Thanks to my seventh grade FCS (Family and Consumer Sciences a.k.a. Home Economics) teacher (Mrs. Basstress) I have been doing my own laundry since the fateful assignment where we had to have our parents teach us how.
While I lived at home, and in the dorms at Penn State, laundry day was ALWAYS on Sunday. It made sense because we had the most time on those days. You were always back from traveling, and it gave you a fresh start to the week.
This habit of doing laundry on Sunday's stayed with me for a few years after college. In the first apartment my husband and I lived in, we did not have laundry machines in our apartment unit. They were in the building, but you had to carry the loads downstairs, pay by the load, and remember to go and rescue your clothes before someone came and snatched them. Because we were living in a complex that was primarily college students, I found that Sunday mornings were the best time to do laundry because no one else was awake yet.
After we moved when my husband graduated graduate school, we finally had our very own washer and dryer IN the apartment. I was over the moon (what an adult thing to be excited about). And the habit of laundry Sunday's remained. It actually stayed intact for a full five years after college, until I decided to change my habit this past summer.
We have moved (again) back to Pennsylvania and with the move my husband acquired a new work schedule that has him working late two nights per week. I decided that rather than "waste" the time that he was at work, I would try and be productive. And thus began a new laundry habit. When I would do laundry on Sundays I would do ALL the laundry on Sundays. This took HOURS because between my husband and I we typically had four loads of clothing, plus towels and/or sheets depending on the week.
When I first began my multi-day laundry system I would wash all of the clothes that were dirty on the days that I did laundry. It seemed easiest to just combine our piles together and wash them all at the same time. This worked for a while, until I started back to work in the fall, and then I had to start remembering which outfits I had worn as to not duplicate them within the same week (because unfortunately this is something that teenagers would notice).
I was beginning to become frustrated with this system, but with the low quality washer/dryer that we currently have, it was too much to do all of the laundry on one of Eric's long days. And thus resulted my current system, which for the past two months has been working quite nicely.
The first late night Eric works in the week I do my laundry. I produce two loads of clothing (we have a very small washer and a crappy dryer so they can't be huge loads) each week. Total these two loads take about four hours from start to finish. Eric produces a similar amount of clothing each week and so on his second late night, I do his laundry, again taking about four hours.
Not to worry, Sundays are still reserved for washing towels and sheets as needed, but by moving my laundry day(s) into the week, I have more time on the weekend to do things that I enjoy.
What is your families laundry schedule like? Have you ever tried something that failed miserably?
Until our next adventure (House Hunting!!)
~C
Monday, October 24, 2016
Monday, June 6, 2016
What Would You Do If You Weren't Afraid?
It's the final week of the school year! Can I get an AMEN from all my fellow teachers?! The end of this school year is especially exciting for me as this summer is bringing another move and I will thankfully be reunited with Eric after three months of living apart. It has been a long three months and I am looking forward to it being over.
In the course of the past three months I have started watching a few different vlogers on YouTube to pass some of my down time. One of my favorites is Ellie + Jared and although I watch their daily vlogs as they are posted, I also have been watching some of their past vlogs randomly as they pop up in the "suggested feed". I watched their first daily vlog and Jared asked the question "What would you do if you weren't afraid?" For Ellie and Jared this meant starting daily vlogs for a week and then taking it from there. Now they have been vlogging every day for two years.
Jared's question really struck a nerve with me as I have been feeling somewhat adrift recently with all of the changes in my life, and looking toward the future. I am a teacher, and most days I like being a teacher. However, in the back of my mind I struggle with determining if this is what I actually am meant to be doing. I have a lot of passions in my life: cooking, baking, photography. I would love to drop everything and follow these passions, but the logical side of my brain is just too strong and I can't bring myself to do this. In an attempt to meet Jared's challenge of doing what I would do if I wasn't afraid, I am going to start small this summer and try to work on this blog regularly. I haven't quite decided what "regularly" looks like yet: daily, MWF, etc, but I am looking forward to this adventure.
I hope you will follow me on this journey. I plan to blog about a wide variety of topics: cooking, baking, crafting, moving, life, adventure, etc. I hope that it will be interesting and a little informational, but I know it will be a good representation of who I am as a person.
Today is day one of my self-challenge of doing something that I am afraid of, and I am nervous and excited.
Until our next adventure,
C
In the course of the past three months I have started watching a few different vlogers on YouTube to pass some of my down time. One of my favorites is Ellie + Jared and although I watch their daily vlogs as they are posted, I also have been watching some of their past vlogs randomly as they pop up in the "suggested feed". I watched their first daily vlog and Jared asked the question "What would you do if you weren't afraid?" For Ellie and Jared this meant starting daily vlogs for a week and then taking it from there. Now they have been vlogging every day for two years.
Jared's question really struck a nerve with me as I have been feeling somewhat adrift recently with all of the changes in my life, and looking toward the future. I am a teacher, and most days I like being a teacher. However, in the back of my mind I struggle with determining if this is what I actually am meant to be doing. I have a lot of passions in my life: cooking, baking, photography. I would love to drop everything and follow these passions, but the logical side of my brain is just too strong and I can't bring myself to do this. In an attempt to meet Jared's challenge of doing what I would do if I wasn't afraid, I am going to start small this summer and try to work on this blog regularly. I haven't quite decided what "regularly" looks like yet: daily, MWF, etc, but I am looking forward to this adventure.
I hope you will follow me on this journey. I plan to blog about a wide variety of topics: cooking, baking, crafting, moving, life, adventure, etc. I hope that it will be interesting and a little informational, but I know it will be a good representation of who I am as a person.
Today is day one of my self-challenge of doing something that I am afraid of, and I am nervous and excited.
Until our next adventure,
C
Monday, February 22, 2016
Here we go again!
Another summer is approaching and so is another move. Although I am significantly more excited about this move than most of the previous ones because we will be moving closer to family, back to our home state, and hopefully to the area where we will be buying a house in the next 12-18 months!!! Yay for the future!
Since graduating from college (5 years ago) we have lived in five different apartments in four different zip codes and three different counties/towns. We are basically professionals at moving. Or we should be. Every time though I always feel overwhelmed at the massive to do list, and actually remembering everything that I need to do. Because this move is bigger and farther than we have ever moved before, there are a lot more moving parts that are going into the move and I am going to do my best to make sure that I don't miss anything, and that every step of the moving process is as smooth as possible.
I hope to be able to share with you some moving tips, and also maybe a few things to avoid (five moves is enough times to realize that there are somethings that you just should not do).
Because we are still very early on in the process I don't have too many tips to share today, but I can share what I have set up for the future.
Eric technically doesn't even have a starting date yet for his new job. This means that we still don't really know when he has to be moved. Because I will be finishing out the school year at my current school Eric is moving on his own first, and then I will follow. Unfortunately this means a few more months of double rent, and we are trying to make this overlap period as small as possible. This means that we haven't signed a lease because we want to put it off for as long as we can until we know his start date.
This past weekend, because we knew we were not going to be signing a lease, we did some online research instead of driving the 2.5 hours to physically go to the places. We used Apartment Guide, as our primary search engine. One suggestion that I would strongly encourage anyone who is moving to do is to drive around the area that you are planning to move to so that you have a general understanding of the layout of the area. We are by no means experts on the city we are moving to, but because we took a whole day and drove around we have some general landmarks in our minds when we are looking at a map. We drove past high schools, malls, shopping centers, etc. This has been extremely helpful when we find and apartment and are wondering where is it in relation to other businesses in the city.
What also really help us is that I have a cousin who lives in the area and we were able to get some inside "scoop" from her on good vs. bad places to live, and she also came with us on our tour to provide a little more information. Obviously not everyone has this luxury, but if you already have been hired in the place you are planning to move, ask your company if there is someone who would be willing to at least talk to you about the area, even if they can't drive around with you (and then make sure to treat them to lunch!).
Even today, with all of the technology that is around, I am still a pencil and paper girl at heart. I am not sure what it is, but I keep myself much more organized if I have a physical copy of whatever I am working on rather than just electronic. I mention this because everyone's organization system is going to be different. For us, we are using a 5-Subject spiral bound notebook to keep all of the information and lists that we are starting to collect/create.
So far we have a section for all the apartment information, contact numbers, rent prices, square footage measurements, amenities, etc. I have also begun a section about my job search/change. Being a math teacher there are a lot of moving pieces that I need to make sure I have in order when I begin my job search/application process. I need clearances to work in the schools, I need medical tests/records to prove I don't have contagious diseases, I need my teaching certificate to transfer to a new state. The list is quite extensive. Then I have also created a section to hold the information about the various schools that I may be applying to. I have so far created a list of all school districts within driving distance of our anticipated location and have begun my initial research on those districts.
Later in the process I plan to have sections of the notebook dedicated to moving/packing lists, address change lists (this list really is endless), etc. For me that is what works. If you have an app or an electronic organization system that works for you, then that's what you should use. I have found that if it doesn't work for me, I'm not going to use it.
Once Eric has a start date I am sure that I will have many more tips to share.
Until next time,
~C
Since graduating from college (5 years ago) we have lived in five different apartments in four different zip codes and three different counties/towns. We are basically professionals at moving. Or we should be. Every time though I always feel overwhelmed at the massive to do list, and actually remembering everything that I need to do. Because this move is bigger and farther than we have ever moved before, there are a lot more moving parts that are going into the move and I am going to do my best to make sure that I don't miss anything, and that every step of the moving process is as smooth as possible.
I hope to be able to share with you some moving tips, and also maybe a few things to avoid (five moves is enough times to realize that there are somethings that you just should not do).
Because we are still very early on in the process I don't have too many tips to share today, but I can share what I have set up for the future.
Eric technically doesn't even have a starting date yet for his new job. This means that we still don't really know when he has to be moved. Because I will be finishing out the school year at my current school Eric is moving on his own first, and then I will follow. Unfortunately this means a few more months of double rent, and we are trying to make this overlap period as small as possible. This means that we haven't signed a lease because we want to put it off for as long as we can until we know his start date.
This past weekend, because we knew we were not going to be signing a lease, we did some online research instead of driving the 2.5 hours to physically go to the places. We used Apartment Guide, as our primary search engine. One suggestion that I would strongly encourage anyone who is moving to do is to drive around the area that you are planning to move to so that you have a general understanding of the layout of the area. We are by no means experts on the city we are moving to, but because we took a whole day and drove around we have some general landmarks in our minds when we are looking at a map. We drove past high schools, malls, shopping centers, etc. This has been extremely helpful when we find and apartment and are wondering where is it in relation to other businesses in the city.
What also really help us is that I have a cousin who lives in the area and we were able to get some inside "scoop" from her on good vs. bad places to live, and she also came with us on our tour to provide a little more information. Obviously not everyone has this luxury, but if you already have been hired in the place you are planning to move, ask your company if there is someone who would be willing to at least talk to you about the area, even if they can't drive around with you (and then make sure to treat them to lunch!).
Even today, with all of the technology that is around, I am still a pencil and paper girl at heart. I am not sure what it is, but I keep myself much more organized if I have a physical copy of whatever I am working on rather than just electronic. I mention this because everyone's organization system is going to be different. For us, we are using a 5-Subject spiral bound notebook to keep all of the information and lists that we are starting to collect/create.
So far we have a section for all the apartment information, contact numbers, rent prices, square footage measurements, amenities, etc. I have also begun a section about my job search/change. Being a math teacher there are a lot of moving pieces that I need to make sure I have in order when I begin my job search/application process. I need clearances to work in the schools, I need medical tests/records to prove I don't have contagious diseases, I need my teaching certificate to transfer to a new state. The list is quite extensive. Then I have also created a section to hold the information about the various schools that I may be applying to. I have so far created a list of all school districts within driving distance of our anticipated location and have begun my initial research on those districts.
Later in the process I plan to have sections of the notebook dedicated to moving/packing lists, address change lists (this list really is endless), etc. For me that is what works. If you have an app or an electronic organization system that works for you, then that's what you should use. I have found that if it doesn't work for me, I'm not going to use it.
Once Eric has a start date I am sure that I will have many more tips to share.
Until next time,
~C
Monday, February 8, 2016
Same Recipe, Different Outcome
Have you ever had this happen? You find a recipe, you make it, you love it. Then you make the same recipe again at a later point in time and it just doesn't live up to the memory of the first time you made it.
I had this happen to me last night. I had found a recipe for Cincinnati Turkey Chili a while ago (like months) and I had made it, and Eric and I loved it. Then I had made it again for my parents when they were visiting, and we loved it then too. But I made the same recipe last night and I just did not think it was as good as I have made it in the past, and I want to know WHY!?!
So I have been thinking back over what I may have done differently. Here is what I have come up with:
1. I used vegetable broth instead of chicken broth
2. I used 80/20 ground turkey instead of the 93/7 that I usually buy
3. I didn't measure the amount of chocolate I added at the end
Now, I am not a food expert. I typically struggle to understand the way that things work together and "flavor profiles" and fancy cooking terms (I have been watching a lot of Worst Cooks in America lately), but if I had to rank those in order of impact on the taste of my dish I would guess that the fat content of the meat probably had the biggest affect, followed by the broth.
Tonight I am planning on making baked ziti with Italian sausage. We need to get our meat fix in before Lent starts and then we can't eat meat on Friday's (or I guess this Wednesday).
Anyway, if you have ever had the issue that I am having (making the same thing multiple times and having it taste different) let me know why, or what happened.
Until our next adventure,
C
Saturday, February 6, 2016
Excitement and Fear: Two Sides of the Same Blade
One of the most exciting times in our lives began about a month ago and will be continuing for the next... unknown number of months. Something that I have been wanting so badly for the last five years is finally starting to become a reality. And although I am extremely excited and grateful at the way that our lives are headed, I am also terrified.
Eric and I have always wanted to move back to Pennsylvania (more specifically out of Delaware) and now it would seem that will be happening within the next six months. Eric has been applying to new clinics and going on very successful interviews. We have explored cities and towns where we could potentially be moving to, and every adventure has been filled with excitement and anticipation.
This is what we want, this is what I want, this is what will move us on the path toward our future: a house, kids, being settled closer to family and friends. And yet in the quiet moments when I am by myself my excitement and anticipation is coupled with a near crippling fear. This is it. I have felt stuck in limbo for so long, an adult on my own, but not truly grown up. And now that the fog is lifting I'm afraid? How does that make any sense?
Part of my fear stems from the daunting task of moving so far, to yet another new place. I have never been a fan of change (even when it is something that I have wanted). The uncertainty and uneasiness of it all is just uncomfortable for me to deal with. I do not enjoy having to learn new roads, new businesses, new rules about new places, and meeting new people. Beginning over again is not something that I was good at because it was not something that I ever really had to do before I moved to Delaware five years ago and got my first "big girl job". Even with transitioning between three school, five apartments, and three cities/towns it is still scary and uncomfortable for me.
But I am trying to look on the bright side, focus on the positives, and trust that this is the right move, the right path to follow, the last real transition. And that is exciting.
I will likely post more updates as this process continues and of course still try to continue my cooking/baking/crafting posts, but I am looking forward to this journey and I hope that it is quick, smooth, and as painless as can be.
On a Pinterest note, I tried making mug french toast this morning. FAIL. Well, not a total fail, but I would not ever make it again. Real french toast is the only way to be.
Monday, January 25, 2016
Work/Life Balance
Everyone says the 20's are the prime of your life... maybe I'm doing something wrong, but these past few years have been so stressful that I find it very difficult to believe that this is "as good as it gets".
One thing that I have really been struggling with is creating a work/life balance that actually works. I have not been able to really feel successful in both areas. What's more is that the more hobbies that I start experimenting with, the less I care about work. How horrible does that sound? I am training the future of our nation and I can't find the motivation. I want to explore my hobbies more and more and I would love to be able to turn those hobbies into work, but I don't know how.
Regardless, one of my new hobbies is photography. Here is my favorite picture from today (we had a snow day thanks to winter storm Jonas)
Eric and I are getting ready to potentially move again and so I hope to keep you updated on our next life steps. Hopefully they will also involve me pursuing my hobbies even more.
Until next time,
C
One thing that I have really been struggling with is creating a work/life balance that actually works. I have not been able to really feel successful in both areas. What's more is that the more hobbies that I start experimenting with, the less I care about work. How horrible does that sound? I am training the future of our nation and I can't find the motivation. I want to explore my hobbies more and more and I would love to be able to turn those hobbies into work, but I don't know how.
Regardless, one of my new hobbies is photography. Here is my favorite picture from today (we had a snow day thanks to winter storm Jonas)
Eric and I are getting ready to potentially move again and so I hope to keep you updated on our next life steps. Hopefully they will also involve me pursuing my hobbies even more.
Until next time,
C
Thursday, December 17, 2015
"Cookie Monday"
So this isn't a cookie recipe, and it's definitely not Monday, but work has been insane for the past four days because it is the last week before Christmas break and the kids are off the walls and I am going crazy trying to get everything done so that I can have an enjoyable Christmas break, but here it is anyway...
Cinnamon Sugar Pecans
(recipe and picture here)
These are so easy to make, and turn out soft and tender which is WAY better than the candied nuts that you buy at the fair or the boardwalk. You are not going to be in danger of cracking a tooth while enjoying these delightful treats!
The only problem you are going to have is stopping yourself before eating ALL of them. And an added benefit is that your house will smell amazing. I will tell you that it is a big time commitment because they bake for an hour, and you have to stir them every twenty minutes, but it is completely worth it.
I made a batch for Eric and I about a week ago, and we have been demonstrating a lot of self control and the small amount that we have left is still just as tender as when I took them out of the oven (although slightly less decadent because they aren't warm anymore).
Since baking that batch for us, I have made five additional pounds that other people have purchased, and I have to make another two pounds tonight for someone. They are very easy to make yourself, but if you'd like me to make them for you I sell them for $15 for one pound, and $25 for two pounds (plus shipping costs).
Make sure that if you make these, you have someone to share them with so that you only have to feel guilty about eating half the batch instead of the whole thing!
Until next time,
~C
Preview: next Cookie Monday will be about my great-grandmothers lemon butter cookies which are a Christmas tradition in my household! I can't wait to make them with my Dad on Saturday.
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