Mundane chores or as I like to call it, bonding with my kitchen...

Sometimes, the same ole thing just gets boring. That was the case with my same ole, same ole dishes.

I decided it was time for a change. I was finally going to replace these clear glass dishes and the chipped black stoneware ones with a matching set. I ordered eight small square plates and eight bowls. I could have purchased an entire set, but didn't want the cups or the large plate, so I just ordered them individually. They are very pretty--red and black. 

While dishes may not seem like an important part of your life, think about all the times you look at them. There are all those meals; breakfast, lunch, and dinner, ever day. How many times do you wash the same old dishes, over and over again? Sometimes I wash them by hand, but mostly I use the dishwasher, loading and unloading day after day.

The dishes hold all the leftovers. They are sometimes vessels for cat food or they can hold tiny nuts and screws when I'm trying to fix something and have to take things apart. I've used these dishes to death. It is time for a change.

I'm a little ahead of myself. I actually have parts of two sets of dishes that I use everyday. Ours is an eclectic household.

One set of our dishes is older than the other. One contains dinner plates, salad plates, bowls, and cups that we've used for so long I can't even remember where they came from. They are clear glass, yet have been very durable. Replacement pieces can be found at garage sales and stores like Walmart and Target. I guess that is why we still have at least a serving for eight. For two people, that may sound a little excessive, but I'm not so sure it is. Thinking back, we used those dishes when are kids were still home. That was a long time ago.

A few years ago, we came across a real bargain--an interesting set of black square dishes that both my husband and I really liked. They were dirt cheap, a service for four, which seems to be how most dishes are sold nowadays. Isn't it funny how the price for four is now what it used to cost for eight? At any rate, we started using these new, pretty, stoneware dishes. We found that we liked square plates better than round ones, though I'm not sure why. We used the salad plates regularly because the dinner plates were just too huge. Of the entire set, the only thing we really used were the four salad plates. They were just the right size for us.

There were only two bowls with the set. I don't know if there were two that had broken, or if there were only supposed to be two. We don't use them however, because they are way too big for one serving size of cereal or salad. There were four cups too, but again, they were huge. Because they are stoneware, a whole cup of coffee would be too heavy to hold comfortably.

The bottom line is that we were still using many of the pieces of clear glass dishes; we used the bowls, salad plates, and cups. Admittedly, when I didn't do the dishes in time, we were relegated to using the old round clear dinner plates.

They came this week. Lo and behold, the plates are much smaller than I had hoped. I ended up ordering the large plates after all. They will arrive next week and we will finally have matching dishes once again.

I wanted a nice, clean place to put them, so I ended spending the morning cleaning cabinets. One thing led to another, resulting in a little spring cleaning. I cleaned and rearranged most of the cabinets in the kitchen, moved some things around, throwing away some unnecessary junk and filling a box for a future garage sale. I even cleaned off the top of the refrigerator, a place my 5'2" self never sees. That was epic in itself. That led to cleaning out the refrigerator, and making a few salads we can enjoy in the coming days.

Funny how one thing leads to another, including organizing the spice cabinet. I wonder how hard it will be to find things in my new, improved kitchen?

I worked hard today, but bonding with my kitchen was good and satisfying. Thank you Springtime, for the added burst of energy and enthusiasm that always happens at this time of year.

Let's get organized!

I am not the kind of person that enjoys keeping a clean house, a clean desk, or anything that requires being neat and tidy--far from it. But there are times...

This photo is the result of the latest-dual-effort-clean-out-the-pantry project. My husband John and I tackled the job together, which actually made it go much more quicker. We even got to laugh about some of the things we found, like canned goods with an expiration date of 2001. That means some of them were old when we lived in our old house, but we moved them here only to get even older.

I got to clean the bottom shelves; John got to clean the top. That works out just fine for us since he's tall. I'm not. Without even discussing it, he handled taking out the trash while I organized the products onto the shelves. I guess that is the beauty of being married a long time--we have our own duties based on what each of us is good at. We don't even have to think about it.

Truth is, I'm very picky about where I want things. All the tomato products go together, labels forward, neatly stacked. This discipline probably originated one of my first jobs at a grocery store. That was back when I was a teenager. Some things stick with you. Besides, I have a natural penchant for order, when I feel like it.

I also like connections. So, from the tomato products, like canned tomatoes, tomato paste, sun-dried tomatoes, the natural progression to toward tomato soup, pork and beans, then to dried beans. Another great connection are the noodles--spaghetti, lasagna, egg noodles, and other kinds of pasta. They are never far from rice products, which includes basmatti, long grain, white rice and couscous.

I've always been funny about what I call my "order thing." By all appearances, people who don't really know me would never guess that I have such a condition. I've never been a slave to my house or office. If there is something I want to do, say work on a quilt, write in a blog, or watch a movie, there can be chaos all around me. I don't fret over it, or even pay attention to it, until I feel like it. I certainly never let myself feel guilty over it, for I know it will be waiting for me when I'm darned good and ready to tackle it. And I always do eventually.

When I finally getting around to something like this, I always feel a sense of satisfaction. Cleaning out may be essential for health, but organization is good for the soul.

Taking the spring cleaning outdoors

Wow, I'm still tired from hours spent working in our Ozarks gardens.

It was time to move the nesting instinct closer to where nests usually are--outside.

Our toil involved raking, leaf blowing, burning, digging, mulching, weeding, cleaning, planting, mowing, and lots of other things.

 Pictured here, was our biggest accomplishment. At left, my husband John is trying to coax down a branch that had fallen during the ice storm in January, 2009. For the past three years, the huge branch that had broken off has just been hanging there teasing us into trying to pull it down. Unfortunately, all our attempts only succeeded in wedging it more tightly into the fork of two branches. Last winter, we decided to just wait until Mother Nature took care of it, finishing the job she started three years ago.

Piece by piece, the old branch weakened. Pieces of it would fall here and there--until this week. With a little coaxing, we are finally rid that old oak tree of this hideous reminder of that horrible storm when the power was out for five days and so many trees were damaged, not just on our property but in the whole southern portion of the country. Arkansas was hit hard; so were Missouri and Kentucky.

I'm so happy the thing is finally gone!

One of our other accomplishments was rejuvenating the magnolia garden next to the porch, so named by its most prominent occupant.

It may not look like much, but getting this garden back into shape is always  a chore! When we created the garden, we got rid of as much Bermuda grass as we could. We pulled, tilled, burned and mulched. It was like a never-ending task to keep this garden weeded. But this year, after our seven-plus inches of rain, the weeding was fairly easy. The soil amendments we have been adding for years seems to have finally paid off too. We now have a nice little bed in which to plant more perennials and perhaps a few herbs. A few are coming back from previous plantings.

John cleaned the barrel and got the pump running in the little water feature on the left. It is always nice to hear water run while while sitting on my wicker rocker and sipping iced tea. In the late afternoon, while taking one of my many and final breaks, I watched a frog hop all the way from near the road to the garden to claim his place. Last night I heard him croaking, so he is apparently doing a little spring nesting of his own.

I brought most my house plants outdoors for the season. My aged spider plant is visible in the above picture. We moved Lady Spider here with us eight years ago. She sits on the rusty old milk can next to the house in the shade garden alongside the house. She seems perfectly happy there. That is probably because there are no cats lying in her pot or eating her leaves. For some reason, the cats just love to nibble on her leaves.

Another chore that we undertook was the decision
to turn an overgrown garden area near the road into a wildflower garden. We had only briefly touched this area. It is just a bit too far to reach with the hose. Note to self: We will need to work on that. There are two peonies, a clump of irises and a few daffodils that were planted by previous owners of the property. We may move the peonies, but the rest can stay.

Part of that project involved one of my favorite springtime chores--burning leaves and brush. The before and after pictures show the world of difference.

Fire is exciting, but very scary. During my days as a journalist, I followed too many fire trucks to grass and field fires to ever take fire for granted. I certainly didn't want to cause an innocent burn to get out of control. I'm very cognizant of what can happen.

Needless to say, that was a pretty hard days work for a couch potato like me. I spent yesterday recuperating--deciding to work on my quilt instead of venturing out into the great pollen-filled outdoors.

There is still lots to of work left to do. In fact, I think it is never ending. It is such good work though. Gardens is so satisfying. Just one of the rewards came that very afternoon. At about the same time I watched the frog claim its place, I also watched this butterfly sipping the nectar of these lilacs.

After it was all over, I wondered if there could be anything more refreshing than a hot shower and a good night's sleep to end our beautiful day in the Ozarks.