I made it to the upstairs bedrooms

Stand by, because this spring clean project may take me a lot longer than I anticipated.  I remember now why I never wanted a two-story house.  Now we have one, so I better get in shape so I can climb the teensy stairs daily.  There is always a "treasure" hidden somewhere causing a foul odor.  Like today.

I have dropped all the dirty clothes and sheets to the bottom of the stairs, washed 3 loads of it, scrubbed mattresses, and put a reused shower curtain up for a closet door.  The upstairs is one main area, like in most old farm houses.  Someone, over the years, built a bedroom wall and door in the opposite end, creating a second bedroom.  Both have long closets, but no doors.  Luckily I still has a tension curtain rod, an old plain cotton white shower curtain, and believe it or not, still had hooks.  In no time I had the closet covered. 

Now I need to replace all the tiny kids clothes hangers with adult sized, vacuum and shampoo the carpet, clean the windows, and put up a curtain rod for one of the windows.  They destroyed the tension rod I had in the window, so this time a different one is going up.  I may have fabric to avoid buying curtains also.

It's been several hours and I am bone tired.  I even washed out dresser drawers.  Phew!  I think an iced tea is in order.

Recipe updates

The steel cut oat recipe, my mother e-mailed me, was a huge hit!  It cooked up in less than 7 hours, so I won't be making in at night, as the recipe suggests.  The kids ate it as an after-school snack and said it tasted like Apple Crumble!  We are keeping this recipe, as well as the squash muffin recipe.

The recipe came from the Kroger coupon magazine that gets mailed out.  I'll see if I can locate which one and post it later.

Today I am trying a new Crock pot beef stew recipe, however I am jazzing it up.  I added frozen tomatoes and corn from last years garden, which were the last two bags we had.  I am going to jazz it up with dried and fresh herbs from my garden in place of using beef broth (which is full of sodium).  I'll probably bake the squash muffins and make a salad too.

I am amazed at how little goes into the trash while I cook.  The styrofoam trays are washed and dried for crafting, and what doesn't go in the compost gets fed to the chickens (carrot peelings).  The onion peelings went into the trash.  From what I have researched, onions in the compost will deter worms.

Speaking of compost, I have found it interesting to hear that composting and gardening is too much work to some people.  More often than not.  The pioneers had no choice but to live off the land.  I am so glad we moved to the country so we can raise meat animals as well as grow a large garden and raise dairy animals. It may be work, but it's work that makes us happy to be living our lives.  We wouldn't want it any other way.

Afternoon update:
After seeing that our bounty of eggs is filling the fridge this afternoon, I decided to make Cheese and Chili Egg Casserole for the kids after school snack.  After that, the squash muffins are going in.  My tummy is growling for food.