Thanksgiving and all it’s glorious nummyness is happening at my house this year. Is it happening at your house too??? What are you doing to prepare? For some reason I have had recently almost a “nesting” urge. And lest you all take that wrong let me be perfectly clear, there is NO reason for me to be having that urge either!!! 😉 Some people! But none the less, I have been cleaning and trying to organize. I used to think that I was an okay organizer, but I’ve recently come to the conclusion that it isn’t one of my gifts. I can sometimes (key word) keep things organized once they are so, but getting them there is not an easy task for me.
Still, I’ve been doing what I can. I washed, dried AND ironed the stinkin’ curtains, but you’d never know!! After spending nearly 2 hours trying to get the wrinkles out I gave up and just let them do their own thing. Life is easier that way. I may not be able to do that with my kids, but I can do it with my curtains, ha ha! I “organized” and cleaned out the pantry, minus the mouse. Found out later it was hiding under the dryer watching me the whole time!! If that doesn’t send chills up your back something is wrong! I’ll be posting pictures of my pantry journey, which is what finally and completely convinced me I can’t organize, soon. 😀 Stuart and I rearranged the spare room, but it is in serious need of a face lift AND massive organizational overhauling. *sigh* But I’m optimistic because Stu said he’d help me, and organizing IS his gift, for sure! I bought some curtains to replace the ugly blinds, and that will be as much of a facelift as that room will get for now.
Today’s interesting drama… was the kitchen stove, well more specifically the oven. I hate, Hate, HATE to clean the oven! The cleaners, the ickyness, the pain in my knees from kneeling on the hard floor. My back straining to reach those remote corners. HOW do those get dirty??? Do things explode in there while they’re cooking??? I don’t know, but I do know it was disgusting. I knew that in a few short days a turkey, which I absolutely LOVE was going to find it’s final resting place in my oven. What better reason to FINALLY get it clean? Yeah, that’s what I thought too. So I bought a can of “heavy duty” oven cleaner and this morning when Littlest Buddy went down for a nap I was ready to commence! I plopped Qade down in front of Veggie Tales too, and am so glad he was out of the way for all this carnage! Now let me just tell you that I followed the instructions on the back of the can TO A T for “warm oven” cleaning, because that takes less time. I preheated the oven to 200* and shut it off once it got there. Shook up the can and started spraying. That disgusting cleaner immediately evaporated into a noxious white cloud of nose, throat and lung burning fumes and filled the house!!! Ugh! I threw open the windows, turned on the vent above the stove, and turned on the fans. Then I went to the more “calm” task of scrubbing the bathroom because it didn’t smell as bad in there! I did have to laugh though when Stuart happened to wander through and started coughing and gagging. 😉 I decided after all the extra time wasn’t a big deal and to do a “cold oven” cleaning. That worked. The cleaner is repulsive, but it does get all that baked on nastiness off the oven. Qade came over to inspect when I was nearly done and said, “Good job “keening” stove, Mommy!” He’s so ready with words of affirmation! Almost made the whole thing worth it! 😉 So now I’m proud of my newly cleaned, sparkling, almost-as-good-as-new, oven. Even with ALL my scrubbing and 2 applications of the nuclear blaster oven cleaner, some stuff would NOT come off, so it’s lucky for me I’m not a perfectionist!
Here’s a picture! If you were a turkey and HAD to be eaten for Thanksgiving, wouldn’t you like to be cooked in THIS oven? 😉 I didn’t take a before picture because well…. even though I’m the Martha Stuart antithesis, even I was embarrassed about how this thing looked before. 🙂
