Average Jane

Average Jane's "Lazy" Day

Rolling into the three-day weekend, I decided there was no real reason for me to leave the house yesterday. In fact, I spent the entire day in my pajamas and robe.

To the casual observer, it might have appeared that I spent the day sitting my favorite chair in the living room, goofing around on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. That almost feels true to me, but a quick inventory reveals that I also:

• Baked a batch of chocolate chip cookies.
• Wrote a blog post to share my sister's bean dip recipe.
• Washed pots and pans and cleaned the kitchen.
• Ran the dishwasher twice.
• Cleaned the kitchen sink.
• Did 7 loads of laundry, including a rare white load with bleach.
• Cleaned out my main food storage cupboard.
• Got on a roll and also cleaned out some lower cupboards that have been an annoying mess for a while.
• Cleaned out a drawer above those cupboards.
• Decided to swap the contents of two upper cupboards, so I cleaned them out as well.
• Took a LOT of trash out.
• Made a batch of popcorn and spiked some Orange Vanilla Coke with Jack Daniels to enjoy while watching the season premiere of The Magicians.
• Put away all the laundry I'd done.
• Filled a big cardboard box and a trash bag with items to take to a swap with friends next week.

How does all that fit in with my year-long organizing plan? Well, three of the "extra" items I did yesterday were on the list for later in the year, so that gives me three free weekends to do other things. One of the drawers wasn't on the list, but it was definitely overdue to be cleaned out.

Today I have plans with various friends for most of the day, starting with brunch this morning. In between, I'll be making the bean dip mentioned in the previous post so my husband can enjoy it while he watches the Chiefs game.

That leaves Monday for the errands I put off yesterday. I like how this weekend is shaping up.

Average Jane Makes Bean Dip

With the Kansas City team in the playoffs, naturally I need to make some football-watching snacks, regardless of whether I'm watching the game myself. Thus, I made a crockpot full of Rancho Gordo cranberry beans yesterday so we can have bean dip. Here's the recipe, which actually came from my sister.

Delicious Bean Dip

2 cans pinto beans or similar (If starting with dried beans, use 1 cup and cook in advance.)
1/3 cup olive oil
1/3 cup green or red bell pepper, chopped
1/3 cup chopped onion
2 cloves fresh garlic, pressed or minced
2 tblsp. Worcestershire sauce
4-5 dashes Tabasco sauce
2 tblsp. ketchup
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper (optional, but recommended)
1/3 cup cooking sherry or wine (optional)

Heat oil in skillet on medium heat and add onion, pepper and garlic. Cook, stirring frequently, until vegetables are soft. Drain beans and add to pan along with the Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco sauce, cayenne and ketchup. Cook for about 15 minutes, then add sherry or wine and continue cooking until re-thickened (about 30 minutes). Stirring should produce the consistency of refried beans. If you want them smoother, allow the beans to cool somewhat and use a blender or food processor. Serve with tortilla chips. 

Average Jane Makes Progress

In my last post, I laid out my plan to start tidying one part of my house every week. This is Week 3 (because I started the last week of December) and so far it's going swimmingly. 

I was looking forward to this week because the project was to clean out the closet in my bedroom that I use as overflow storage for my kitchen. It holds cleaning supplies, serving ware, small appliances, kitchen tools, special occasion cookware, baking pans, and some odds and ends like canning jars, spray paint and a furniture dolly. 

Here's what it looked like to start with:

I mean, it's not HORRIBLE, but it's definitely jumbled and disorganized. 

I took everything out and either laid it on my bed, put it on a card table I brought in for the occasion, or set it on the floor outside the closet. I had an empty box ready for useful things that I'll take to a swap with my friends. The next one is coming up in about 10 days and anything that doesn't get claimed will get donated.

I started another box of items to donate to Habitat ReStore - mainly cleaning products that are full or nearly full. I had a lot of carpet cleaners, for example, despite the fact that my home has almost no carpeting.

A few things needed to be thrown away, including the two cartons of oat milk you see on the bottom, left-hand shelf that expired two years ago. I got out a trash bag for those.

Finally, I discovered a very full box of dead compact fluorescent bulbs that I will take to Lowe's for disposal.

The end result:

Voila! Much tidier. I even left room for some storage containers that are currently in use.

I think I'm going to get some baskets to attach to the inside of the right-hand door that I can use for some of the things that are still kind of hanging out in there without a defined spot. That would be good for stuff like the ShopVac attachments you see on the floor to the right and the pile of cleaning rags that are stacked on top of other cleaning supplies on the shelf. 

Even without the baskets, it's still in a much better place and it will definitely be easier to find things and put them back after I use them.

One of the best things about this whole project is that most of the tasks are relatively quick and easy. Even today's project took less than 90 minutes.

Now that I have it out of the way, it's time for me to make some pizza dough and bake cookies. 

Hope you also had a productive weekend. And if it wasn't productive, I hope it was relaxing and fun!