Canning Pears {and best friends}

Quite a few weeks ago my cousin and I went to the orchard to pick pears. I only got one picture that day because I held her adorable littlest man while she and the other 6 children picked pears. And it was 98 degrees out. And we chose to go when it was 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

But Scary and the children were able to pick 140 pounds of pears which Scary and I split between us. They were still quite green so I put them in the garage with another box on top (so #5 wouldn't take one bite out of each of them) to let them ripen. And I canned peaches. And tomato sauce. And kept up with school. And got really tired.

So we started smelling the pears, but I didn't care. No day worked out as a good pear canning day. And Mr. Wiedz would come in and tell me how ripe the pears were getting..."you need to do something with those pears." Yes. Yes, I know. I don't want to.

Enter September 30th. One day until my #2's birthday and the birthday party two hours away to celebrate with family and #4 whose birthday is the next day. I was thinking about those pears in the back of my mind, they weren't going to last another weekend but I wasn't going to be home and I had a friend coming to visit that day and so many other things that I could be doing. So in a little way I was resigning myself to giving those pears to the chickens.

But that friend arrived and during the course of normal conversation the pears came up. She'd already gotten her pears up and I mentioned that I just wasn't going to be able to get mine done when she said the most AMAZING thing. "I'll help you."

Even though I couldn't ask her to do that that was exactly what she did. And she didn't really just help me, she canned all 70 pounds of my pears with a tiny bit of help from me. She got 17 quarts of pears done before she left.

AMAZING!

On another AMAZING, and I'm blessed beyond belief matter, my mother came last week and folded all of the socks in my home. All of them. 2 baskets full (I hate folding socks).

Pears and socks...does it get any better than that?

A long awaited project

We've been getting a lot of projects done around here lately. The last couple of weekends actually have been project weekends. Completed projects! 

So I have a lot of projects to share with you. Not to mention the school planning that is going on around here. And the garden growing. So much going on.

Today I'm starting with a project I've been asking for all year. I drew plans. I figured costs. I asked each time extra dollars came into the project budget. A couple of weekends was the time!

A clothesline! A simple post and cross-beam with lines strung between. 

I love it! The weeks after it was set up I didn't turn on the dryer once. So much laundry can be done when you're not waiting for the dryer cycle and I was able to turn out our whole laundry room in a day. Plus it is so enjoyable to stand in the warm sunshine folding clothes off the line!

Course, it's been raining for days now and I'm back to the usual dryer cycle and folding laundry in my laundry room while staring outside.

Getting organized

The other day I read this post by my friend Alysun. It made me think about my #3's problem with clothes. He can't put them away, his sister (who's in charge of that chore each morning) couldn't put them away, even I had a difficult time getting all his clothes to fit into their drawers. The result?

Drawers overflowing and a tub that is supposed to hold Playmobile figures being used as a clothes dump. And much of those clothes would end up in the dirty baskets in the laundry room since they were just laying about...know how much I loathe washing clean clothes...

So I took a deep breath and went in to do something about it the other morning. Really it didn't take too long. I sorted through all his clothes and even though he hadn't grown out of much of it I put them away for the next 4/5 size wearer. I also got a small pile of just plain done clothes and tossed those.

Isn't it lovely???

And it got me thinking. This little bit of time invested. I got such great results but I also got a basket full of clothes that needed further storage.

I do have a system for all the hand-me-downs. But I haven't been using my system in the past few months. Really it's just been a dump it out there in a basket or bag or something and do it later plan. Not working real well and I was beginning to have difficultly walking around in the area of the garage this system takes place.

So I gathered all the tubs, baskets, bags and piles I could.

Checked sizes and dumped into the right tub. I had to add two more tubs but I got everything in.

Another item off the list. Once they were all stacked up, in a weird order too since I'll need 2T next and my cousin wants to go through the 0-3m one before I'll be doing anything with the 6-7, I could walk in the back room of the garage so nicely...it was like having another room added on.

Thought I'd show off my wonderful packing/moving/storage organization while we're here.

I read about this idea in the Duggar's book 20 and Counting. Basically as I packed over a year and a half ago for our move to Eugene each box got an inventoried card of what was in that box. Each card and box got a matching number. The cards are kept in a recipe box type holder. When we moved in to our house we didn't unpack all of the boxes. Some are stored in a loft like attic in the garage. Some are in the back storage room of the garage. Some were in my sewing room. Each box that was unpacked, that card got pulled and tossed. Each box that got stored, the card was marked where the box was located. If I took just a couple of things from the box, I made the corrections on the card and everything got put away. I have to tell you that though labor intensive on the front end, this is an invaluable system for me. If I'm looking for something; tax papers, a toy that someone realizes never got unpacked, a pair of shoes or a dress (I was pregnant when we moved so had all of my regular clothes in boxes) I can just look through the cards, find which number box the item is in, and Mr. Wiedz can find that box (we took care to store the boxes with the numbers showing). And I can add to it. As I add clothes storage tubs, I just fill out a new card, mark the box, and put everything away!

I'm linking up to raising arrow's homemaking link-up this week. Go check out some other great homemaking tips.

Dinner Jobs

Quite awhile back I read this post about dinner jobs. I thought it was a great idea. I loved how she planned the jobs that one person's job didn't rely on another persons...always a problem. I've been wanting to start jobs at dinner, currently we're hit and miss but the person who gets up from the table first without being excused is who has to clear the dishes. Not the best way...though it does keep everyone at the table until dinner's over and it teaches manners.

But I wanted a more routine way of dinner jobs. At our old house I had an S and a C cut out of construction paper that I rotated between the kids for setting and clearing the table. But the ones on the post were cuter and more detailed. I made up what would have been 4x4 cards but I never got them printed.

I put "dinner jobs" on the kids' checklists for each day. Each day they ask me what their dinner job is...I'm not ready for that part yet I'd say. And so everyone shoveled food into their mouths and walked away from the table. Actually everyone took their plate to the sink but I was still the one doing the dishes, putting everything away and taking care of the table and floor.

Today I sat in the easy chair for my couple of minutes of quiet time, the few minutes while everyone is supposed to sit on their beds looking at books, or if you're under 4 lay down and take a nap. I looked at the table and thought about the dinner jobs again. How we needed to get that started. How I wanted it to look.

My old computer files made in my beloved Microsoft Publisher are not compatible with the new computer (a mac) so I sat down to recreate them. And now that I have Internet I thought fondly back to my limited experience with picnik. So I shot a few staged shots. Uploaded. And created some really fun (I think) dinner jobs lists.

The day I became an old lady

Mr. Wiedz tells me often that I do things that old ladies do...

• knitting
• quilting
• whining about my aches and pains

I now add having shelf paper to the list.

We've had a problem with ants this summer. I know I'm not the best housekeeper but even I have not had ants like this. Our old house was never like this...I think the nests (like lots and lots of nests) I found in the flower bed outside the kitchen window while weeding a couple of weeks ago might be the problem!

Anyway, after all the weeks of battling ants all day long I decided yesterday morning that I had had enough! Prompted by Mr. Wiedz finding a couple of ants in his cereal and after leaving the bag out I found the bag covered in ants...I set out to deep clean the kitchen.

I'd used the whole can of Lysol in my attempt to kill ants so far this summer so yesterday I went with Pine Sol, hoping they didn't like that either. I removed every item from the cupboards, a good time to purge items that were empty or past dates, and wiped out each cupboard. As I started putting items away I remembered some shelf paper I had in a box in the garage...I've been storing it for quite a few years. I figured nothing would say clean and fresh and organized like shelf paper on my cupboard shelves.

As I lined the first shelf I was taken back to my high school years. As a way to help pay for piano lessons I bartered with the teacher, an elderly lady that lived up the street, by helping her and her husband around the house. One job she gave me was lining each kitchen cupboard shelf with shelf paper.

So as I lined my own kitchen cupboard shelves I felt like such an old lady.

Homekeeping for boys

#3 and #4 help me around the house most days. A lot of helping includes fighting over who gets to do what. With laundry that usually means a lot of arguing about who gets to clean out the lint trap, who puts in the dryer sheet and who gets to load the washer with a new load.

The other day I got a load of towels out of the dryer and was folding them in the living room. #3 took one and set to work folding it very nicely. #4 was mad that he didn't get a towel so #3 put on a towel folding lesson for him.

It was all so cute I had to take some pictures.

Where did May go?

According to Blogger I've only posted twice this month. At that rate I'm going to loose my faithful blogging audience. It is on my list today, along with:

clean house
read my Bible
make a sample quilt square for Mr. Wiedz's opinion
find my glasses
finish an application I've had on my desk for over a month(!)
go through #1's clothes
LAUNDRY
get dressed
upload photos to memory manager
post

I'll be back later. We'll see how the list goes by the end of the day...now that I'm done with my computer/planning my day time the breaky dishes are calling.

Laundry and Sickness

I've been working hard on laundry the last few days. After another all house clean on Saturday and cleaning out the car this weekend the piles were immense!


On top of that #4 and I got the sinus cold that Mr. Wiedz's cousin brought with her to Easter. So much of folding on Monday was done like this...notice those nice folded piles on the table.


If you kept up with my twitter updates yesterday (conveniently located in the sidebar) you were kept up to date with my emptying laundry baskets.


Even rebooting the laundry at 11pm last night so I could take this beautiful photo this morning.


Though I do have disclose that rebooting laundry at 11pm results in this.


I was thrilled to have empty baskets as this is the scene this morning around the house and who knows how long it will last.


#1, who completely avoided all the sickness last time around, came in our room at 12:30am and before she could tell us she wasn't feeling well she let loose all over the carpet. It doesn't matter how many times I've told her, like my father told me, to throw up in a blanket or on a floor I can clean and to try to avoid the carpet. So at 1am I was scrubbing the carpet, rebooting laundry AGAIN and cleaning the bathroom floor and walls which were also hit. Mr. Wiedz doesn't handle sickness too well but he's a champ at making a sick kid feel more comfortable so he set up the sick bed and got #1 all settled.


Hopefully the rest of us will be spared. I'll keep you posted!

What I love about Sundays...

A clean bathroom...and everywhere else too.

We started having a family cleaning time Sunday afternoons awhile back. Everyone has a job so the whole house is tidy, dusted, vacuumed, aired-out and looking good and it doesn't take too long. It helps get us ready for a new week.

The only draw-back...the part I don't like...

Lest you think I don't do laundry during the week. Everyday #3 is supposed to bring all the laundry to the laundry room so #2 can sort it and I can do 2-3 loads. Now not everything is done like it should be but I remember #3, #2 and #4 all doing the laundry jobs on Thursday AND Friday! So all this laundry was hiding in the depths of untidy rooms and/or is what our family creates in a weekend! Ugh...


Yesterday's particular Sunday was also full of this...

And I'm loving this!

Heavy Load

#3's job is to take dirty laundry from the bathrooms and bedrooms and deposit into a pile in the laundry room (someone else sorts it later). Last week he found a quick and fun way to get all his job done.

He loaded the dump truck with as much laundry as he could and pushed it to the laundry room and even "dumped" it out in there!

So cute!

Many hands...

...makes light work.

We had a "all hands on deck" cleaning day last Saturday. I hate admitting that, that I can't/don't keep up on it on my own. But it was great to have almost everyone assigned to a room/area and have the whole house looking good at once. Instead of how it goes as I work on it all day, the room I just finish is being torn apart as I work on another room. Plus when we got home from basketball that afternoon, the house was clean.

#4 being the baby wasn't assigned any room but took his cue from his big brother, #3, and carried his own loads of laundry to the laundry room. So cute I had to capture the moment.

What we've been doing...

So Saturday I was by myself with the kiddos at home on a cold, drizzly day. We did nothing. I think the TV was on the entire day and #2 had that blasted DS on all day. Mr. Wiedz was cutting up a tree that fell over from the storms at his dad's house. And he and Papa went on a dump run (they did take #3 with them on that trip, small blessings).

But after that LONG boring day we've been busy!

Sunday, after a beautiful church service where a fabulous lady shared her gift of music with us, and a quick lunch Mr. Wiedz took the big kids outside with him to unload all the wood thanks to that tree in Papa's front yard. #3 and #4 were, of course, napping during this.

I HATED loading/stacking wood when I was little. HATED. IT.

I even remember telling my parents Sundays were to be a day of rest and we shouldn't be hauling/stacking wood. Didn't work. Now, here are my kids, dutifully hauling/stacking wood on Sunday!

While they were out there I stayed in. I tried to make some order in the kitchen and in attempt to stay with the "extra something" I tackled this:

And turned it into this. I don't think I got rid of anything just resorted, re-stacked, wiped down and made a little more organized.

I even did another cabinet and I did purge some old lids that don't match anything and a burnt up pan that I don't use anymore.

Before dinner the kids got their monetary reward for all the hauling and stacking.

#1 is saving up for some more American Girl accessories (including getting Kit's ears pierced) so she'll do anything for a quarter. Don't tell her it'll take FOREVER to get anything at that pay scale!

To add to #1's cuteness right now she asked me for some handkerchiefs, "since it is getting to be runny nose time". Sunday night we cut up an old sheet (had holes and stains) and after bedtime I hemmed them and sat with Mr. Wiedz watching basketball (or football, I don't remember) while I added some embroidery.

She was very excited the next morning when I had them sitting at her breaky spot. She's carried one each day in her pocket!

Monday, I was helper in #2's preschool class. There are 9 preschoolers (joined by a kindergartner when her class is done with recess) and I am wiped out at the end of the day with them.

There are a couple of boys who turned four mid-September so they are right on the line of going into Kindergarten next year. They test me big time! Being the helper is a big deal for the teacher, who loves parents to help each day. And #2 was really excited I was going to be there!

The biggest news is Mr. Wiedz has gone back to school! Today was his first day of classes. He was able to register for 16 credits at the University of Oregon (1.5 hour drive from our house). Luckily all those credits are Tuesdays and Thursdays which cuts down his travel time and therefore our gas bill.

He is excited about the opportunity to complete his degree. It is a lifetime goal and he is now one step closer! He'll have another term to go, for sure. He's majoring in Policy, Public Planning and Management (PPPM) which has some courses only offered each term. Because of work he missed Fall term so he may have to wait and complete some of the required courses next fall but it'll only take a term or two of 16+ credits and he'll be DONE!

I am proud of him for working so hard to get to this point. It'll be a real challenge to balance all the school work, the driving to school and the being at school with the work he still has to do, basketball to coach, wrestling practice to attend, family, home, church, parenting and life but I know he can do it!

Now I'm off to try to complete her other request. A bag to tote her basketball supplies to school/practice. I made a wrestling bag for #2 and now she needs one of her own.

canning: day 3

7 quarts of peaches...they weren't ripe enough so we quit after that cannerful.

21 quarts of pears...the ones I got from my friends were awesome! Ripe, easy to peal and can...so much better than anything else I've canned.

7 quarts of pickles...my first time, it was very easy. Hopefully we like them.

No pictures.

That's all I'm saying tonight. I'm tired!

Plus I folded that mountain of laundry and mostly put it away...by that I mean the towels I put away, the little boy's I put away, #1 put her own away, #2 put his own away, and Mr. Wiedz' and mine is sitting on our bed until we move it to the floor or the top of the dresser or the chair before climbing into bed. I'll put it away tomorrow, although I have to wash, dry and fold more tomorrow.

Tomorrow.

chore pockets

I saw a similar project at the beginning of the summer and really liked all I found to read about it. But I didn't really do anything. We made our way through summer with a chore here or there and asking the big kids to do things but, really no plan. School came around the corner and with it all the routine-ness of fall so now was a great time to implement a chore plan. I did something last year with a spreadsheet, a checklist of sorts of their responsibilities. This year I started with some index cards with each responsibility written on it. Parts of the plan worked really nicely. But not all the cards would fit on the fridge, so each afternoon I'd have to remember to lay out the evening responsibility cards. Also in the morning there was no way of marking the done responsibilities, in the afternoon they were turned over as they were completed. So, we had some things working and some others not.
Today I got out material (thanks Grammie N) and knocked out a system of getting the cards out all the time (no more remembering to get out the evening ones) and being able to figure out which ones are done already (just put the finished card at the back of the pocket, the evening one or morning one is now waiting).

I've still have some adjustments to make the system really great. Remark morning and evening on the tops of the cards, the portion that pokes out of the pocket. And I need to do some pictures on #2's, since he can't read yet I need a system for him to know what comes next so I don't have to stand there and read each one.