Household Tips

This post is inspired by my friend Angie's new blog. I think her new blog is a fabulous idea, and already I've gotten some great tips. She invited anyone that wanted to to become a contributor on the site. Sadly, as previously discussed here, I am not at all crafty and/or domestic. So I just read the blog for great ideas.

Anyway, when I was a newlywed in our first ward in Castle Dale I got this cute little booklet from the Relief Society. It contains the greatest household tips! The following are MY type of household tips:

HOW TO HAVE A CLEAN HOUSE

If your family has never noticed your resemblance to the "White Tornado" when it comes to cleaning and if your cleaning ranks up there with squishing the green worms in the tomato vines, these methods may be ones you'll want to adopt:

1. Don't have children.

2. Hire help.

3. Choose friends whose homes are worse than yours.

4. Pick a spouse who finds joy in making things shine.

5. Keep the shades and drapes pulled and the lights low.

Another great tip:

Always keep your vacuum cleaner near the front door. If someone comes to your home unexpectedly, it gives the impression that you either just finished vacuuming, or you were just about to vacuum.

The booklet actually has some really great practical tips. Too bad I've only looked at it a few times in the past 14 years(and tried even fewer)! Here are a few:

When you have forgotten to take the butter out of the fridge for a recipe, shred it like a carrot. The pieces will be soft enough to use.

For smells in the garbage disposal, grind half a lemon, orange, or grapefruit in it.

Vinegar will remove ink stains very easily.

If your dress is clinging to your slip, wear the slip wrong side out.

If you eat soup with a plastic spoon, it will cool faster. Metal spoons retain the heat.

For dull scissors: Cut a piece of sandpaper into strips. You'll have sharp scissors.

An out-of-season blanket takes up no valuable storage space if you fold it flat and lay it smoothly between the mattress and box springs.

Shake a little talcum powder or cornstarch on knotted cords or shoelaces and knot pull apart rather easily.

To clean the garbage disposal, but 1/2 cup vinegar in an ice cube tray, fill the tray with water and freeze. Grind the vinegar cubes down the disposal once a week. The ice cubes sharpen the blades and the vinegar cleans and freshens the disposal.

For rusting knives: Stick them through an onion for 1/2 hr then wash and polish. Wipe them with a light coating of vegetable oil to keep the rust from coming back.



Maybe after reviewing all of these tips I'll feel inspired to clean today!

Even More Stuff I Need

So a couple of months ago I decided that I needed to record all the daily episodes of 10 Years Younger on TLC. They play two episodes a day, so the episodes got back logged pretty quickly. The list of recorded episodes got rather overwhelming actually, so I canceled all future recordings. I couldn't bring myself to delete any of the episodes I had recorded. It felt like throwing away something I worked hard for. Kind of like that feeling you would get at Kiddie Kandids back when everything wasn't digital and they'd print your pictures before you got to see them. Even when one of the pictures of your children was truly terrible and you really disliked it you would still buy it because it felt like you were abandoning your poor kid at Kiddie Kandids if you didn't. So I didn't delete those episodes. I watched every single one of them. It took a while, but I did it. I love watching them transform people. When I was younger (my teens and 20's) I thought that plastic surgery was ridiculous and I could not understand why people would do such things to their face and body. Then one day I turned 31 years old. That was the day I noticed the giant crevice that had developed on my forehead. That was the day I became okay with plastic surgery. I say if it makes you feel and look better then go for it! In moderation of course. I still don't understand why people want to look like this.

So here is a new list of things I NEED, in part inspired by watching so many episodes of 10 Years Younger, and mostly inspired by the realization that I am not okay with aging. I would like to have all and or any combination of these that will make ME look 10 years younger!

Teeth Whitening This would include new resin bonding between my teeth so the color would match (there is a large gap between my front teeth)
Botox (just a little to deal with the crater wrinkle from squinting)
Microdermabrasion
Fraxel Laser Treatments (or what ever is going to deal with the redness and broken blood vessels in my cheeks).
Laser Hair Removal (so I don't have to tweeze those two man whiskers that keep cropping up on my face, and the bikini area, because someday I will lose weight and wear a swim suit again).
Lasik Surgery
Laser Pore Reduction
A custom fitting by The Wizard of Bras
A new wardrobe!

Not Going So Well

Project Love Myself More Than I Love Food is not going so well. Why? I'll tell you why. Because places like this one exsist. Loving myself more than I love food may just be impossible people. Because I LOVE food. Also, it is not helping that I don't love exercise. I've got to buckle down and try, because I'm almost 34, which makes me almost 35. THIRTY-FIVE. Holy crap, that is OLD. If I have to be old, I could at least have a smokin' hot body to offset the oldness, right?

Create

So lately I've been planning in my head a monster post about how I am not creative or really all that domestic. I was going to describe how completely lost I feel as a professional homemaker. Because there is nothing at all professional about the way I do it. I can't sew, I'm not a great cook, I have no interest in interior decorating (our home would be rather bare without Nash, he handles that stuff). I don't enjoy scrapbooking, tole painting, or crafts in general. I rarely bake anything, and if I do it was previously frozen. I'm no good when it comes to dressing girls or doing their hair. I'm not a great housekeeper (although when I get around to it I can make a bathroom sparkle). I was going to say that I feel like I am failing my family, because quite frankly I stink at running a household. I should have been fired a long time ago.

My friend, Angie, posted this video on her blog the other day. It is part of a talk Elder Uchtdorf gave at the women's conference during the last general conference. Thanks Angie for the reminder. I may not be the average homemaker, but I do have the capacity within me to create. I may not always recognize what my strengths are, but I do have them! The critic that is paralyzing me is ME!