Tip of the week: resealable bags.

If you're anything like me you have small items and such laying around that are too small to keep in a drawer or a box. The perfect thing then are resealable bags.
You can get them anywhere and they are really usefull. I somethimes order beeds and needles from hobby stores and they usually send them in small resealable bags. After I have used the contents I put the bags in my desk drawer, and whenever I need a bag for something I take go there to find one. And, again, when I'm doen using it I put it back.

Here are some things I use my bags for regurarly:

• Keeping postage stamps in before sending them in to Tubfrim (an organization that collects and resells old p.stamps to help TB children).
• Sorting beeds and buttons by colour.
• Keeping little scraps of paper for my scrapbooking (yes i scrapbook.... goths can scrapbook too!)
• Storing leaves for freeze drying.
• Keeping small bolts and screws so they don't disappear on you (my hubby's tip).
• If you got a small bag of spice, lock them in a grip-seal bag to keep them fresh.
• Use them to store lengths of ribbon. It keeps them ordered and neat.

These are but a few things you can use them for. Under is an image of the bags I've packed only today. I normally find something that needs packing each day...

Tip of the week

Every week I'll try delivering a tip about keeping house in some way. I'll also introduce some items that can help you out with the task at hand.

This week: Making ready to go away.


This weekend my husband and me are going away for a family weekend with my family down south. We're going to be gone for 5 days, and this requires some planning on our part. We have 2 cats so I need to find someone to take care of them. And I also need to make the house ready for us leaving and staying away for that time. I have a sort of routine for making us and the house ready for vacations and here it is.

If we are going away for a long time I reserve a whole day for making ready, or I divide the work over a couple of days if my days a particularly busy. Today I have the whole day though, and we are leaving first thing tomorrow.
I start out by eating a good breakfast, since cleaning the whole house often takes a lot out of you. :)
After breakfast I gather up any dirty dishes and clean them. I don't have a dish washer yet, so this is done by hand. I always rinse them in near-to-boiling water and set them to dry when they've been cleaned.

While the dishes are drying I take any kitchen towels that are dirty and toss them into the sink in the bathroom to wash. This is an easy way to do a small amount of laundry in a short amount of time.

After popping the towels in wash I attack the oven, the benches and the tables: Tidy, clean, whipe.
And remember - Put everything in it's propper place, less it ends up as more mess. I also make sure there are no unpayed bills lying around somewhere. This is a thing I've learned the hard way. For the longest time i never knew where the bills were or even if they were payed. Most of the time they were not. Now I always know where my bills are and I pay them as soon as I can. And as soon as they are payed I note date and time on the papers and put them in a designated ring binder.

Then I take an hour break. Mabe use the time to study a bit, or to eat lunch while watching an episode of True Blood that I've recorded earlier.

After the break there's folding to do, and more tidying. Everything that's lying around have to be put in its right place. Even if I am to use it later. As I go I bring a wet cloth with me and whipes of every shelf, nook and crannie that I can find. Sockets, picture frames, ledges and window sills also get a once-over.

Then it's hanging the laundry, taking out the trash, shaking out the carpets, dusting of the telly and vacuuming and cleaning the floors.
After that it's mostly decorating. Like finding and laying out new table cloths, airing the linens and then making the bed and airing out all the rooms for an hour or so.
Last, but not least, before we leave in the morning I unplug ALL electrical items/appliances that does not need to be in. That includes the oven, the TV and the computer. This makes sure that if there is a electrical charge there is no way my electrical appliances will get ruined... or worse... catch on fire.


Having problem finding a place for everything? Here's a cheap but good tip. Get some of these from IKEA. They are relatively cheap, they can be packed flat when you don't need them anymore, and they can hold a lot of different things. I use them for receipts, magazine articles, all my hobby stuffs and my sewing accessoiries.

I've gone crazy: a week of white foods

For the next two weeks , from new moon to full moon, I'm doing a food project: to eat only white food. This morning I ate egg whites. My husband got the yolkes for his lunch noodles :). I ran into a small snafoo though... what do i make for food for two weeks that are only white? And this weekend I'm going south for a meeting/ weekend with my family at a resort, and how am I going to keep to the all-white diet then?

I figured I'd make a shopping list for the two weeks today, so at least I'll have only white foods when I'm home.

Any ideas anyone?

Sleepy, exhausted and pleased!

Finally I am finished with that damned paper! It kept me up all night and all morning. It even distracted me during lectures this morning! But now it's delivered. No turning back. Past the point of no return... etc. You get the drift.

Right now I am contemplating if I'm going to go to the Inside I concert at 8pm or if I'm going to get some well deserved sleep. It's a difficult choice i tell you! Although the bed is calling louder and louder, and sounding sweeter and sweeter... especially since the cats seem hellbent on making me fall asleep with their purring and cuddling. It's their evil plan to conquer the planet by cuddliness I tell you!

Well, anyways. It's nearly dinnertime now so I have to go do the dishes and cook dinner first of all. *shuffling the cat of my lap* Having Chicken Crisps today. My lovely husband bought them last night for me to eat while writing the paper during the night, but I never got to eat them. So I'm going to have them for dinner instead. Lucky me. :)

School catching up to me... :(

It's really late. I'm about to get ready to go to bed. In the back of my head something is telling me to stop and think...then it dawns on me. I have a paper due tomorrow! So i rush around looking up the right information. Downloads the paper from the school website and opens a empty document on my computer. I check the due time, 12 hours 34 minutes left, ok... this I can do.... then I look at the assignment. It's based on an article. OK, so where is the article? Not in the booklet i bought at semester start... that's for sure... and not in a book I've got either. Oh no! I never bought it! They didn't have it yet when i bought the books for this semester, and I never went back to check if I had missed something! How incredible stupid of me!!!
*sitting down by the desk*
Oh my... what am I to do? I'm thinking of writing the alumnus to tell him what has happened, and hope for him to allow me to deliver it later this week.


On a lighter note:
I got a new vacuum cleaner today! Yeay! I have not been so exited about a house holding tool for ages. But just look at it! 

It's an Electrolux Ergorapido 2-in-1, and I absolutely LOVE it! I also had a visitor over today and I made Nasi Gorang, or fried rice, for dinner and got praises for it. And what house wife does not enjoy getting prais for a well done meal?

Anyways. Now I have to write that mail and hope for the best.

Wishlist for my kitchen!

 Everything here was found at www.stonewallkitchen.com

Welcome to my humble blog

Welcome in! Hang up your cloak and kick off your shoes.
I am a 26-year-old housewife and student. This will be my blog for musings off all sorts.

I love cooking! I love the smell of freshly baked bread, the whiff of meat cooking in the oven, and the happy look in my husbands eyes when we sit down together and eat. I wish for the love of me that I had children, but as of yet that has not happened.
I am currently balancing being a good wife with being a great student. Something that is a lot harder than it seems. I am just learning to be frugal in all ways possible so if anyone has tips for me, please, do tell. :)

I live in an apartment of medium size. It's not big, but it's big enough for the two of us and the cats. We recently moved here so I have not yet been able to get properly settled in, with the homework, assignments etc that comes with school. It's only been a week since i got a table-top stove. It's only temporary until i get my full stove sent north from where we were living before. On top of that, we have not yet sent our laundry machine here, so i have to borrow our friends' machine when i do the laundry. All this makes being a good housewife harder than usual. I am hoping things will lighten up a bit soon.

I decided to create this blog as a means to focus all my thoughts and to share my experience to my like minded out there. So please, enjoy, and do comment :)