November # 6 - homemaking today

Hello everyone 

My husband was away helping his parents over the weekend so I used some of my alone time to freshen up and clean our home.  

So today,  I had plenty of time to sew.  

I made 3 aprons for the 3 grandchildren that don’t live near us.  

Two of them were sewn from some printed panels my mother in law asked me to sew. 

 But I know all 3 of the siblings will want aprons so I made a 3rd one for the oldest.  It’s fun fabric,  aprons printed on an apron 

I stopped at Walmart to get some cookie mixes to mail with the aprons and found these 2 along with lots of other flavors in the same brand.  

They look like flavors children will like.  They also had gingerbread,  several colors of sugar cookies and several kinds of edible cookie dough mixes in the same brand and all at the same price.   

When I got to the post office to mail this and another gift,  the line was so long- I felt like leaving but I got in the line and thankfully everyone was masked and standing at a distance and the line went much faster than I expected.  

My husband asked for raisin bread so I baked some in the bread machine.  It tastes delicious but didn’t rise much,  

I tested my yeast afterward and the yeast was quite active so I guess next time I should let the raisin bread dough mix in the machine but then let it rise in a baking pan and bake it in the big oven. 

Supper was chicken tacos with canned refried beans and corn.  

It’s cold here but no snow like I’m hearing other bloggers talk about in other states.  

Tomorrow is December 1 and I’ve been thinking all day that I’d like to try to blog every day until Christmas - kind of a Blogmas like youtubers that do daily December videos and call it Vlogmas.  I don’t expect I just invented Blogmas,  but I don’t remember anyone else calling it that.  

So,  I’m planning and hoping to do daily posts for the next 24 days - 

Christmas gatherings will be different this year but I still plan to do Christmas things,  they just might be on a smaller scale than in the past.  

I’ll be blogging about that and about just my normal home stuff.  

Hope you all are well.  

See you tomorrow 

❤️ Rhonda ❤️

November #5 getting ready for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving 2020 will be different this year.  I’m cooking some of the same foods and leaving others off as I won’t be feeding nearly as many as usual.

We will do a porch food swap with one of our children- he’s bringing cheeseball and pumpkin tiramisu and I’ll give him deviled eggs and mini pies.  

My parents are sequestered in their apartment.  They are being extra careful as there have been Covid cases in their building.  We will send a meal up to them via the bucket and rope  on their balcony.  

Since we are already enjoying our Christmas tree,  I never got out fall decorations.  I looked through them this morning and was happy to find  leftover paper goods from last year 

This is my simple menu plan 

🥧🥧🥧🦃🦃🦃🥔🥔🥔🫒🫒🫒🧀🧀🧀🧈🧈🧈🥚🥚🥚🍽🍽🍽🫖🫖🫖

I gathered up some of the ingredients to make sure I have what I was planning - fresh/frozen stuff is still in the fridge.  

The turkey is thawing in the sink covered with water.  

The only 2 time consuming dishes to prepare are the pie crusts and deviled eggs.  

So, I made the pie crusts this morning and they are now in the freezer waiting for Thursday morning.  Then I’ll thaw them and fill them and bake.  

My pie crusts taste good but I’m afraid no matter how I try,  my crusts just  look primitive.  

Happy Thanksgiving to all 🇺🇸Americans,  however your holiday looks this year.   

I’d love to hear how you’re doing Thanksgiving in 2020 

❤️ Rhonda 

November #4 rooms we’ve redone

Hello everyone

I finally got these rooms ready for photos and here they are.  I’m very glad everything looks fresh and very decluttered but it was a lot of work.  We gave away stuff,  took 3 loads to Goodwill and 2 loads of boxes to the recycle center.  There are still a few things left on my to do list but they will happen as we have time and energy.  

The biggest change was the new carpet in 3 bedrooms and hall.  It is Stainmaster from Lowe’s and we are very happy with the carpet but the process went so badly, I won’t spell out all details but  the manager refunded 30% of the purchase price.  So that kind of the made up for the terrible customer service.  

This is the grandchildren’s room.  It has a new trundle bed and new curtains.  

And new coffee tables with edges around the top to keep the Legos and Calico Critters corralled.  

The bed and table are from Amazon. 

The guest room/ “just in case” food room is hard to photograph.

I ordered lamps for this room, but we liked them so much, we put them in the master bedroom and have reordered the same ones for this room. 

Lots of food,  checked curtains from Amazon

Also in the guest room - nothing new though 

This is the sewing room and computer room.  3 of our vintage Ethan Allen pieces were moved in here and they are great storage.  

The work table is new and from Walmart 

The desk got a coat of paint, check curtains from Amazon

This rolling cart is for the grandchildren when they want to freestyle craft.  

It’s from Amazon.  

These hall photos show the carpet 

Breakfast room has new curtains from Vermont Country Store and a dining set from Walmart 

Formal dining room had no changes except we took the leaves out of the table several months ago. -no big family meals have happened here since covid anyway 

The living room is not finished - we need to repaint and change around the art but that will come later.  

And yesterday I decided to just go ahead and decorate for Christmas too.

The braided rug and check curtains are new.  

Living room from the other end 

Close up of these Santas  because I think they are so cute 

When I visit blogs and try to comment,  it tells me I am not signed in.  ☹️ I try to sign in and then it still says the same thing.  

I will try to get it figured out this week 

Have a good week everyone - anyone else already decorated for 🎄 Christmas? 

❤️🇺🇸🏡 Rhonda

November #3 To do list, Dollar Tree finds, etc

Good morning everyone 

Here’s my to do list for this week, starting Tuesday - it’s not prettied up but soon my crafting things will be where I can get to them and I’ll craft whenever I want to 

We did vote and when we got to our polling place, there was a longer line than we were expecting.  We got in line and a polling working was checking IDs and registration cards.  He checked ours almost as soon as got there and took us right in, with no waiting.  (I’m not sure why,  I think in Oklahoma, you can vote anywhere but since we were voting at our correct precinct,  there was a much shorter list to find our names on.  I’m just glad we didn’t have to wait) 

We did a few errands afterward,  including a stop at Dollar Tree.  

I found the plaid wrapping paper I was looking for and a plaid bow that I think will be our tree topper this year.  

Right now,  I’m planning on using Campbell Soup ornaments as the theme, and since Campbell is a Scottish name,  plaid seems to be I should use with it.  

With all the home projects we’ve been doing,  meals have been very simple.  

Last night was make your own Chef Salad and they were delicious 

I’m also having some blogger problems.  I can sign in to my blog and do posts. 

But when I try to comment on other blogs,  it says I’m not signed in and I can’t comment.  Hopefully I will figure it out soon - but who knows?🤷🏻‍♀️ 

Have a good Tuesday everyone 

Rhonda ❤️🏡🇺🇸

November #2 bleaches are not all the same

I recently learned something about different types of bleach. 

I’ve always used bleach when I do white laundry - to whiten it and to kill germs.  

And during Covid, I think lots of people use bleach who didn’t before.  

There are  2 kinds of bleach- brand doesn’t matter.  

One is just regular bleach and one is called no-splash or dripless.  That’s not the only difference.  

The plain bleach kills 99.9% of germs 

While the dripless kind just whitens, brightens and deodorizes.  

So if you’ve bought bleach to fight germs,  you might want to check and see if you have germ killing formula. 

It doesn’t matter what brand - the no splash kind for any brand is not a germ killer while the original formula does kill germs.  

I know lots of people never use bleach and prefer natural or less harsh cleaners.  

But I like to kill germs and will watch my bleach labels from now on.  

November #1 hello

Hello everyone.  Yes,  I’m still here and still busy with our home interior changes.  I can’t say they have gone smooth as silk but it is all starting to come together and we are very happy with the results.  

And I’ll show things when it’s done.  

October 31 is not my favorite today but children sure like it, especially for the candy.  

I made these treats for my grandchildren- 

Latex Gloves that are so 2020 were  filled with candy and little toys I bought last year on clearance for .09 a bag.  

We do have 8 grandchildren and their gloves were already mailed to them when I took this photo.  

I didn’t feel  comfortable being face to face with the trick or treaters last night so I set up this little table, blocking the front door. 

I put a sign on it that said "take 1 each.  Happy Candy Day”

Then I watched at the window and refilled as needed.  

The children all took 1 and our dog wasn’t crazy all evening with the doorbell ringing.  

This worked out great.  

We only had about 40 children come by and past year’s, we have had many more.   But everything is different, right?  

Last week there was an ice storm in Oklahoma.  Most all the trees still had their leaves so the ice made them especially heavy.  Many broke or fell and much of the state lost  power.  

Thankfully our power was only off 8 hours or so.   

We have a gas fireplace that kept us cozy. 

And we don’t have any limbs to clean up because we don’t have any trees in our yard-  we have lots of plants but no trees.  

There is a beautiful home behind these damaged trees.  It’s near my parents home and the way all the limbs are broken and hanging down, the house can hardly be seen now.  

That’s what most trees around our area look like after the ice.  

Happy November everyone 

❤️🏡❤️

Rhonda