. The laundry room in my building does not have a quarter machine so I need to find an outside source
2. My current job is not particularly close to my bank, so I cannot get a roll of quarters from them as I work from 9-5 and so do the banks
3. I don't use cash all that frequently, so saving quarters from change that I would take forever to get enough for a wash and dry (12 quarters)
4. Generally, stores are unwilling to part with quarters if you ask for change for a dollar (in line with this, they are definitely not going to give me change for a 5 or 10)

I did realize one solution was to hit up laundromats and use their quarter machines. Of course the one that was on my way home has thought about this and fears giving out quarters to non-customers, so they have created some crazy ticket system... shaky fist!!!!! I was finally able to find a more trusting laundromat and changed about $8 so I could get some laundry done this weekend. If anyone knows another way for me to get some quarters I would be so happy, I really need to figure this out. Either that, or I just need to keep purchasing more clothing so I can last even longer between washings.

Major To-Dos

I will be having a few people over next week and am feeling a little sick right now. By sick, I mean I feel fine minus the fact that I can't stop sneezing. As excited I am to have a group of fun and classy ladies over for booze and New Moon the board game, I also am on edge trying to find the time to make my apartment look presentable.

At work I realized I needed to make a major To-Do list. There is laundry to washed, floors to be scrubbed, food to be purchased and cooked for the superbowl as well as this get together. On top of that I had to get through papers, bring my car to the garage and work a few part-time gigs. Life was busy and I didn't have a lot of wiggle room. My social life couldn't be put on pause this week for just one event next week. At first I started listing things on a post-it and quickly ran out of room. Instead of moving to an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper I decided that I needed a fancy To-Do list and went on google to find one.

What did I find? A bacon to-do list of course. If I had a color printer I would have printed out a few sheets but sadly, I don't think we have one in my office suite. Granted I have only had the job for a few weeks so maybe its hidden somewhere.

I just had to share my newest bacon find! Enjoy

Spring cleaning the day away

The weather has decided to stay consistantly above freezing which has been wonderful. I can wear dresses and skirts every so often- YAY! But now that spring is here, its time to spring clean...

Per usual, my room is currently a disaster, as I have pulled up random summer pieces from the basement and I just don't have room to have all of this clothing in my small room that has no closet. With clothing/shoes/kickball stuff strewn everywhere it has become rather embarrassing for me when a guest happens into my personal space. This room really needs to get whipped into shape as I hope to have a bunch of friends visiting this summer....

My original goal for this weekend was simply to do laundry and switch over my clothing. I may have been in slight denial about just how bad things were getting. Then two things happened, as I was gathering up laundry this morning I realized that the mess didn't really get all the much smaller...clothing was not the main problem here. Then I realized that I can't bring my tupperware of clothing up from the basement by myself - I usually try to call on "a man" to help me out. I had originally found a volunteer to do so on Sunday, but then plans changed. So I'm on the prowl again for someone who is simply stronger than I.

So now I had to rethink my plan of attack. First, I really need to make my room slightly less disastrous in general as the more I look at it the more I shudder. But no sooner did I make this decision I realized that there was a bigger problem at the apartment...our full bathroom. One of my roommates gets a subletter for the summer as she will go home to work between the academic years. The subletter comes tomorrow. Our house isn't so pretty for her right now, the bathroom is bad...

I find cleaning the bathroom to be rewarding but beyond exhausting. It is a small space, but I honestly just spent almost an hour scrubbing the tub. It was just that filthy. I feel like I am covered in bleach/soft scrub/comet. I can't wait to finish with it so that I can shower off the grossness (hope I don't re-dirty the tub by doing so :P ). I will say my arms already hurt. I know I'm a wuss, you don't have to point it out. I hope to have energy to continue with my room before going to see an apartment and dinner downtown.

Tomorrow is definately going to be laundry day - I hope to get it all done before I have to head home to RI for mother's day dinner. Yeah, I am going to be a good daughter after all...

What is this that I am sitting on???

Today I finally got around to cleaning the disaster which was formally known as my bedroom. I would like to say I was shocked, appalled, and baffled about how it got this way, but let's be honest, packing and unpacking three weekends in a row was the cause for most of the trauma. I will attest to the fact that I need to get a bigger book shelf. I have books everywhere in here, it would appear that I have a knack for finding unused storage space.

Taming my room ended rather successfully. Not only can I walk all around my floor, - rather than hopping from one small open space to another - actually see the top of my dresser, - there were piles of earrings, necklaces, ticket stubs and flair - but wait for it.... I actually was able to sit in my clothes chair.

You may need to reread that last part...

I sat in my clothes chair.

I don't think I have ever sat in that chair for the almost two years I have had it. Not only that, but I was able to clear off my desk and put my computer on it. Normally Floyd here travels around with me on top of a hard cover book (which is a great way to plug the fact that if you ever feel the need to get me a gift at random, I could REALLY use a lap desk). But yeah, I took all of the clothing off the back of the chair and removed the old magazines and papers from the seat. Sitting in the chair was a strange sensation. I don't plan on revisiting it any time soon, I just felt wrong on so many levels.

The clothes were temporarily moved to hang over the top of the closet (if you can classify that cubby of a space a closet) door. They will be relocated back to the chair in a few moments. I am quite sure that anyone reading this understands the importance of the clothes chair. If for some reason the concept is escaping your grasp, the clothes chair is where items go that do not belong in the drawer/closet but also should not yet be put in the hamper. Think of it as a fashion limbo. There is no reason to try and change the chair's purpose back to sitting, my bed can fulfill that function just fine. I mean the clothes need to go somewhere and I don't think there is such thing as a clothes bed....that just sounds silly.


Please note, that is NOT my clothes chair. But that is the first image you get when one google images for one!

Out Damn Spot

I was just enjoying my leftover gnocchi and bolognese sauce and my fork somehow jumped out of my bowl and somersaulted all over my pants. Tomato sauce everywhere! I find tomato sauce to be the hardest stain to get out of clothing. While laundry takes up a lot of time, I don't really mind doing it and have quite the skills when it comes to stain removal. But the tomato stain really can be a huge pain. Just now I treated my pants and they are hanging in the shower, but I don't feel like I got all that far with them. I hope it all comes out in the wash. Granted they are pj pants (as I have been home sick today and felt like real pants were unneccessary) but I still don't want them stained forever.

Oh well. Hopefully it all works out. If anyone has any good stain removal tips, lemme know!

I will lie in the bed I made and enjoy it

Putting new sheets on my bed is quite possibly one of my least favorite activities. The whole process just aggravates me. I have a queen size bed which is great for sleeping but is a royal pain to make.

Once the sheets are off, I need to deal with the fact that they need to be cleaned. All I can say is thank you inventor of wash-dry-fold. Before I found you, I would swear and just get annoyed at the idea of fitting all the bedding in a wash machine and then have to attempt to fold huge pieces of fabric on my own. Now for 92 cents per pound I can pay someone else to do it for me! Even in this economy I am not giving this small luxury up. If I did them myself I would still need to pay to use the coin operated machine in my basement so it isn't as if I am completely wasting money here.

Once I have over come the issue of needing clean sheets, I need to tackle my naked bed. It is time for me to climb all around attempting to get the sheets positioned correctly and figure out a way to squeeze between my bed and the wall so that I can use the proper military fold for the corners. Somehow by the end of all this I always end up a bit sweaty. It is kind of pathetic.

In the end as much as I hate making my bed, the best nights sleep that I have are always the nights where I am sleeping in a freshly cleaned/made bed. It just feels so wonderful...it almost makes me want to go through the process a little more frequently...almost