Homemaking Organized Blog

Archive for March, 2009

As you know I’m planning a serious container garden this summer. The pots are on their way and the seeds have been started. The ones that need starting indoors.

Gardens seem to be in this year. I hear and read about kitchen gardens all the time. I always try to grow something in pots and it’s been many years since I’ve gardened in the ground. This is the first year I’ll be trying so much in pots.

There are many reasons to grow your own vegetables. I have three.

1) It’s a great learning activity my daughter and I can do together. She loves, loves dirt, plants etc.

2) I really need to know where my stuff comes from. I’m one of those label readers at the grocery store and lately I’ve been really discouraged by the low quality.

3) Have you every tasted garden grown stuff? Amazing! Much better than the year old stuff in the grocery store.

But alas I have learned onions from seeds are not the easiest to grow. I learned the hard way.

After watching my puny onion seed leaves fall over and seem to die at the root I called my close friend who God blessed me with and who is also Master Gardener information. She must shake her head every time she talks to me.

Turns out the little onions seeds had too much water. I’m going to blame my daughter here. So they had some sort of root rot or something.

In an onion funk, because what is a garden without onions, I traipsed off to the grocery store with my family (we like to shop together).

Low and behold as I wandered past the seeds for who knows what reason since I have the makings of a small farm in my closet I spotted a little bunch of some tiny plant. There weren’t many left so I picked one up. Yahoo! It was a huge bunch of mini Walla Walla Sweet onion starts. They are so cute! It was definitely more than I can fit in my pots so I’m going be sharing these with family and friends.

As far as the rest of my plants are doing.

1) Tomatoes – 3 varieties doing well although I think they are a tiny bit leggy

2) Cucumbers – Was I supposed to start them so early? I heard I can grow them in summer too for a late fall harvest. The plants are doing incredibly well

3) Onions – Starting over with starts

4) Lettuce – I started some indoors because I wanted to. Not so sure this was smart but we’ll see.

The rest (corn, potatoes, peas(maybe)

5) Lavender – I’ve heard this is hard to start from seed and maybe the fact that my seeds never sprouted should be a clue. Back to the drawing board.

Although I know this was posted back in 2005, gardening is never old or goes out of style so here is some more great info on gardening onions at Farmgirl Fare

And another article on growing potatoes in pots

Okay I have to say even though I was going through the motions I truly thought my daughter would be more like 12 or 16 before the help she did in the home was actually helping instead of making more work.

In reading other blogs and websites I was wondering what I was doing wrong. I mean everyone else swore their 2 year old was cooking up the main dish in the dinner meal and taking on cleaning the bathroom so mommy could have a nap. Book said that toddler could help match socks and set the table but my child would just throw the socks and look blankly at me when I asked for her help in setting the table. I wondered what I was doing wrong.

So I decided to stop reading and looking and focus on what was going on in my home (the big blog break). During that time I focused more on teaching and working with our daughter and doing my best to include her in most everything I did around the house.

I shook off the zip, wham, bam bug, because I like to be efficient and really get things done, and instead enjoyed the moment and time with my child.

Then my husband took some vacation time and I got to see how it was really done. They volunteered to cook dinner several nights a week and then cleaned up the garage and washed dishes. I watched how he included her in everything and that it was okay when it wasn’t perfect. Although now I see she is a bit of a perfectionist and likes things just so. I saw how he purposely had her do the safe cooking chores away from the not so safe. Such as she would arrange the fruit on a platter while he chopped veggies at the other end of the counter. She got better at setting the table.

So yeah I took notes and carried on after he returned to work.

And then it started. The other day as I was talking on the phone starting at a heap of clean towels that I didn’t want to fold, my daughter who will soon be four and was sitting on the bed hanging out with mommy, started folding the towels ever so neatly and stacking them. My phone conversation started having weird pauses because I was in such shock. She then gave me the sweetest smile and said “all done”. And I had to hang up for fear of a crying fest coming on.

Next it was dinner. All ready except for the veggie which was kale I asked my sweet peanut if she could rip the little leaves off of the stalk. I showed her what we ate and what was kind of tough. She did it so perfectly and then rinsed them thoroughly. Again I was choking up.

Since then it’s been non-stop help. She does some part of dinner 5 to 6 nights a week. Usually putting together the rice or the salad or mixing up some ingredients if that is on the menu. She pushes the push broom under the dining table after meals. She is always in on whatever baking is going on and she helps to fold laundry. Making beds is still a bit touch and go since she would rather jump on them than make them. And washing dishes is just an excuse for water play so I end up really washing them when she’s done. But that’s okay because she is only 3 going on 4.

Yaaay!

So now as we prepare for addition number two I’ve been dropping hints about changing diapers.

My husband and I like meals like this and it seems with the economy many people like and need meals like this.

Much like many of us tend to do with the large Thanksgiving turkey chef Jose Andres uses the slim 4 minute cooking slot on the Today show to dish up four delicious family meals from one chicken.

Starting with a yummy sauteed chicken breast dish he ends it all with the famous Spanish dish Paella.

If you’re trying to stretch your grocery budget ideas like this are valuable and timely.

Never toss a chicken carcass again!

Read the full story along with recipes here.

Okay this has been bothering me for some time.

I have a home organization binder, homekeeping journal, homemaking binder, what have you. I’ve had one for several years and when we were actively doing foster care boy did it come in handy!

I actually had a half pint one in a zippered binder that I carried everywhere we went. It held everthing (except the children’s information) and I kept it on the kitchen counter underneath the phone.

Perfect place and if you’re wondering where to keep yours try and make that spot work. It’s a place you will walk by often in your day.

Fast forward several years and into a new home AND a new binder. I decided to upgrade to full 11 1/2 by 8 inch size. But…

8 months later I am still struggling for a place to put this thing!

Our new home has a very small kitchen with not much counter space (who designs small kitchens??!!). The phone jack is so close to the sink I’m afraid of it fall in. So we purchased one of those phone sets that come with a handset you only plug in. The rest of the sink holds my tea station (big tea drinker) and our dish drainer. The other parts of the counter are right next to the stove or the island which I’m attempting to keep clutter free.

This past weekend I gave up and decided to go back to my mini binder. It’s more my size and I really liked working with it. The only problem is the binder itself is dark blue and I WANT A CUTE ONE WITH MY FAVORITE COLORS! I can’t seem to find this style binder anywhere. It was made by Mead and the cover is like nylon. It zips closed and is just so completely handy.

Well until I find a new cover I will now put it on the tiny telephone table (but I have my eye on one of those little secretary desk type tables).

So we’ll see how it works.

Where do you keep your home organization binder?