Category Archives: Home & Kids

January purging part 3: 111 things in 1/11

Hello again, and welcome to part 3 of my mission to get rid of 111 things by the end of January–you can read here for part 1 and here for part 2. I know a number of you have jumped in and joined the challenge, so make sure to link up your blog posts to Jenny, the instigator of this madness.

This week was an easy one. My first goal was to sort through my socks. Due to a lack of drawer space, my sock storage situation was happening in this orange bag:

And it was overflowing.

A quick sort culminated in the tossing of many high school socks. Holey high school socks. The ones with the little lambs were the hardest to say goodbye to. I haven’t worn them in years, but the lamb faces were looking very reproachful as I laid them in the trash basket.

Lay? Laid? Lay? Laid? Help! There’s a woman called Aunt Jacquie who lives inside my head, and she is wagging her finger at my lay/laid conundrum. You were an English major, and you should know better! Who let you graduate without this fundamental piece of knowledge?

By the way, Aunt Jacquie is actually my aunt. She has a PhD in English literature, wrote her dissertation on Jane Austen, and has been known to correct my grammar on facebook. However, Aunt Jacquie has also come to form part of my internal grammatical conscience–I call this embodiment “Aunt Jacquie Number 2.” How this happened I’ll never know–no schizophrenic tendencies on my part, no sirree.

But let’s stop talking about the monsters in my head and return to the socks: goodbye little lambs! Maybe you’ll be able to forgive me one day–not only for throwing you away, but also for possibly saying something grammatically incorrect in reference to your final resting place.

The bag of socks was looking much more under control by the time I was through with it.

The tally: 7 pairs in the trash. They were shortly joined by some old underwear. Out with the old, in with the nude! That’s my motto when it comes to gross old underwear.

At this point some resurrected socks from the bottom of the bin found their way onto my feet.

That’s a fun side effect of this purging exercise: rediscovering some awesome stuff that was buried for years, and can now be enjoyed again. Plus, I love having toasty toes.

At this point my sister Erica called me, and we spent the next 70 minutes hanging out on the phone. Not exactly talking . . . just kind of hanging. She was drilling holes and installing some curtain rods in her new digs, and I was absently floating through my own closet, trying things on and asking her advice about what should join my pile of purged items for the week.

J: So Erica, I’m up to 22 things down, 8 to go. I’m thinking of getting rid of this skirt with the red and blue.

E: The red and blue?

J: Yeah, it’s got like a red background and some blue plant-type things on it. It’s that really cheap material, you know, I used to wear it over jeans.

E: It can go.

J: Okay, awesome.

*drilling noises*

J: So I might get rid of my wedding shoes. Slippers. You know.

E: Yeah, I bet those are disgusting.

J: They totally are! I can’t even bend them! They’re stiff with, like, sweat or something.

*more drilling noises*

E: They can go.

J: Okay, so Erica, what about that blue and purple nightshirt thingy from Charlotte Russe? You know, the one that’s kind of clingy, but it’s kind of nice for the summer?

E: Well is it flattering? ‘Cause if not, it can go.

It wasn’t that flattering, so it went.

With her help and emotional support (along with her steady, signature mantra of “it can go”), the pile swelled to its final version.

That includes a lazy Susan we haven’t used for the past 4.5 years, an old computer game, some books, a pair of blister-inducing shoes, and some random paraphenalia.

You can see the red and blue skirt peeking out from underneath the grey miniskirt.

And see what I mean about those wedding slippers? Totally disgusting. Warped with sweat, I tell you.

Next week will be the final installment of the 111 adventure–and it’s not too late to join! I’ve had so much fun reading your thoughts about clutter, de-cluttering, and your advice about what should stay and what should go. You guys are just plain awesome. Possum. Awesome-possum.

Have a great weekend, lovely readers and friends!

A Christmas tradition: cake for breakfast

We spent this past Christmas with my in-laws in Indiana. It was such a relaxing time–we temporarily got to push the pause button on this whole ‘being adults’ thing and simply chill out. Be fed. Be taken care of. I love passing the adult baton when staying with parents. It’s so nice.

The manger scene had, as usual, been invaded.

If there weren’t little plastic army guys around, it just wouldn’t feel right. It’s tradition!

At least the Hulk didn’t make the cut this year. He was a little . . . distracting.

The other staple in my in-laws’ household is this Christmas tree. They swear it’s the last year for it–the tree is at least half a century old, and is held upright by a string attached to the corner cabinet.

And every year, it’s covered in ornaments. Plastered. Coated. This is necessary in order to cover the old and bare branches.

Another holiday tradition is this fruit salad.

It’s been in the family for years, and it’s always the guys’ responsibility to make it. Or so I gather. Or choose to gather.

A potential Christmas tradition in the making–playing games. My parents gave me both Dominion and Blokus for Christmas, and the fun-loving violence they generate is a holiday must. Have I mentioned that I’m competitive?

Oh, there’s my stick of Burt’s Bees! If you see some Burt’s hanging around, you can bet your bonnet I’m somewhere closeby.

However, my absolute favorite Christmas tradition is eating angel food cake for breakfast on Christmas morning. I make it Christmas Eve, and leave it to cool overnight, hanging upside down over a beer bottle.

It all started when we were young things. To get us little tykes to focus on Jesus’s birth instead of just the enticing pile of presents, my parents would make a birthday cake for Jesus, and we would sing him “happy birthday.”

In the words of my Mom, “Having a candle and singing Happy Birthday is something young children can relate to, and helps keep the ‘real meaning of Christmas’–Jesus’ birthday–in the picture for them even if they don’t get all the theology.”

The angel food cake is white to represent how God created us in his image, perfect beings in a beautiful garden.

Dad would read from Genesis:

God saw all that he had made and it was very good.  (Gen 1:31)

Then we smeared the cake with raspberry jam.

This represents sin entering the world and tarring humanity, so we would read about Adam and Eve’s disobedience in Genesis chapter 3. There’s probably a deep metaphor underlying it all about sin tasting delicious, but let’s leave that for future ponderings.

Finally, we top the whole thing off with generous poofs of freshly whipped cream. We put the metal bowl and mixer attachments in the freezer for maybe 20 minutes prior to the whipping process–I’m told it helps the cream poof better.

Slather on that cream! We have to cover every bit of that raspberry jam! This repesents Jesus coming to earth and making us righteous and pure through his perfect life and death.

We read from Isaiah:

“Come now, let us reason together,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”  (Is 1:18)

And then we serve it up!

Over the years we have stopped singing happy birthday, but we continue to make the cake and read the Scriptures. If you’re interested, my diligent mother typed up a Word document with the complete passages we’ve read throughout the years. Thanks Mom! Now I don’t have to scratch my head every year and ask myself “Now what is it exactly we read?”

I leave you with a picture of my husband with his brother and dad. I just love Christmas, and I just love these guys!