It's a miscellany day
Every now and then, I have several small things to share with you that are not enough to make up an entire blog post. When that happens, I throw all those bits together and call it a miscellany post. ๐
Is it a cup? Is it a leftover container? No one can tell!
I may have skipped Food Waste Friday this past week, but that doesn't mean I mindlessly chucked our food in the trash when we came home from vacation.
Nope!
It was a little tricky to empty our vacation fridge because I didn't think to bring any leftover containers or bags with me. I had to find a home for part of an onion, a few slices of raw bacon, and some sloppy joe beef. As I pondered how to manage this, my eye fell on the drink cups the girls had received with their Red Lobster meals. Aha! They came with lids, so they functioned perfectly as leftover containers. Yay!
The bacon and the sloppy joe meat (made with grassfed beef, which I certainly didn't want to waste!) have now been eaten, and the onion will be used shortly.
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For those of you who think I am "deceptively awesome"...
And for those of you who think that somehow messes never happen at my house, here are some pictures of random messes that were in my house yesterday.
Another view of Zoe's room.
The view into my laundry room.
Post-vacation mess in my bedroom.
It's nigh onto impossible to take good pictures in my room...the flat red paint absorbs all the light, plus it was gloomy and cloudy yesterday, which didn't help at all.
Most of these messes have been cleaned up now (you can read a funny about Zoe's room-cleaning on my Facebook page), but I'm sure more will be made today.
And so the endless mess-making, mess-cleaning-up cycle will continue. ๐
Caramel Monkey Bread baking times
An email from my aunt yesterday reminded me about this. When I posted the recipe for the Caramel Monkey Bread (if you haven't made it, you should! Everyone needs to eat this once before they die. Though, if you eat it too often, you may hasten the day of your death.), I didn't write up my own PDF and instead sent you to Taste of Home's printable recipe.
Taste of Home's version doesn't call for refrigerating the bread overnight, though, so the baking time on that recipe isn't accurate. 30-35 minutes doesn't seem to be enough for bread that's been in the fridge overnight...both times I've made the recipe, 40-45 minutes has been necessary.
To check and see if the bread is done, you can carefully lift up one of the balls on top of the bread. If the dough balls underneath still look doughy, put the bread back into the oven for another 5 minutes, and then check again.
Today's 365 post: Guess where these came from?
Joshua's 365 post: A neat light picture
I had to laugh at your laundry room picture. I immediately saw a face in the ice chest lid. The handles look like hands holding on tight as it looks out at the mess. Thanks for sharing. I hope you get back into your daily routine this week. I find it very difficult after we get back from our vacations.
I saw the same thing! It's the internet...most of us don't show the harder parts of life ๐
Oh, that's so funny! I see it now, but totally missed it when I uploaded the picture.
I love that your bedroom is red! I painted mine Moody Mauve and Old Burgundy. The trim is all white, including the crown molding. There are 3 doors and 2 windows as well as a big white ceiling fan/light, so it all balances out nicely. I love a dark bedroom!
Your messes don't look all that bad. None of them would take much time to clean up.
The laundry room did take a little while...I'm not gonna lie.
I do think the benefit of regularly cleaning up is that the mess rarely gets so bad that it requires hours and hours of cleaning.
There's a difference between untidy and messy. The former means things aren't in their places. The latter means the space is unclean and perhaps even unsanitary. I find it really helps to keep the two separate - I may not have finishing finding places for stuff I got over the holidays (ahem) but there are no dust bunnies accumulating around those boxes.
Kristen,
I think you are all kinds of awesome, especially when you show us your messes!
My gran (who had nine kids) called those kind of messes "a clean mess" ๐
Reality isn't always pretty, but it hits us all. And, weird question....May I ask where you found the wood framed chair in Zoe's room? I'm looking for a chair just like that to replace an old falling apart one...Thanks!
That's an Ikea Poang chair. Very affordable, very durable, and super comfy.
Thanks for responding. I was afraid of that. No Ikea stores around my neck of the woods. Maybe I will sleuth around online.
I think you can order online from Ikea...go check and see!
I am in love with the Caramel Monkey bread picture that I just made it my desktop background picture at work!!!! And this weekend I am definitely going to have to make me some! Throw the calories to the wind!!! ๐
Wow, when your gang makes a mess...you go all out.... makes me look like a neat-freak.
I love your messes!!! It shows that a wonderful family is a work in progress messes and all!!!
Oh man that looks like my place after we go somewhere. The difference between you and me is that you'll probably have it cleaned up within the week!
My house is a trainwreck right now too! We're going through a clean-up/repurpose phase and things are flying all over. Hang in there, it always gets messiest just before it gets the cleanest.
Isn't that the truth?? That's how it is when we do the big clothing switch for the kids when the season changes.
Life happens you just have to do the best you can. Messes are a normal kid thing. If we bug them too much about it they will become very messy people.
Ohmygosh! A Sharks jersey! Who's the fan?
Mr. FG and Joshua! But that's Mr. FG's jersey.
I'm a California native living in Colorado. I miss my home team so I get excited whenever I see Sharks stuff. ๐
I wish I was as non-wasteful as you! I just can't seem to get the hang of it! *SIGH* try, try again!
Also, I make that monkey bread for Christmas morning too! SOO good! I agree people need to try it at least once!!!
Girl, it took me a good 6 months of blogging about this and working on it before I had even ONE waste-free week. Hang in there...progress is something!
Thanks for the encouragement!!! I feel like it might get easier now that my husband is fully on board! Before he was kind of meh to composting and not being wasteful, but now he's all for it!! It's always nice to have back up ๐
Well this makes me feel a lot better. Thank you.
Glad to know that you are real.
"For those of you who think I am "deceptively awesome"ย...
*cough*WilliamB*cough*"
As I pointed out in the linked post - no need for 'deceptively awesome' there's plenty of FG family real awesome to go around.
No worries, dear WB...it's all in good fun. ๐
Ha! I was going to ask why your cooler was so melancholy. I instantly saw the face as well.
I am new to your blog, like as of today new. Just scrolling around to see what ya got, and the pictures won me over. I LOVE that you posted real like on here, and I am now a follower. I love reading blogs, but my favs are the ones that keep it real ya know. Just makes me feel better about my crazy chaotic life of chasing two small boys, trying to clean house and fit homework somewhere in the middle ๐
Quote from my mom on Red A Alert cleaning days (ie. Grandma's coming to visit): "It's one thing that we live like this - we don't need to show the whole world!"
Thanks for showing the whole world ๐
I just had to post a picture of our messy kitchen the other day. I was feeling guilty showing all the good things we were doing and strategically placed photo's to hide the mess.
I still had not done the dishes the next day after the photo, so it was even higher:)
Thanks for posting this post, I thought it was so funny.