Bits & Bobs, Redux

This was a busy week, and I wasn’t able to get too much done. I can’t believe May is nearly over and in the next few weeks we’re going to be wrapping up the school year and Emma’s activities. I have a few pressing things to deal with, which I’m sharing below with some related resources. And even though I was really busy this week, I had time to make cake. At the end you’ll find the simplest way to make cake ever. Enjoy!

  • An additional confession: I’m not a dog person. Though I’ve loved every dog I’ve ever owned, and even some I haven’t owned, I don’t really have the intuition or knowledge to be able to figure them out. Bob went to visit his mom for a couple days, so I was on my own trying to housebreak Pixie, which did not go well. The last few days have been beautiful so I had both dogs in the house for much of the day. And maybe I am becoming intuitive because I was pretty successful at knowing when to lett Pixie back in the house so she could pee. Bob and I have been getting good tips from this article, which I thought I’d share in case anyone else is in my shoes.
  • I’m going back to the garage. Seeing a difference, even a small one, has been really motivating. As much as I really, really want to go flea marketing this weekend, I’m going to clean. (If you’re in the NY Metro area and curious, I really want to go here. Maybe in July.) I found this article from This Old House which had some good safety-related info as well as some other tips I hadn’t thought of. My goal is to be able to get one of our cars in the garage by next winter, which is a big crazy goal but it might be attainable.
  • Emma’s playroom is a disaster again. Somehow most of the toys from her bedroom found their way into the playroom, which was not the plan as there is not enough space. Or maybe she’s hiding the Hope Diamond, I don’t know. But the next time it rains, she and I will be working in there. I follow Peter Walsh’s Facebook page, which I find helpful, and he posted this article about getting rid of toys which I’m going to read again because it gets pretty detailed and I think we need to do another big toy purge. She hasn’t acquired anything new, but there are things she hasn’t touched in ages which need to go.
  • Cake! I like to bake, but I’m not very good at it. Sometimes I make things that taste fine but look terrible, which is why I stopped making Emma’s birthday cakes as soon as she got old enough to remember her birthdays. Time is also a factor. If I need to choose between baking and cooking a decent meal, I’m always going with the meal. But I found this list of two-ingredient cake recipes, using store-bought mixes. I’ve made the Greek yogurt and canned pumpkin versions and they are really good. They are healthier too, which is important, but what I like best is the simplicity. And I don’t need to question my decision to use the eggs even though they expired three days ago.

Next week I’ll share my Month 3 Progress Report and my plans for Month 4, and am planning to hold our next Book Club next Friday, May 29.


11 Responses to Bits & Bobs, Redux

  1. I’d love you to do a ‘day in the life’ of you – as you often mention you are super busy, so it’d be great to know what a busy day looks like!

    • I would love to do that with my car! Isn’t it funny how stuff like that becomes so appealing?

  2. Losing Lindy, I just cleaned my car the other day and it feels so wonderful. I took it to the car wash where they charge only $8 and they have free vacuums. So after I ran it through the wash I pulled around to the vacuums and vacuumed the entire van and put my floor mats back in. I wiped down the entire interior next and put all the junk from the car in a bag. I then stopped at a do it yourself car wash and hung up my floor mats on the wall and power washed them all for only $3 and loaded them in a container in the back so they wouldn’t get the car wet. When I got home I set out the floor mats overnight on some chairs to dry. Meanwhile I went through the bag of stuff I had collected from inside the car and returned only what I really needed and put the rest away in the house or threw it away. My car feels so clean and wonderful. I followed up the next day by decluttering and blowing out the garage. I still want to hose out the winter dirt but will wait for a warmer day.

    • We did stop and get it cleaned out, this was of course after having to carry our two 70 pound (each) bag of dirt up 3 flights of stairs for our balcony garden and the chairs, etc. It felt awesome to get it done.

    • That’s a good idea. I don’t mind actually washing my car myself but I should take it to a place that has vacuums, even if I have to spend a few dollars. We have a Shop-Vac but it’s not as effective.

  3. I think less is more with toys. We find our open-ended art supplies get a lot more play than any toys we have. We don’t buy toys, and often find that toys which arrive in gifts are easy to pass on once the novelty wears off.

    • I agree- I am behind in reading Simplicity Parenting and it starts with talking about paring down toys and the impact it has.

    • I’d had them outside for most of the day, and let them back in to eat. As soon as she walked into the house, she peed. She did this a couple of times- it’s been very nice here so they spend a lot of time outside. We are slowly getting her housebroken though!

Tell me, tell me...