Week in Review

One of these days I’ll get a real blog post done – when I finally get a project done. Until then, these week-in-review posts remind me that while I may not be completing all those projects, which I very much enjoy doing, my time is well-spent nurturing grandbabies. Our situation may be out of the ordinary, and admittedly is sometimes overwhelming, but I truly feel blessed to have those babies here. They’re happy kids who dote on each other most of the time. No delusions that it’s all sunshine and rainbows, but the good far outweighs the challenges.

Here is Silas with the “Litter Bug” he created in preschool. He learned a lot about recycling and keeping our Earth clean when they studied Earth Day. He’s writing a story in this pic, but don’t ask me to recall it. His imagination makes for wild tales full of adventure and Super Hero feats of saving the world.

We are able to contribute for a Bountiful Basket every other week, and when I ordered on Monday I went a little nuts and got three add-on packages. There was no way there was enough room in the frig for what was coming. Layla was really good one day and between her napping and happily sitting in her high chair watching, I was able to deep clean the frig in shifts. Take in the beauty. It was fleeting. Sigh. (Yes, that is a half-eaten apple, courtesy of Silas.)  (Does anyone else have so many condiments? I need a frig just for those. Sheesh.) (Also, too, doesn’t showing the inside of the refrigerator seem really personal?)

For Valentine’s Day, Greg purchased and installed Minecraft on his Kindle for the boys. Silas likes to pretend he’s playing, but Brad actually does spend some time each week creating in the game. He likes to watch Minecraft videos on YouTube, then try out new ideas in his own game. He’s usually allowed just a few hours each week, so it’s a special treat to get to play. He also is required to wear headphones. It’s way too much audio stimulation for this Grammy to deal with otherwise!

Miss Layla was sick through this week, but she was a trooper. There were still lots of smiles and snuggles and slobbery kisses.

Aaaand, here’s our haul from Bountiful Baskets that we picked up Saturday morning! Jess and I did some meal planning this afternoon centered around all this deliciousness. There are some new-to-us items that will take some research to learn to use, like tamarind and dried hibiscus flowers. I’m pretty excited about the tomatoes. This time of year I start craving fresh ones, and while these don’t look too red and ripe, they actually have good flavor. The multi-colored carrots will be fun to sample as well, and I’ve never given the boys fresh apricots. I like apricots, so we’ll see how that goes.

We pick up our basket at 7 a.m., so usually have some time to get everything washed before putting it away. Not this day, since Brad and I were attending a private showing of the new Avengers movie, and had to be back in town almost right away. I had time to unpack and inspect everything, make sure Jess got a good pic, then we packed that clean frig full. It is once again bursting with bounty, with nary a spare inch for any leftovers. Good thing we have a second refrigerator in the garage!

You may have noticed the pretty flowers on the table in the background. Bradley picked those out for me when he was shopping with his mama the other day. Grampy sprayed the dandelions in the yard, so those were in short supply this week.

True Confession – I Had Crusty Build-up

No matter how hard I tried, my kitchen stove always just looked dirty. What did you think I had crusty build-up on? No. Wait. Don’t tell me. Just believe me when I tell you it was the stovetop. Thank you.

There was a baked-on crusted circle of ick around the main burner I use, and a smaller one around the burner behind. I tried scrubbing with dish soap, all kinds of cleaners, some different scrubbies – most of which I had to use so gently to keep from scratching the surface, there was no way they were cutting through the crud. Doesn’t this look just yucky?

Several days before Thanksgiving I was perusing Pinterest as I am wont to do in the late evenings before bed, and once again I see a pin for the “amazing” cleaning properties of ammonia, and how sealing your crusted stove parts in a bag with a bit of the stinky stuff and leaving overnight will “melt” all that crud away. That got me to thinking about the baked-on crusty yuck on my stove and I wondered…

I poured a tiny bit of ammonia on the stove, just enough to sit on top of the crust and saturate the paper towels, and left it for awhile. A couple of hours later, I pulled up the paper towels and wiped up the ammonia. When I did that, tiny bits of the spot were coming up, too. I rubbed at it and got a little more off, but it was obvious it wasn’t done soaking. So I repeated the saturation of paper towels, and decided to leave it overnight. Ammonia smells pretty awful, and isn’t really a great thing to breathe, so I covered the entire area with a plastic bag. That pretty effectively kept the fumes contained and I couldn’t smell the ammonia at all.

The next morning when I pulled it all up, a whole lot more of that spot flaked with the paper towels. I wiped and scrubbed and a lot of it came up, but it still needed more time. Wash, rinse, repeat, right? So I set it all up again, and this time I did the back burner, too. I was able to leave it on all day, checking every now and then to see if it was all coming up, and little bits did each time. Finally, after several hours, I was able to wipe the entire area clean. I was so excited! Greg just said, “Huh.” when I was all like, “Honey! I got that crusty, dried on spot off the stove! It’s been there for years! It’s gone!”… He didn’t care – he probably never saw all the crud in the first place.

What a little change in the kitchen, but such a pleasure to see the shiny stovetop again. Well, until the next day when I boiled over some potatoes. Argh! That’s when Greg looked at the stove and said, “Well, that just messed up your nice, clean spot, didn’t it?” Thank you, Captain Obvious. LOL. In actuality, he really was sympathetic. I wiped it up as soon as I could, and it all came clean again. Yea! As long as I keep that up, there will be no further need for the stinky ammonia, but just in case it gets ahead of me again, I’ll know how to get it off.

(You may have noticed in one of the photos above that the burner knobs are missing. They were going through the dishwasher after I used the homemade goo-gone on them to clean off the sticky ick that had built up since their last dishwasher bath. That stuff works on everything! I’ve been using it on the stainless appliances, my nice stainless tea kettle, to remove label residue from condiment jars, you name it. It works to get the goo gone, but is gentle and so far hasn’t scratched any of the varieties of surfaces I’ve used it on. Go make some – you’ll like it, too!)

So it’s been a few months since I did all this and the stove still looks pretty darn good. I am much more watchful about what is spilled or spattered on the stove and it gets wiped up immediately so it doesn’t bake on again. Even if it does, now I know how to get rid of it, and since it won’t have years to cure onto the stovetop, my bet is that will clean up much easier.

No more crusty build-up for me! Well, not on the stovetop, anyway…