Therapeutic Thursday PWYC

[Harriet]

What can you do today that will be healing and restoring for you and your household?

What are the beneficial things you rely on to be therapeutic for you, to encourage well-being?

We may be very busy, surprises will happen (seems like lately they are in our kitchens), and obstacles can definitely get in the way, but homemakers can find their days are therapeutic, too.

[CathyS]

Hi Harriet! Thank you for opening our part of the village this morning!

I got up to use the bathroom just before 7 and decided to go back to bed because it's overcast out there. My head hit the pillow and OMGoodness!! It's garbage day! Yikes! Got dressed quickly and grabbed the recycling bag in the kitchen. Got it down to the road. Did the compost and garbage bags a lot more slowly. I even remembered to grab the bag from the chest freezer with all the meat packaging.

When dh got up I made him a coffee and we talked about supper. It's hot here today, so we agreed that salads would go nicely with a Costco chicken. I am going there today to pick up some things we need. We are on the last roll of paper towels.

I have made a bean salad and the pasta salad is also done. Both are chilling in the fridge. Potato salad is still in the process. Eggs and potatoes are still in cold water. I tried a slightly different way of doing the potatoes and I don't think Ill boil them whole in their skins any more. It takes almost 30 minutes!

I am having 2 hard boiled eggs for breakfast.

[Lauralind]

I see why I fit in here so well. "I am a failure too at teaching clean." Amd keeping clean. Therapeutic? Love it. Why are we she's so hard on ourselves. Some of them are grown adults now. I often spiral into I am a failure. No I'm not I just didn't do something as well as I'd like.

My ds 15 is very much or more like me. He can make a mess in the kitchen. Or I can. And then cook and do another job just push the other stuff out of the way. And it came from dad. I can go to his house and the whole day or 2 of mess is there. Mom was so good at cleaning that dad worked and he never hardly saw what mom all did. It just stayed clean. He didn't even know what to keep on hand for cleaning supplies.

Anyway that is why i have more disaster in here than I started with yesterday. What a day. I did clean the kitchen in the morning. Then got distracted with Piano till bible study. Got home and did some planting with my coleus and left leaves everywhere. Worked my way outside while waiting for my phone appointment. Did some digging in the flowerbed. Then dad called and I ran out there to water and check on them and got blocked in there by the train again so I didn't get home from the grocery store till dh beat me home. Nothing is finished. Even recycle bin in the middle of the room from sending it out with dh...

That phone call I gave up on came at almost 5 instead of between 1 and 3. Waiting day..


I vacuumed at dad's while I was stuck there does that count?

Now I need to get in the shower. I can do a few things before work.

[Ramblinrose]

Morning girls…

I’ll have to admit my son learned to be very neat to keep his room organized. But that’s because I taught him and then we set up rewards and consequences if it wasn’t done the way we needed it to be done. Once he turned against 12 and was in sixth grade he had to clean his room and his bathroom. The first time I worked with him to show him what I wanted. I wrote everything down on a piece of paper and put it on his outside of his closet wall so we could follow it as we went. The second time he did it I watched and he worked. The third time he did it he did it on his own and then I would go back and see how he did. The same thing with his bathroom, where he mopped his floor and cleaned his commode. The rule was he had to have all of this done by Friday in order for him to go to the skating rink on weekend nights with his friends. I would check on him occasionally to see where he was at in the process of his room, but after a while, it just became second nature to him. In all the years I had that going with him, he only missed going to the skating rink once that’s all it took. He started doing his own laundry when he was 10. I wanted him to have all the skills he needed so when he was independent, he would know what he was doing. We also did a lot of grocery shopping together, and he learned where the foods were on the shelves more expensive in the middle of the least expensive on the bottom and sometimes on the top.

I have Pam and Peggy to than for all of this because they taught me how to clean the house and how to keep it organized. My son didn’t pull cards, but he did have a list on his door that he used to remind himself what he needed to do. Unfortunately, his wife could use the book. I gave it to her once as wanted to help her, but she took it the wrong way kinda like what happened with Lucy Lee so I keep my mouth closed. He’s crazy about the way. She is not organized and how she doesn’t take care of her house.

My cabinets are almost in. They’ll be back today to put in the metal pieces that allow the shelves to slide in and out and they also need to cut a couple holes in the cabinet so they can connect my dishwasher. The granite people will be here on Monday and then we can go from there. I’m feeling better but I gotta tell you it’s stressful.

Sweetie tries his best to help me out. But he can’t remember where he put things nor can he remember how to find things so it makes it for a strange adventure. I’m now to the point where I need to make his breakfast lunch and dinner because he has a hard time doing that now. I realize now I’ll never be able to leave him alone again so I won’t be able to travel by myself.

It’s laundry day so you know what I’m doing. I already have it going and probably will have it done in a while. That’s the only thing on my list for today. Hope y’all have a good one and I’ll be back later. Bye.

[Nancy]

I'm up on time
did my journals
had bfast now for the rest of my morning stuff...
Walked
Waving to everyone.

[Twins' Mom]

LOL, LauraL, I think it's all of us! It was only through finding a system that we reformed ourselves. So many commonalities here!

I didn't get up until 8:30ish, when dh got back from his workout. My alarm was going off but the sound was turned off. I had been awake at 6:30 or so but thought I'd sleep until the 7 a.m. alarm. I had to rush around straightening up for dcleaning lady. So I'm still going through email and haven't done much else. I hate it when I get a late start and it throws everything off.

OTOH, I had trouble getting to sleep last night. It's anxiety about dh's retirement party, which he wants at home. I talked to caterer and they will come back with a suggested menu and pricing. I want it to be as little work for me as possible, after all I have Rosh Hashanah later in the year to deal with. Dh agreed we would do some house sprucing up, including washing windows, cleaning some furniture/rugs and perhaps replacing rocking chairs on front porch. But there are seventy people on list now - do I need a tent for overflow? And is overflow outdoors even feasible in July? And where could a bar/bartender be set up? And should it start at two or four p.m.? and knowing we're inviting 70 or so, not all will attend and then not all will be at the same time, do I need the tent....and mail or email invites? And and and... The event is 27 July, btw, delayed beyond his retirement because a group of friends will be on a Jewish Federation trip to Poland, and we're waiting until they're home.

[Ramblinrose]

Twins… Another thing to consider is where all your guests will be parking. The largest party I have ever done by by myself was a buffetfor 30 people. Took me three days of preparation to do it. I only served beer wine and since your husband likes bourbon. I would suggest a bourbon drink and other than that keep it simple.

What will happen if it rains on the day of your party will you be able to accommodate 70 people in your home? The largest party I’ve ever had was with 50 people. That was for my Mardi Gras and Derby parties. I made several large pot of jambalaya one with shrimp one without. I also made a pot of New Orleans bean soup as well as several king cakes. For my derby party I just ordered 6 foot length subs. People wanted to bring food so I said why not.i was able to handle them but it was tight.

Another thing that to think about. Have someone within your close friends be designated to check on the bathrooms toilet paper. I learned that one the hard way. With that many people in your house, your bathrooms are going to be busy.

One other thing my mom taught me.. she was amazing when it came to entertaining. Never serve any food that requires a knife to cut it. Her reasoning behind that was men usually end up, sitting down in a chair chair somewhere with their plate on their laps and eating food that doesn’t require to be cut as much easier to eat.

[Lady Maverick]

Good morning!

We had a storm this morning which delayed my morning walk a few hours. I enjoy walking in the gentle rain but stay indoors when there is lightning/thunder.

DH went to breakfast with a lifelong VDFriend this morning. His friend is good at staying in touch with DH and taking him out to eat once a month or so. #Priceless

TADA's
** Personal care including washing hair
** kitchen happenings spreadsheet updated
** H&F data updated
** STD data updated
** Gardening data updated.

Twins - trust yourself. You are experienced in hosting and know how to plan and execute well. This is a big gathering though! My first thought was wondering where to park 30' plus vehicles.

LucyLee - are you doing okay? Am I overthinking about you being quieter than usual? (((Hugs)))

[Twins' Mom]

Thanks for the reminders, RR! We've had between fifty and sixty here for Rosh Hashana in the pre-covid days 2017-2019, so I know it's a crowd. We did improve the flow for groups when we redid the kitchen, bumped out the fireplace and made the screened porch bigger so I'm thinking it may be okay, albeit crowded. And will encourage people not to stay forever? The screened porch is usable unless it's actively raining and it's blowing in. The neighbors tolerate a big crowd of parking on the street - typically we put it on the neighborhood Facebook so they know the timing. I would have preferred to have it at a venue but he wants it here, so my deal was sprucing up the house and hiring a caterer. I wish we could offer only wine and beer but his bourbon propensity is well known and I'm thinking we can't/shouldn't have just wine beer bourbon...so many decisions. We'll have soft drinks, lemonade and water as well.

Once I get this proposal perhaps I'll be able to scale back.

My monkey mind swings from tree to tree on this. '

Tomorrow I only have my mentoring appointment online, which I rescheduled from yesterday. I need to get firm with her - I've had an awakening that she's not being honest with herself, or perhaps is discounting the process of writing. A good part of the time on my portfolio was writing and editing and she's still in the research mode and her portfolio, at least the KDP (one of the largest elements) is due on 1 August. I talked with the coordinator for the mentoring/accountability group programs while at the conference, and apprised her of the situation. I'm going to challenge her to write 2000 words in the next two weeks. For reference, the first two pages of my KDP were 2300 pages, but mine was a total of 22000 words. And I may have to cut her loose at some point...it's not a lot of time for me but I want to see some progress!

[CathyS]

I'm home from Costco and everything is away. Dinner is ready, but it's all in the fridge cooling. I took a baguette out of the freezer. Still overcast but no rain here. There was rain at Costco, but nothing much. Lots of samples, so I had lunch for "free"

I was never shown how to clean, I think my dad thought that all women knew how to just do it without being shown. Dh was taught by his mother and he does know how to live on his own if he needs to. I thank my MIL on a regular basis (a couple times a year).