Homemaking on the Homestead

The kitchen can be a complex room. So much goes on in there. There is a constant daily use of supplies and dishes and cleaning going on. So being well organized is a necessity. This is a room that needs a plan and a good routine to keep things moving. One way to come up with a plan to better organize your kitchen is to step back and look at your kitchen and consider all that you do in there. The variety of meal preps, the storage of food, pots and pans, the baking, cooking, etc… Then break your kitchen up into zones. You can start with a baking zone. Examine where you keep your supplies. A baking zone will have measuring cups for both dry and liquids, measuring spoons, mixing bowls, as well as spices, baking powder, soda, etc. You want everything simple to access so that making a batch of muffins does not become a chore of digging around to find needed supplies and equipment or walking from one side of your kitchen to the other. I stay in one area of my kitchen and ac...

My pantry was in major need of some love. It has been very low on my priority list this year due to my health. Now that I'm getting on the other side of all that I wanted to get it in order again. I'm a, simple is best, be frugal type of person when it comes to projects like this. When I'm ready to organize things my first thought is NOT running to Walmart or the Dollar Store to purchase containers and organizing items. I'm not saying this a bad thing, it's simply not my thing. When I do want to organize an area the first thing I ask myself is, what do I have in my hand? Meaning, what items do I already have that will work and give me the desired end result. I will say that I often save containers if I think they have a future use for organizing. One that I love is the plastic container that my hubby's Pub Mix comes in.  These are nice and big and work perfect for storing bulk items.. ...

I don't know what it is about new notebooks and pens that can make me so happy. :) Every year I purchase a few new notebooks to write, journal and schedule life in. I'm old school in the fact that I prefer paper and pens to write things down in rather than my computer or phone. I do use electronics to keep track of a lot of things, but when it comes to thinking & writing, it has to be paper and pens. This year I was evaluating my needs for notebooks and thinking about the fact that my life is not super busy like it use to be. I don't need detailed weekly/monthly type planners to keep track of appointments and schedules. I need space to write. With that in mind here is what I purchased... I LOVE them! The large one is a 5 subject notebook with dividers that I labeled with the following subjects: Home (all thing homemaking will be written down in this section), Meal Planning (ideas, thoughts, recipes, plans for each month), Projects (this include...

It's beginning to feel a bit like fall here. We had a couple 80 degree days last week and hubby and I went swimming in our pond and enjoyed the sunshine and warmth. We both agreed that this was most likely the last of the days warm enough to swim. We had rain and cool weather over the weekend and temps in the forecast are looking a lot more like fall. I'm sad to see summer come to an end. It is my favorite of all seasons. But, it is time to embrace fall and all the changes that come with it. Do you have a list of things you do in the fall around your home? I've always take this time to do a little fall cleaning. After a summer of open windows and doors the dust really starts to collect in all the corners. I also like to clean my kitchen cupboards. I use to do a lot of fall baking and cooking so in preparation I would clean and reorganize the cupboards. I don't do as much baking anymore but I still like using this time of year to just freshen up th...

Last week I mention in my Menu Monday post about organizing my chest freezer. Chest freezers are a challenge to organize. Things get lost in the bottom and items pile up on top. I know I've tried several methods over the years. I received a comment asking me to share with pictures of my organization job. I think the key to any method is consistency. As and example... after grocery shopping last week my son was helping me put the groceries away. He took the freezer items and put them in the freezer. Well.. he basically just dumped them in the freezer. So much of my organization plan was gone. When I realized what had happened (when I went to the freezer to retrieve something :) I spent a few minutes putting things back where they belong. I've not always been great at the consistency part. So an annual freezer cleaning is needed. Now that I have only one freezer my determination to keep it organized and usable is very high.  I did not purchase anything to organ...

  This last weekend I did my basement storage area organizing project. Every year I go through things and clean up, downsize and organize it. And as the year progresses it gets messy and more things get added to the pile and by January it is time once again to clean up and see what can be tossed or given away. So… here is what my storage area looked like before I got started…   I knew I would need a place to sort things as I went through it all. I have a room next to the storage area.. we use to call it the music room when I had more kids at home that played musical instruments.. nowadays the room is more of a hang out room for the younger kids.. I started by grabbing the bags of out grown clothing and piling them up in the room … Then I started opening each tote. I have the tote’s labeled so I know what is in them but it always amazes me each year how much stuff I can get rid of or throw away. I was able to get rid of things and ...

I spent most of my morning going through several kitchen cupboards. I can’t believe how bad I let some of my cupboards get! I guess it is as I said in my last blog post.. we learn to function in dysfunction. In my quest for getting my coffee cups closer to the coffee maker I also wanted take to the opportunity to clean up and organize my spice cabinet. It was a big mess.. I had spice bottles and bags of bulk spices everywhere. Plus I had a few things in there that I had no idea exactly why they were there… :) .. So where do you begin when it is such a mess? I decided that I needed to pull everything out of that cupboard so I could see what I had and evaluate it all. So I removed all items from my kitchen counter, put them on my dining room table and grabbed my bottle of Basic H2 All Purpose Cleaner … And washed the counter all clean.. Then I brought everything out on the counter… I had previously purchased some empty spice bottles from Winco and pla...