Happy Valentine's Day

A very happy Valentine's Day to everyone.  I know that there are those men out there today presenting their loves with flowers, candy, and even jewellery.   While, even though she says she doesn't want them, I know my wife would happily accept them. Today, however, I am giving her the gift of time.  She works very hard at her job, putting in extra hours quite often, just like she did last night.  She gets off early this afternoon, if she wants to go out, we will, wherever she wants to go.  If she wants to stay home and have a relaxing bath and a nap, then I will run the water and turn back the sheets.  This afternoon, it is all about my valentine.

Here To Clean Up

I did not start this blog to promote products.  I have published 28 posts and thus far I have mentioned 2 products.  In the post "Bathroom Fresh", I commented on the pleasant aroma of a bathroom cleaner. The other one I do not think should count, at all, because in "The right tool for the wrong job", I was praising a product not for what it was meant to.

In today's post , I am not only mentioning a product, but highly recommending it.  My wife and I (mostly I) wash our dishes manually. The time when we will have a dishwasher is still a long time off.  We have tried all kinds of dish soaps.  We primarily used no name or whatever was on sale. However, when it comes to getting everything clean I have used nothing better than Dawn Dish Soap. A greasy frying pan, or a baked on casserole dish wipes off clean after only a few moments in the sink.

It is also handy when we are camping.  My wife and I are both handy in the kitchen, but it takes me a little time to transition from our electric stove at home to our gas camping stove.  During that transition, I have a tendency to burn things a little. Dawn makes cleaning the camping cook pots easy.  No scrubbing with steel wool, just a wipe of the cloth.

An Hour A Day Means We Can Play

It takes me about 1 hour each day to maintain our home, following the schedule from back in my second post.  While I originally used it as a guide, I am now following it more strictly.   The only exception being that I sweep the floors every day.  If I do not there is enough dog hair to make a second dog.

As a house hubby, I have set myself a very specific goal.  I want to maintain our home in such a way that when my wife is home, we can do fun stuff together rather than worrying about whether the bathroom needs to be cleaned.  She works hard all week at a very tasking job, she does not need to worry about the little things like dusting or what to make for supper.

Too Many Ingredients

I have noticed lately as I look for new recipes to try that cooking seems to be getting complicated.  It does not matter if it is the monthly recipes get from Kraft or those posted by friends on Facebook. It got me thinking of meals that I enjoy the most, and how simple they are.

When I was a child, both parent's worked and it was a rush to get dinner on the table some times.  My favourite dinner was a dish that we affectionately called "slop". It was fast easy and consisted of four ingredients, hamburger, macaroni, tomatoes, and canned corn.  The fancy version did not involve chopping and sautéing onions and garlic, but a dash of garlic and onion salt or powder.

Out With The Old

As I mentioned in my post "Clearing out the Closet", we are taking advantage of my wife's office being relocated to move ourselves.  We have decided that part of our upgrade will be purchasing some new furniture.  My wife, once she discovered she had a job had less than a week to find and furnish an apartment, so most of our furniture was bought quick and is cheap.  The remainder of it traveled half way across the country via Purolator.  So our furniture's best days are behind it.

Yesterday, I braved the Yuppie Museum, known as Ikea, as my wife browsed through the various bedrooms, living rooms and kitchens picking out what she liked. All tolled, she has a list worth $1800.00.  It is not paying for it that concerns me, we can save up and buy it piece by piece.  It is the joyous Saturday afternoon I will spend putting it all together.

Clearing Out The Closet

Recently my wife was, quite unceremoniously, informed that her office will be moving to a new location.  We will be taking advantage of that by upgrading from a 2 bedroom apartment to a 3 bedroom town house. While her office is not moving until May, and we will not move ourselves until October, I have a plan to start culling my half of the closet.

To start, I will turn all the clothes hangers backwards in my closet.  Each time I take an item of clothing out of the closet, I will turn that hanger back around.  Come October, anything left facing the wrong way, will be bagged up and shipped off as a donation.

Return to Routine

Well it appears that I have run out of excuses.  Christmas is all packed away for another year, and my wife and I finally seemed to have shaken off the bug that has been lingering in the house for a month.  There is cleaning to be done and I have a few recipes from Kraft, and Facebook, that I will be posting shortly.  They look really tasty, but I want to try them out myself before passing them along.  A house hubby's work is never done.

Happy 2014

A very Happy New Year to everyone!

I realise I have not posted for two weeks, but I have been off enjoying the holidays with friends and family. Today is the unofficial end of the holidays and routines will get re-established.  My wife is back to work tomorrow, and my Mother-in-Law flies home on Friday.

It has been nice having a house full of people over the holidays.  Now that we have gotten a cot for the second bedroom, I have the feeling we will have company more often.

Sick Day III - The Return Of Illness

Twenty days ago, I wrote about my wife taking her first sick day.  On that day, she did half my weeks chores, as well as decorated our apartment for Christmas.  I kept telling her to go rest and get better, but she did not listen.

Since that day, she has been full speed ahead, finishing everything, she felt needed to be done, both here and at the office before her Christmas break.  She ran her self-ragged, did too much, and slept to little.  Well this weekend it caught up with her, and despite her valiant attempt to get up and go to work his morning she is, finally where she should have been 20 days ago, sound asleep in bed.

The Christmas Rush

Both my wife and I live far away from the rest of our family.  This was a necessity for her to find work and we are both happy with the choice that we made.  But it does not come without challenges, like Christmas. My Mother-in-Law will be with us for Christmas, and I will have a nice long telephone conversation with my parents on Christmas day.  However, to ensure that there was anything under my parent's tree from us, it had to be wrapped, packed, and in the mail today.

As I mentioned in an earlier posting (Home Made Christmas), my wife likes to make the gifts that we give. So while everyone else has been focused on the big day two weeks away, she has been putting in a few hours each evening and all her weekends getting everything ready.  I try to help her as I can, but in her own words..."the best way for you to help is just get out of my way.

The rush is now over, her mother arrives next week, and my wife can now relax and enjoy her holiday.  I, on the other hand, still have to go trudging through the mall to buy all of her presents.

Sick Day - The Saga Continues.

Today was my day to have a sick day.  Luckily my wife, on her sick day, did half of my chores for the week. I demonstrated the proper day to have a house hubby sick day.  Other than walking the dog, I have spent the majority of my day lying, under a quilt, on the couch watching various sports news and discussion shows.

Sick Day

Today, my wife took her first sick day in the three years she has been with her current employer.  However, somebody needs to explain to her what a sick day means.  She has already done half of my chores for the week.

Home Made Christmas

My wife loves to bake, but unlike her, I am not a baker's man.  She also loves to sew, quilt, and scrapbook. So is it any surprise that a portion of the Christmas presents we give are home made.  This year, we are making almost entirely everything. Everybody is getting aprons, whether they be for baking, barbecuing, or crafting. There are canned preserves and the usual Christmas baking, and I am contributing by making barbecue rubs for the men.

Bathroom Fresh

My least favourite chore is cleaning the bathroom. However, quite by accident, we recently purchased a product that makes it a little nicer.  Needing toilet bowl cleaner, we bought a combination pack that included a bathroom cleaning spray as well.  One thing I have always disliked about cleaning products is the chemical/bleach scent they leave behind.  It is the nice fresh smell that Lysol Power Bathroom Cleaner leaves behind that I enjoy most about it.  In fact, I even use it on my kitchen counter tops so it is that pleasant scent that greets people at the front door.  The only thing that I have against the product is that it tends to foam up inside the bottle when being sprayed.

The Right Tool For The Wrong Job

Recently, our building's management company renovated all of their suites.  Our kitchen and bathroom have nicely tiled floors and we needed something to keep the grout clean.  So we bought ourselves the pictured cleaning product.  It was a miserable failure at cleaning the grout. However, it is the greatest thing I have ever encountered for cleaning the tub.  It has a telescopic handle which is very nice for a gentleman, like myself, getting on in years, whose knees do not work as well as they use to.  I do not even remember when I decided to try it as a tub cleaning tool, but I am very happy that I did.

Laundry Duty

The joy of being a house hubby in an apartment building is having access to the laundry room while 95% of the people in the building are at work.  Our building has 1 washer and 1 dryer for every 11 suites (1 set for each of the 3 floors).  On the weekends, there is often a line up as people try to get a weeks worth of laundry done.  I, on the other hand, try to do a single load first thing each Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and every other Thursday (after I change the bedding).  I am in the laundry room as soon as it opens at 8:00 and have my daily laundry washed, dried, folded and put away by 9:30.  In order to speed up the process, I use the microwave timer so that as soon as a load has finished, I can go switch it over or bring it home.

Kraft Canada Recipes

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http://www.kraftcanada.com/en/registration/rbe.aspx

This was an insert into our grocery store flyer this morning.

I have signed up and will see what kind of things they send.  I will post a review on it in a few weeks.

Scheduling Becomes Routine

The photo included in this blog is something a friend posted on Facebook some time ago.  It was the foundation of my daily routine.  My wife and I live in an apartment as opposed to a house, so instead of dusting one day and doing the floors another, as suggested in the cleaning schedule, I divided the apartment up and gave each room its own day to be cleaned.  So every day the house gets a general tidy, and one room gets a super cleaning.

Hello And Welcome

I have decided to start this blog to share my experiences.  I have some household tips, cleaning products and method suggestions, recipes, and anything else that may well pop into my head.  I hope you find it both entertaining and educational.