A bit of spring cleaning

This past week, Matt had to go out of town, thus leaving me on my own to do everything and be everything to everyone.  Weeks like this are hard- I am not sure if it is the physical demands or the emotional ones that are more difficult to endure...probably the mixture of them both are what make it so difficult.  But it is hard and I hate it.

I wake up at 5:30 (it should be 5 to keep Penny on Matt's milking schedule, but it never is) and go out to do chores.  Milk the cow.  Muck a ridiculous amount of poo.  Haul 20 gallons of water from house to barn.  Bed the animals.  Give 'em all hay.  Strain the milk.  Wash the equipment.  Start the fire.  By this time the kids are up and wanting a hot breakfast.  Do that too.  Up until this point it is slam bang- hurry, hurry.  One thing right after another.   Only after all this does the day begin and I can have my own breakfast.  Then it is school. Help with the math that infuriates and brings tears. Read. Listen to how roosters fertilize eggs and the length, width, gestation age, living conditions of whales/eagles/house flies/cows. Tell the kids to get along. Talk.  Delegate.  Intervene. Tell the kids to settle down. Lunch. Haul more water.  Do all the above again until dinner.  Then it is haul more water, muck more poo, throw more hay.  Make dinner.  Get everyone settled down for bed.  Stay up until 1 am because I can't sleep in an empty bed, all alone without having talked with a grown-up at all the entire day, knowing more of the same is in store first thing in the morning; without the nightly snuggles, jokes and comfort of being in my Mister's arms and the slow and hypnotic breathing of his that eventually lulls me to sleep.  I close my eyes and in a moment, the alarm blares and it is back at it.

I did something I never do this week.  I asked for help.  I am not the 'ask for help' kind of person, I'd much rather trudge through and not let on that I may not be able to do everything...but I did.  I asked my mother in law if she would take the children for the day on Wednesday, giving me a break halfway through this no good, horrible, very bad all alone week.  And you know what?  She was happy to!

Wednesday morning, I woke the kids up early.  We did all the schoolwork I wanted to fit in (plus some!) and then, at 10 am I dropped them off.  They didn't come home until 8:30 that night.

I had big plans for the day.  I wanted to relax.  I wanted to read.  I wanted to sew and crochet and I even thought about how luxurious it would be to watch a movie right in the MIDDLE OF THE DAY. (I hear people do this...watch tv in the middle of the day...which seems to me the ultimate relaxing thing in the world.  Can't even imagine it.)

But you see, my house was a total wreck.  I had been given a van full of fabric over the weekend to sort through and which I did, creating (and leaving) piles of fabric to be kept or donated all over the living room floor.  I had been sorting through my bookshelves with piles of books for the book barn, piles to sell at my yard sale this summer and a pile of books my nephew might like.  Because I was on my own, I had been less diligent at getting the children to right the house and put things away before they went to bed.  I hadn't kept up with the house.  The mudroom was a pile of shoes, dirty socks that had been pulled off wet after playing the snow, bags of apples and winter coats.  It was bad.  It was very bad. I hadn't mopped the floor in the dining room for pretty much the entire winter- it was pointless given all the back & forth to the basement water valves with barn  boots on.

 (Incidentally...all your kind words on the last post are put soundly to rest, I hope.  *see comment on last post*)

So instead of taking a luxurious day off for myself to rest my weary bones (and spirit), I spent the day working particularly hard, righting a very wrong house.

I mopped.  I dusted.  I choked on the dirt and grime that swept into my nose from the mudroom floor.  I discovered a broken egg behind out nature table which had fallen on a borrowed book. (no!)  I changed the linens and doilies that hide the scratches and ruined wood from tables gotten from the side of the road.  I got rid of some extra coats and shoes that no longer fit.  I restocked my wheat and corn meal jars. I took down the quilt that protects the dining room from a frigid winter mudroom (joy!) and hung clothes on the line for the first time this year (though I had to trudge through a foot and a half of snow to do so.) I did all of this while listening to Gilead, uninterrupted.  For hours.  Which was just as luxurious as a movie in the middle of the day, by the way.

My favorite thing (besides taking down the quilt) was when I restored my stained glass lampshade (bought at a yard sale several years ago) to the living room.  It had been put upstairs after falling off of the rickety, broken side table in the living room too many times.  It is now wonky and a bit cracked- but on a sturdy table and a sturdier base so I get to enjoy it once again!  Yay!

That night, I lit candles and soaked my feet in a hot lemon rosemary foot soak and lamented a bit, the fact that I had wasted my one day of 'freedom' and spent it cleaning.  WHY would I have done that?!?!  I mean, it felt good to be sitting in a genuinely clean living room (not just tidied up) and it felt liberating to be free from worry at the state of the mudroom, should a visitor pop in unexpectedly.  But I wasn't rested at all.  And I didn't sew, or write or crochet or do any of those things I consider 'relaxing'.  Was I dumb to do it?  I wondered.  Was I dumb to waste my one chance on cleaning?

And then, about 10:30 pm, to my great surprise and delight, in walks a very tired Matt!  He had gotten done a weeks' worth of work in the space of three days and had come home two days early!  At that moment, when he walked in to a supremely tidy mudroom (the bane of my existence in this house), and a house to match it, smelling sweet and fresh with candles lit and my long missed stained glass lamp glowing bits of colored flowers, well, my tired feet and weary bones and 'wasted day' had not been wasted at all.  All was right as rain, in fact.

For the record, the very next morning, it looked like this:

That's life for you.

Milk Making

I set out yesterday to take care of the milk that had been accumulating from our jersey cow.  There were 15 gallons in the house.  I worked all day, often without even a square inch of freed space on the counter top and very often feeling like I was buried alive in dirty dishes but by the end of the day, I had made...

• Mozzarella... 7 large balls or about 7-8 pounds.  (I found a bag of mozzarella curds from a few days' before and finished them off while I was at it.) (6 gallons)
• Vanilla yogurt... 4 3/4 qts (1 gallon)
• Cottage Cheese... 2+ pounds (1 1/2 gallons)
• Garlic Queso Blanco- a large round (1 1/2 gallons)
• Onion Dill Queso Blanco- a large round (1 1/2 gallons)
• Hot Cocoa for snack (1/2 gallon)
• Mac N Cheese for lunch (using whey from the mozz making) 
• Cream Cheese- 2 batches (1/2 gallon)
• Butterscotch pudding for dessert (>gallon)
• Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl Ice Cream for the weekend(>gallon)
• Drinking (1 gallon)

Making the grand total 14 gallons used!  

As an aside- isn't it crazy how much of a difference a few hours make in photo taking?  The last few photos were taken after the sun went down- and boy, can you tell!  This is why I never update my food blog- because I can never take a nice picture of the food before it is snarfed down- and these days there is no chance of taking a picture of leftovers the next day.  

My children seem to all be going through growth spurts all at the same time!

Yesterday, I answered the phone while I was making breakfast and without realizing what I was doing- cracked 18 eggs for scrambled eggs while chatting on the phone.  18!!  I laughed and said I would have to refrigerate some for the next day but the children all begged to just eat them.  And they did!  18 eggs between four children!  Can you believe that?  And then, a few hours later, I suggested that they just skip lunch since they had such a big breakfast and oh, you would have thought the world was coming to an end.  Skip lunch!?!?  They'd hear nothing of it.  So they ate lunch too.

My little bottomless pits.  

A Milk Challenge

15 gallons of milk sit chilled in the mudroom and counter, waiting for me to stop pretending they aren't there and actually do something with them.  It is such a constant struggle for me to keep on top of milk, particularly on weeks when we have no one taking any off of our hands.  Every few days I make something but by the next morning, the milk I used up to make that something has been replenished from that mornings milking.  

When it gets to this point, I know something drastic must be done or I will never get caught up.  And quite frankly, I am kind of sick of it all.  So today I am taking a Dairy Maid challenge- challenges always seem to make the tediousness of kitchen work more fun- how many gallons can I use up in one day?  We shall see.

Expect a bunch of pictures of....MILK...tomorrow.  (how exciting.)

I'll not only tell you how I do, I'll show you.  

Sudsy

A friend of mine came over and we made soap last week.   We experimented with several different kinds of soaps and styles of soaps.

We added lavendar buds (that turned brown).

We made Amber Must, Lavender and Pina Colada scents. (The last was my favorite, the first was hers.)

We used metal molds and plastic ones.

We made soap 'cupcakes' using honey scent for the 'cupcake' and mixing pure cocoa for the frosting. (They look so real!)

We swirled in special soap pearly powder. (I LOVE that powder!)

We mixed coloring into half the soap 'custard' and swirled it in. (Pretty)

We added straight color to the already poured soap and swirled it in.  (I'm afraid we are going to wind up with purple hands when we use these bars.  Oops.)

The best part was that we found the most awesome soap recipe that is easier than making most dinners...you don't even have to monkey with temperatures!  (Score!)

Scratch that- the best part was the hours of laughter coming from the kitchen.  

That is always the best part.

Marching Through

 

 

March is the longest, coldest, most unbearable month of my year.  After many months of snowpants, coats, mittens, of socks and slippers I am more than ready for barefeet and going outside when the whim strikes and not after a lengthy bundling session- but the snow and icy winds linger and coats and boots still wait, dripping by the door.  After many months of half-hibernating (with the hiding out, but without the feeling of restfulness) I am anxious for stretching legs and woods walks and vitamin D soaked skin but the woods is still covered with feet of snow and the four walls still surround.  It is the longest month when all I think about is what is coming but not yet here.

I've been splurging the last few weeks at the grocery store, putting petals and stems of cheer in my cart alongside the eggs and vegetables.  And they have lasted for over a month and a half at a time...it is ridiculous, really.  I got the pink flowers above in January- and the tips of some fill glasses sitting on my piano (the last photo, taken just a few minutes ago).  Perhaps it due to the fact that our house is like the cooler at the florist shop or maybe it is just a winter miracle on my behalf.  But the $6.00 spent, stretched over a month and a half, is a worthwhile investment I'd say.  Flowers do so much to make a home and to brighten a soul, even in March.  Maybe especially in March.

Around this time, too, I begin to feel a little claustrophobic having spent the days within the same four walls and among the same clutter and pieces of Playmobil and blocks, legos and books, clothes drying on racks and clothes, outgrown.  I find that I have some sort of internal March clock that drives me to start changing things around.  Moving furniture, changing the view.  Creating bags to get out of the house for good.  

So that is what I've been doing.  The girls and I changed their room around and deep cleaned it in the meantime.  They've been choosing to sleep in the same bed every night and so one whole bed stays tidy the whole day long and we moved the desk/shelves to the other wall.  It was the first thing you saw from the hallway and with all of the girls' treasures (Corynn is particularly prone to keeping every.single.thing) it was never a nice and tidy view.  Moving that over to the other wall and the empty bed by the door, it is much more inviting to come into and much more bearable to walk past from the hallway too.   While we worked, Andrew lamented the fact that we weren't working in his bedroom.  Unfortunately, I am not sure how we could move things in the boys' room, since the bunk bed fits in like a sardine can- only one way and barely that.

I also moved the office computer and printer downstairs to the school room, because it was too freezing to type upstairs.  It has been so helpful to have it downstairs- and much more cozy.  And, turns out, the school room table which is hardly ever used for anything other than a dumping ground of craft supplies and school books/papers stays much more tidy with a computer on it.  So, that has helped with the chaotic, claustrophobic feelings too.  

Tomorrow is a date night with my Mister.   He finally did his annual birthday shave, a week or so late and that same day I gave him a long overdo haircut too.  I couldn't help but feeling almost naughty- as if I am having an affair with another man or something- how entirely different he looks!  Oh, how I've missed that chin.  It is a fine chin.   We are going to see this...super excited.  I'm hoping by watching it, he will want to install a babybox in our home.  

One can dream.