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Category Archives: January Cure

January Cure 2018: But first a word from our sponsor

02 Tuesday Jan 2018

Posted by Jean in Home and other Repairs, January Cure, January Cure 2018, Uncategorized

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January Cure, January Cure 2018

Last year’s January Cure didn’t go so well for me. I did something to my good knee early on and as it was only getting worse, I put myself to the sofa with the mutts and Netflix. That knee is no better now and the knee on the already goofed up leg is failing because it’s had to do too much to make up for the other knee. I won’t discuss other skeletal failings at this point, suffice to say I need an android body.

Another issue that will hamper my Cure this year is Art. It’s insidious. It slyly creeps into your life as an innocent and fulfilling hobby and then spreads like herpes. A friend got me interested in acrylic pour painting. It is very cool and very rewarding and makes watching paint dry actually exciting. It’s also a good way to participate in art for someone like me who cannot draw, much less paint.  What acrylic pour painting requires are, a sense of color and space. Lots and lots of space. Overheard in this house at the beginning, “Do we ever actually eat at the dining table? Okay, let’s do this there.” I’m no longer sure we have a dining table. We must, all those paint bottles, cups, popsicle sticks, jars, jugs, canvases and stuff can’t be floating on air. I just can’t see the dining table.

There’s a big mess to be made with acrylic pour painting. As the name implies, you pour paint. When you pour, there is inevitably runoff. Turns out, when this runoff dries, it too makes interesting and colorful patterns that can be peeled up, cut out and turned into really groovy pendants. No room on the table for that. Had to set up a jewelry making station in the actual craft room. That was art station 2.

I posted a picture of a couple of pendants I made and was asked “Do you sell those?” and answered “I guess I could”, which prompted “Can you do one in these colors <insert wild combos here>?” and I answered “I could try.”, which led to art stations 3 and 4, an Etsy shop and 12 hours a day prior to Christmas trying to balance art and rest for my busted up body. 

So, there’s art all over the dining table, 3/4 of the craft room desk my son and I built along two walls, a card table in the craft room and a card table in the den. We have renamed the house “The Mad Artists Laboratory” and our Etsy shop is named after the friend who started us down this road (probably rubbing her hands and cackling maniacally), my son (who also got sucked in) and me, JJaphne. If you’d like to see (and dear lord I hope you buy, because I need to reclaim some space and pay my Home Owners Insurance and Property Taxes) our stuff, the Etsy shop is here: JJaphne Jewelry and Art.

So, this year I have to have a different relationship with The Cure. Large projects will have to be done during the week on my son’s days off, and might not get done at all. The smaller “Jean Safe” tasks will be accomplished on weekends and on three days during the week which may or may not coincide with The Cure Calendar. 

That’s enough for the rationalizations. On to the first real assignment to clear out and organize a drawer in the next post.

 

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January Cure 2016- Assignment 5: Clear and Organize any Drawer

07 Thursday Jan 2016

Posted by Jean in Home and other Repairs, January Cure, January Cure 2016, Uncategorized

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home cleaning, home organization, January Cure, January Cure 2016

Well boy howdy did this simple project snowball out of control quickly. I knew exactly which drawer I wanted to clear out and organize. It’s a kitchen drawer where I have stashed take out condiments for a decade. Yes, I did that. All those little katsups, mustards, honey, soy sauce, red pepper flakes, parmesan, etc., were safely stashed in a drawer for camp outs, picnics, and bag lunches. I haven’t gotten to that drawer yet.

Remember the Pantry Purge? I only thought I was done with that. As I removed, cleaned, pitched and put things back in an orderly fashion, I was drying to figure out how I could best organize the dry goods for baking. One of my hobbies is cake decorating. I bought some supplies and a friend gave me a ton of decorating equipment. I had so much decorating stuff by the end of a year, that it required it’s own cabinet. That cabinet had never been purged and hadn’t been organized in several years. It was a WRECK. That’s when I realized I had a second “pantry” that needed to be purged. Just when I thought I was done…

purgedpantryfullview

Full view of my nice neat main pantry after the purge. The reason it’s so neat is because all my baking stuff is NOT in there.

That project took 3 hours, during which, I realized I had a drawer full of decorating items, right next to the drawer with the condiments. The drawer with the condiments did not win that duel. I pitched 80% of the silly stuff I stuck in the decorating drawer that I thought might be useful in making cake decorations and hadn’t been. What was left, I sorted into tins and put with the newly purged and cleaned baking pantry.

I’m going to take a nap now thanks. This evening I will empty the condiment drawer. I will start a fresh condiment baggie next time we get pizza, burgers, chicken or chinese and keep it in the main pantry where we can easily find it now. I will have two completely empty drawers to make my kitchen utensil collection much more manageable!

bakingpantry

Baking pantry. Yes, that’s as organized as it can be until I make a lot of rice krispy treats, a batch of marshmallow fondant and about 10 cakes. Everything is easy to find in there though so that’s what counts!

emptydrawer

I haven’t had an empty drawer in this house in 10 years! I’ll have another one just like it this evening. Won’t last long because these two empty drawers will be the “cure” for my over crowded utensil drawer.

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January Cure 2016 assignment 1 part 2: Floors, Flowers and Chicken

04 Monday Jan 2016

Posted by Jean in Home and other Repairs, January Cure, January Cure 2016, Uncategorized

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cleaning house, home improvement, January Cure, January Cure 2016

flowersandfloorsbouquet

Flowers!

There is STILL a chicken in the guest bathroom. I’ve decided that her issue is probably not being egg bound. I feel like she’d have gotten worse or laid an egg by now. Not sure what her issue is, but she’s still eating, drinking and fascinated by my glasses, hair, fingers, and she’s trying to develop language skills. I wish she would so she could tell me what the heck her issue is so I can fix it and stop hovering over her like… yes, a mother frickin’ hen.

Finally on to the floors. I didn’t CARE if the vacuum disturbed Her Highness. I’d been itching to get this project started. Needless to say, I did not work on the guest bathroom floor, and won’t be until the bird is out of there, but that’s okay. I had the rest of this house to keep me plenty busy, especially with such a late start.

First up was to get the ornaments off the tree so that I could safely remove the dastardly dachshund fence that protects my ornaments from pilferage every year. I need that fence to corral the dastardly dachshunds before I vacuum and certainly before I get on my hands and knees to scrub baseboards and corners. I’ll have a face full of hound the entire time if I don’t. Of course, currently the dastardly duo are both obsessing over the alien being locked in the bathroom, but I can’t count on that to override them obsessing about mom on the floor where she can be hounded mercilessly.

lockdownhounds

   Sheldon and Amy in jail, staring at the door to the guest bath where they have been obsessing about the chicken for two days.

With the hounds jailed for the day, I hauled out my vacuum cleaner. If y’all remember my January Cure blogging from last year, you may recall that my upright vacuum and I had a less than harmonious relationship. I believe I mentioned that it was inhabited by the spirit of Ted Bundy since every time I vacuumed it attempted to kill me several times. Seriously, there was bloodshed, bruising, and many a goose egg sized lump involved. I had nightmares about that vacuum for pete’s sake. I desperately needed a canister vacuum but couldn’t spend that kind of money, especially since I had a vacuum that worked. Fate intervened over the summer.

The murderous vacuum, Bundy, burned up (no, not in the fire pit). I began trying to find a canister vacuum that I could somewhat afford. That same week a local estate sale business posted photos of some new items they’d gotten. One item was a Kenmore Progressive canister vac. I immediately contacted the business to find out what they were asking. I’d just priced this vacuum online and the lowest price was 300.00, so I was prepared for a high price. She told me they were asking 40.00, yes, she said forty dollars. I told her I’d be there in 20 minutes. Turned out the vacuum had never even been used, came with all the attachments, and even came with bags. I have named it Gilbert Grape. I’ve used it for 6 months and not once has it tried to kill me. There are still the usual wheelchair vs anything with a cord frustrations, but as long as there is no bodily harm and it vacuums I am VERY happy.

gilbertgrapevacuum

My buddy Gilbert

With the vacuuming portion done, it is scooch around on the floor time, getting baseboards and neglected edges and corners. No one likes this part. We can find all kinds of excuses not to do it. I find it extremely difficult because it’s hard for me to get my bad hip and back down on the floor and there is no comfortable way to sit because my bad hip doesn’t bend much. I end up on hands and knees and when knees give out, on my good hip side and that pain is too much I belly crawl. Then, of course, what goes down, must eventually come up for potty breaks, dog breaks, chicken breaks, coffee and snack. I then find it was a lot easier to get down there than finding a way back up with a back and a hip that, by now, are frozen and have no desire to bend whatsoever. This calls for groaning, finding furniture to “climb”, groaning, figuring out how to get the good leg and foot in a position where I can get them underneath me to help propel me to a standing position, more groaning and probably a curse or two as my broken hip components and back bones snap and pop themselves into a sitting position back in my chair. Fun stuff!

 

 

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January Cure Final Week and Stuff Happens

07 Saturday Feb 2015

Posted by Jean in General Farm Stuff, January Cure

≈ 2 Comments

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DIY, do it yourself, home decor, January Cure, pallet, wood craft

The final week of the Apartment Therapy January Cure and I was IN THE ZONE boy. Over the weeks, I’d organized, polished, cleaned, dumped, and managed to keep the house that way. I was on a rampage. I could see the finish line!

The final big weekend project was the living room. Mine is all part of one big room comprising the kitchen, a dining area and living room. With the kitchen sparkling, my desk organized, and once the dining table was cleared off, there really wasn’t much left for that room. I keep it dusted and picked up because it’s where all visitors land. My long bookshelf/plant stand by the picture window needed attention, but other than that, the room was good to go. I figured 3 hours tops would take care of it. Thus, I commenced with the before pictures.

bookjumblediningroom(That mess was NOT my fault. My son needs to set up a drop zone of his own, in his room instead of using the table as a drop zone. The dastardly rug rumpling dachshund duo need to… well nothing I can do about them except continually straighten rugs.)

livingroom1(No, we’re not protecting the living room from alien brain sucking waves. Aluminum foil works like dastardly dachshund kryptonite to keep them from jumping on and off the furniture. Yes, this is my life.)

So, a couple of hours work should have handled this. I could get more things done than just the living room like continue work on the laundry room and add a single shelf in my bedroom to replace the sad little faux wood bookshelf that is no longer needed. I was confident. Too confident.

Friday, my son and I went to town to pick up a board and a couple of decorative wooden corbels. I had a couple of other errands to run and we stopped in at a Sonic Drive in to grab lunch to take home. That’s where the demise of the weekend began. My son and I have done so much DIY wood working over the past year, that we cannot see a pile of wood without stopping to gawk and dream up ways to use that pile of wood. Well, that very Friday morning that very Sonic drive-in was doing some remodeling and had piled a whole mess of wood in one of the parking slots. We just HAD to ask about it and early Saturday morning we were back with a big trailer.

freewoodThat is a 15 foot trailer. We filled it.

It looked like a lot of wood in the parking slot. It was even more than we thought. It was also heavier than we thought. The winch on the trailer proved to be non-functional so John had to haul these LONG pallets up onto the trailer manually. I can lift, but I can’t carry. All I could do to help was lift and shove from the back, while John dragged from the front. Nothing, at least for us, is as easy as it first appears. Which should have warned me about the rest of the weekend.

I, and this WAS my idea, decided that the easiest and fastest way to unload these mega heavy long pallets was to chain them to the tractor, haul them off the trailer and drag them to a designated “stuffwewillprobablyuse” pile next to one of the corrals. It sounded like a good plan.

My tractor in a memorial to my hubby

tractorandstarsMy tractor is a 1957 Ford 800 series. Thank goodness. I’m not sure if some shiny new green monster would have had a sense of humor about what we did. Because she’s a mature girl (old), she pretty much demands fresh gas if we haven’t cranked her up in a while. We thought we had some. One gas can was empty but the 2nd can was near full (“2nd can” should have been a damned good clue for me, but I wasn’t paying attention and we were rushed for time) and John poured about a gallon into the tank, way more than enough to do this job but I figured I’d drag down some weeds around the property when we were done with the wood.

We tried cranking the tractor, she was reluctant. Very reluctant. Only with a LOT of coughing, sputtering and a cloud of smoke… wait.. I don’t remember her smoking before? But she eventually started. I backed her out into the middle of the backyard, John positioned the truck and got the chain attached to the pallets. I put the tractor in gear to haul the pallets off the trailer and the engine conked out. Starting efforts proved fruitless and drained the battery. This meant we had to move a car around to charge the battery. Starting efforts remained fruitless which meant we had to call a neighbor over for advice. It was while awaiting the arrival of the neighbor that my brain coughed up an old factoid. Wasn’t there a can of old boat gas in the garage? “JOHN? What was in that gas can you put in the tractor? Was that boat gas?” “Dunno.” facepalm. Boat gas, requires added oil. Tractor engines don’t appreciate oil added to their gas. This would explain the smoke. This would also explain the dark blue colored gas my neighbor found in the sediment cup.

The neighbor, kindly, chained the pallets to his truck and we did get them unloaded. He didn’t laugh. Much. The remainder of Saturday (not much left of it by then) and most of my Sunday were spent adding small amounts of good fuel to the tractor, and then draining out the oiled fuel over and over and over because, of course, the tractor had quit on a slight hill and wouldn’t fully drain. The best we could hope for was to weaken the mix enough for the tractor to start. As I said, thank goodness they made tractors the way they did in 1957. I was born the year before this tractor and I’m thinking it’s not a coincidence that they made my tractor well enough to stand up to me. They saw me comin’. The tractor finally cranked up Sunday afternoon, although her gas is still faintly bluish. Bless her.

This incident was followed by two days of rain, the discovery of a leak in the ceiling over my kitchen sink, running errands for my heroic, engine expert neighbor’s wife, and then post rain clean up of the barn and corrals (yes, the tractor is still running). My entire final week of the Cure was shot. However, I did manage to clear out and organize the bookshelf, vacuum it thoroughly (including the books) pitch the old non-working stereo and untangle all the plants that had gotten so happy they’d started moving into each others pots. My son also cleared all his dropped items off the dining table which is now, serving as a temporary surface for a craft idea I decided to work on yesterday so it’s still non-functioning as a dining area.

As for my laundry room and that shelf I was going to build in the bedroom, well, to quote Albus Dumbledore after working up the courage to try a Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Bean, “Alas, earwax”.

 

 

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January Cure of a diseased Linen Closet

22 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by Jean in Home and other Repairs, Home Decor, January Cure

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DIY, do it yourself, home decor, January Cure

Today’s assignment was to pick a closet and clean the heck out of it. I picked my linen closet because A. It didn’t require me crawling around on the floor again and B. it’s needed to be decluttered and cleaned for 20 years and 3 houses. We just moved the contents as is from our old house, to the rental and then to the new house, adding stuff as the years went by and only dumping stuff if it actually ripped. The result has been that I’d have to use real strength to shove clean towels and sheets in there. See for yourself.

beforelinenpurgeThat before picture should make up for the fact that I did not take a before picture of the laundry room closet. It was just like this except it was filled with filthy junk and twice this size.

So, what did I find when cleaning out the linen closet? I found my two (of three) good sets of sheets, an assortment of flat sheets that used to have matching fitted sheets, an old mattress pad I meant to dump over a year ago, an old worn out blanket, my good spare mattress cover, 4 towels, 4 table cloths, 2 woven place mats, and at least 24 pillow cases that don’t match any sheets I currently own! Was I afraid there was going to be a world wide shortage of pillow cases or that I might never be able to afford another one? You would think I lived through the depression with all the stuff I have hung onto over the years. I’ve had hard times, but c’mon!

Thankfully I have, at least temporarily, regained my senses. There’s now room in my linen closet to store my vacuum cleaner. I could probably store the dogs in there too. Amy is treading on thin ice today. My linen closet might become her “Cupboard Under The Stairs” if she chews up anything else vital today.

afterlinenpurgeI need to find out who or what has eaten all my gold colored towels. I used to have four gold ones and four blue. One blue towel is in the laundry, one is hanging in the bathroom, so I’m missing one blue and three gold towels. But by god I have pillow cases.

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Current woes, tall tales, and lessons learned

  • Here are the mutts.
  • January Cure 2018- Flowers and Floors and Stuff
  • January Cure 2018 Day 2- Make a list
  • January Cure 2018- Day 1- Clear and Organize a Drawer
  • January Cure 2018: But first a word from our sponsor
  • January Cure Weekend 1- Flowers and Floor
  • Day 3 January Cure 2017- Purge the Pantry vs Cabinet Cleanout
  • Day 2 January Cure 2017- Making a List (humming- checking it twice)
  • January Cure 2017 Day 1
  • Billiam’s List Bedroom Tile: Pat us on the head!

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