Sunday, September 2

See what happens when I don't check off my bedtime routine list? I forget to soak the oats for breakfast. Here it was the first day of September, the first day of FlyLady's new habit of doing up a good evening routine...and I didn't do mine. Goes to show I need to pay attention. I have five routines on a doc file that often lives *up* on my computer screen, which is just around the corner from the kitchen. The most important two are the morning and evening routines. I've also written an after-work one but mostly just wing it. The other two are the contents of my work-out bag for a Curves work-out or an Aquafit work-out.

So I had Fiber One for breakfast with a diced peach and vanilla yogurt. I suppose it doesn't hurt to change it up once in awhile anyway! A mocha while I checked my email and did morning computer things. Off to church. Home to reheat clam chowder for my lunch and to put my brewing sourdough starter into bread dough to rise.

When FlyLady does Fire Drills, she often says to come in your front door and clean up the first hot spot you see. Ouch. I've been ignoring FlyLady! My hot spots start outside the door, on the top of the deep freezers under the porch overhang. One freezer is empty now (waiting for butchering day on the farm) and so it has become covered with stuff. The other freezer I have to get in and out of daily so it doesn't accumulate so much. Then the hot spots only increase when you enter my house. That entry area is my biggest enemy as it contains not only my washer and dryer but all the coats & shoes, the vet supplies and ropes and fence testers, the canning supplies, recycling...all the stuff most people would store in their basement. Which I don't have. Nor do I have another door into my house. I am not the first person to live in this house and hate this room--my in-laws never took care of it either. It has inadequate storage, no finished ceiling, and unpainted concrete block walls. It is ugly, which makes it quite easy to let stuff build up in there.

And we have a plan for the room which we haven't gotten to yet. It will be months before we do, if it even takes place in 2007-08. I try not to get my hopes up too high, though the room is definitely on the list after the kitchen gets finished. Meanwhile I ignore it as best as I can, and in between I muck the place out.

Now, Jean, you know more than you wanted to know about why I needed this to be Entryway Week at FlyLady!

So quick before I found out it wasn't, I decided to do some work in the outside area of the entry this afternoon. I spent an hour and a half out there (in 15 minute segments) and it still isn't finished but it is vastly improved. Because Monday is a holiday, I hope to have it sort of complete by the end of tomorrow. In that time period I've also done some work on the inside section of the entry, mostly hauling things to our *guest cabin* for storage. Our kids moved into a smaller space and sent some seasonal--and other little used--stuff home for storage but I hadn't made the effort to just take it across the yard yet. So I did make a ton of progress but it's still a mess. Surprise.

Speaking of surprises, I found one just outside the storage cabin. It looked suspiciously like bear scat but rather small. Talking to hubby on the phone later he thinks it may be skunk or coyote. Either way, I can't think of a good reason to wander around my yard in after dark this week.

On one of my breaks I had a handful of peas and three wasa crackers with smoked salmon cream cheese. When my whole-grain sourdough bread came out of the oven I treated myself to two slices with margarine. It's all sliced up, bagged, and in the deep freeze now.

On another break I read a bunch of testimonials on FlyLady from gals who work full-time. Most of them have kids at home, too. Really I haven't got it so bad! I was looking for some tips for the working gal and think I need to get into FlyLady habits at work too.

Come supper time I picked off green beans in the garden and sauted them up with shrimp and a bit of garlic. A bit later I finished off the applesauce I made yesterday morning (with vanilla yogurt and All Bran). Today I made a serious effort to think about what I was eating. As my friend Bonnie says, sometimes you just have to accept feeling a little hungry. I had a serious desire for a sweet snack this afternoon and finally succumbed to a can of Coke Zero. Even though it has no calories, I really don't want to be drinking something laden with caffeine and aspartame on a regular basis. Who knew there were so many evils in the world!

So it seems time to plan this week's menu again. It's kind of a laugh because last week I followed the menu about half the time. The rest of the time I just wung it. I'm not sure if that's because I planned poorly or what, but it can't hurt to have the right stuff for a bunch of good meals on hand. Obviously I should make sure some of them are all frozen or otherwise packaged so that there is no great financial loss to putting them off for another week.

I wandered FlyLady's website and landed in the slow cooker recipes section (**corrected to be the general slow cooker table of contents). I copied a dozen or more over into a doc file to try. I've had a slow cooker for over fifteen years and have periodically gone through spurts where I'd use it a fair bit for a couple months and then quit again. So I think we're setting up for another spurt! It would be cool to use it for supper every eighth day--the day hubby is due to head back to work. That way supper would be ready early enough for him to hit the road at a decent time, plus he'd have leftovers to take along for a meal or two.

Don't know who all besides Jean is reading this blog these days, but I'd sure love it if YOU (whoever you are!) might post a slow cooker recipe in comments (whatever day it happens to be when you post it). Seems like a pretty cool tool that is likely under-used by 95% of the people who own one. I'll try a recipe some time this week and post it up too. Deal?

And yes, my evening routine is done and my oats are soaking. WooHoo!

P.S.--Okay, I'm an addict. Just checked FlyLady again and this IS Entryway week! I'm off to a good start! (If you don't have a troubled entryway or front porch as I do, FlyLady recommends your dining room this week. Good to go!)