Homemaker's Meme: A -- Z

Gosh, but I haven't done a Meme in the longest time!  This one was doing the rounds a while back, and I never did it, so -- in honor of a typical Work-a-day Wednesday, here's a meme.  Please feel free to grab it if you like it:

The Homemaking Meme
Aprons 
Do you use them?

 Yes!  All the girls love aprons.  We have a good collection of them, and wear them all the time.

Bake
 Do you?
I love to bake bread, but am not much of a cake-baker.  This said, I still don't do a whole lot of bread baking, myself these days -- because I react to flour, internally and externally.   It gives me exzema on my hands when I knead the dough and makes me fat when I consume it internally.  But, this doesn't stop the girls  from tempting me with their baking!

Clothesline 
Do you have one; do you use it?

Yes, indeed!  We didn't have a line at our last house (the log one) and I missed it terribly!
Sadly, I have one now at this house, but have just been plain ole' too busy to use it.  Hanging clothes, though cathartic in its way, is definitely more time consuming and labor intensive than just shoving everything in the dryer...  

Donuts
Have you made them?
When I attended Our Lady of Victory school as a teenager, dear Sr. Alice used to make the world's best potato doughnuts every Saturday to feed the hungry after-Mass crowd the next morning.  I was honored to be one of her hand-picked helpers.   But, the only doughnuts I've made in the thirty years (!) since, have been in an electric doughnut making contraption the girls got last Christmas.

Anna & Cathy in aprons

Every day 
Name one homemaking thing you do every day.
I make my bed every day.



Freezer
Do you have a separate deep freeze? 
We have two separate deep freezes.  And we're getting ready to have a cow (or two) butchered here pretty soon to fill them both up.


Garbage Disposal
 Y/N? 
No.   Honest to goodness, I haven't had a garbage disposal my whole married life!  If you don't count teenage sons (or the pigs we used to raise).


Handbook
What are your favorite go-to guides for home making?
I love my Fanny Farmer cookbook, Carla Emery's Encyclopedia of Country Living, and my vintage 1956 copy of Hints From Heloise.


Ironing 
Love it or hate it?
I actually really do love to iron.  Another therapeutic task that I wish I had time for these days...

Junk drawer 
Yes or No? Where is it?
Just one?  I have a whole wall of junk drawers lining our mud room.


Kitchen
 Design & Decorating?
Our kitchen right now is almost too small to design or decorate... but if I had to call it anything, I'd call it Cramped Country...

A corner of our living room,
 Theresa and William...

Love
 What is your favorite part of homemaking?
I really enjoy" imagineering" how I want my house to feel, more than how I want it to look -- and then pulling together the colors and textures and "props" to evoke that mood.  What's the mood I'm trying for?   Relaxed, comfortable, cozy, loved.

Mop 
Y/N? 
At least once a week (Saturday) -- or I can't stand it. (Traditional string mop and wringer bucket)


Nylons 
Wash by hand or in the washing machine? 
Wash by hand, hang over the shower curtain rod.


Oven
 Do you use the window, or open the door to check?
Usually open the door, because, for some reason or other, the lights in our ovens never seem to work.  (What's with that?)


Pizza
 What do you put on yours?
Our favorites come from Murphy's Take and Bake: Vegge gourmet (our Friday splurge occasionally), which has artichokes, spinach, and I don't know what-all other wonderfulness with a white sauce; or the gourmet chicken and bacon, also with a white sauce...


Quiet 
What do you do during the day when you get a quiet moment?
Make lists for what I need to do when it's not so quiet.


Recipe card box
 Y/N?
Not a box, a small 18"x18" bin, within which I stuff all my favorite cut-out-of-magazine and hastily scribbled recipes, which I intend someday to put in an organized recipe card box...

Not actually our house...

Style of house 
Hundred-and-eight-year-old, two-story farmhouse


 

Tablecloths and Napkins

Y/N?

Almost never.  Maybe Christmas and Easter.  Why make more laundry than I already have, I ask you?


Under the kitchen sink 
Organized or toxic wasteland?
Well, not quite toxic wasteland, but I wouldn't call it organized...


Vacuum 
How many times per week?
Once or twice.  Always Saturday.  Sometimes midweek, too.

Wash
 How many loads of laundry do you do a week?
Oh, wow.  At least one load a day, usually at least two -- every day but Sunday.  More if all the kids are home.  You do the math; I don't want to think about it...


X's 
Do you keep a daily list of things to do and cross them off?
Lists?  I have lists of  lists!  (And I really do use them and cross things off occasionally!)


Yard 
Who does what?
These days I do as little as I can get away with...  Dan and the kids do almost everything -- but there's not a lot to do in the yard in this house -- and I'm not really sure now whether we're going to get the chance to get a garden in this year.  (Which makes me sad.  I do enjoy planning and planting the garden...)


Zzz’s
What is your last homemaking task for the day before going to bed?
Right before the kids go to bed, I usually have them play the: You-Ain't-Getting-Outta-Here-'Til-You-Clean-Up-This-Mess Game -- wherein, I have each of the five of them pick up anywhere between five and ten things and put them away where they belong.  Then, once that's done, I go around and tidy and wipe so I don't have to get up to a messy house. (I hate getting up to a mess!)