Gettin' My (Teacher) Craft On

It is a truth universally acknowledged that upper grade teachers

 have a lot of correcting to do, 

and lower grade teachers have a lot of fiddly prep work to do.

Which is great, 

because I loooove fiddly prep work!

A recent lesson began, as many do,

 with a find in Bullseye's Playground (formerly the Dollar Spot) at Target.

Hmmm... what could I do with these cute but cheap li'l clothespins?

Well, I could do a matching idea on a piece of paper...

but is there something even more engaging I could do?

Bingo!

I printed out six hedgehog drawings found on the internets, 

laminated them, and wrote uppercase letters on the hedgehog with a Sharpie.

 On the clips, I wrote the corresponding lowercase letters,

 so kids could practice matching them.

Is this as adorable as all get out, or what?

But, I can hear you say,

 "Dang It Minnie, isn't that a lot of work for one fifteen minute lesson?"

Yes, it is.  But fortunately, a sister teacher taught me a neat MacGyver trick.

To remove Sharpie marker from a slick surface,

 just write over it with a dry erase marker...

... and it will wipe right off.

Now I can use these hedgehogs for number matching, word completion, etc. 

Who knows? 

 Maybe if I get transferred to middle school,

 I can even use them for Periodic Table practice.

The Easiest DIY In The History Of Ever

As I detailed in this post,

I have a stack of recipes from Pinterest, magazines, etc.

But when using them?

My counter space can be problematic.

But last week, I totally Lady MacGyver-ed the easiest recipe holder EVER.

BEHOLD!

Yep, a paperclip and a rubber band.

And as a special bonus image,

evidence of my housewife trashiness:

I wanted the cabinet door to be semi-clean,

but I didn't even bother to clean anything that wouldn't be pictured.

Because that's how I roll.

Look At Me, Being All Housewife-y

I've said it before: I'm not all about housework.

Those women (or men) who can keep a sparkling house?

More power to 'em.

But I just can't get motivated to spend an afternoon scrubbing the kitchen floor

when I could be 

writing a YA dystopian  novel,

fashioning a new art quilt out of my wedding dress,

learning the skill of topiary

reading a Project Runway recap, instead.

Oooooo... Venn did NOT just say that about Dmitry!

So when my overworked* Sweet Man gently suggested that maybe?

 Sometime? We could get a maid to come in once a week, I didn't get all squiffy and hurt 

because I work hard to keep the house looking clean!  Sniff, sniff!!!

Nope, I'll be the first to admit my standards are not high.

I'm no crazy-hoarder slob,

but I'll say that the one housekeeping trick I have

is that if someone comes over unexpectedly,

I grab my vacuum cleaner from the closet, wheel it to the front door, 

and pretend that I was just interrupted in a major cleaning-fest of my messy house.

Excuse the mess.  I was just getting ready to vacuum the azaleas out front! 

Anyway, it turns out the big thing that was bothering the Sweet Man

was the ankle-high fur tumbleweeds generated by our many, many pets,

which could be found all through our downstairs.

(This is a re-creation of my fur tumbleweeds.  I don't really let it get this bad.)

Okay, I could do something about that.

All I needed to do was Swiffer the place every day or so.

But... those paper-y things sold by Swiffer are one-use only.

And although I bought some of these cool crocheted reusable Swiffer covers off of Etsy...

... I only had three.

What to do?

Well, when I was grabbing one of my crocheted covers out of the dishtowel drawer,

I dislodged a 13" square microfiber dusting cloth.

Ding ding ding!

Inspiration!

I cut one in half, and put it on my Swiffer.

I struggled with getting the cloth into the "anchoring" holes,

then realized I could just use a couple of rubber bands.

Once I saw this worked, I picked up six cloths at Target (in the auto section, btw)

cut them in half, zigzagged the raw edge, and stowed them in the dishtowel drawer.

Since I'm zipping this around the downstairs every day or two,

it takes me just one cloth and less three minutes to make the floors presentable.

I have a bucket by the washing machine that I drop the used cloths in.

And while I won't be dressed like this in the afternoon...

... folks are less likely to mistake our laminate floor for carpeting now.

*And no, the answer is not Why doesn't the Sweet Man just do the cleaning?

The guy already works about twice the hours my lazy butt does;

he doesn't need to add more housework to his load.

Timeline Of A Renovation, AKA The Descent Into Madness

I like to start the summer with a Post-It

listing the projects I'd like to get done before school starts.

Kitchen!

I wrote optimistically.

I planned  to take up the gross old tile,

put down new laminate tile,

paint the walls,

and install a pantry.

It was going to be great!!

But then...

summer ran down, and I looked hard at the kitchen.

Oy.

It was going to be a lot of work.

So I re-calibrated, and decided to...

That seemed doable.

It's hard to photograph the grossness of the entryway (and kitchen) tile.

It's porous, so it's literally never clean, no matter how much I scrub it.

And... let's be honest. I don't scrub it often.  

Why bother, when it won't look much different, anyway?

Soooooo...

Day One!

I swung my sledgehammer,

deployed my tile scraper,

and after a few hours it was all up.

Y'know the weird thing?

As per the internet's advice,

I covered the tile with an old towel while I whacked away at it.

The tile cut holes in the towel...

and the holes were actually burnt at the edges!

The friction or something melted my towel!  

Yikes!!

I pushed the tiles into piles, loaded them up in buckets and boxes,

and drug them out to the trash.

It was time for a break, so I took my grubby, sweaty self to the Bamboo Cafe

for a take-out boba tea and Vietnamese egg sandwich...

... and then I came home and applied the vinyl tiles.

I was a tad tired when I was done.

And holy moly, was I freaking DIRTY!

My poor beauty school pedicure!  It shone so bravely through the grime!

(Sidenote:  if you're getting a pedicure and want your legs

to be silky-smooth for the beautician?

Don't forget your feet.

It looked like I was resting hobbit feet in Carol's lap.)

After I scrapped myself from the floor

I finished the night with a Silkwood Shower.

I literally had to scrub my arms, legs and feet with a fingernail brush

to get all the sticky grime off.

.

.

.

Day Two!

From past experience, I know that days two and three can be the hardest part.

(I rarely do a job that takes longer than three days. 

It's just too stressful for the Sweet Man.)

The bulk of the job is often done,

but I need the extra oomph to put my sweaty work clothes back on,

get the tools out again,

and power on through and finish up.

And this time, I also had to deal with

THIS.

"What's the problem?" you ask.

"It's just a box of leftover tile, right?"

Yes, to you or me, it looks like a box of tile.

But to my kitty Jack?

Well, let's just say Jackie has

a drunken frat boy's casual definition of what constitutes a "toilet."

Wooooo!!!!  No Porta-Potty?  No problem!!!

Jack is the coolest cat I've ever owned (in a long line of cool cats);

he is in fact the Springsteen of kitties, BUT if it's a box?

He considers it a litter box.

So before I could grout, I grumpily had to take all the tiles out of the box

and clean them off with Lysol scrubby-wipes.

(I should buy stock in these dang things, I go through so many in my pet-filled household.)

But I can't stay mad at him, that sweet Jackie-cat.

He really is a love.

Aaaaanyway, I efficiently grouted up the area

and while the grout was drying, I tackled another job:

repainting the floorboards and walls near the floor.

Lady MacGyver tip!

I didn't want to use the big paint tray for such a little job,

so I just lined a small cardboard box with tinfoil.

After painting, I sealed the grout,

reattached the floorboards,

and picked up all the tools and trash that are the byproduct of a renovation.

My secret weapon to staying on task for this last slog?

An audiobook!

Listening to Ann Patchett's steady voice as she recounted her friendship

with sister writer Lucy Grealy tethered and focused me,

so I was less likely to noodle on the computer  work on another project.

By the time the Sweet Man and the Boy came home,

the floor was ready to walk on and dinner preparations were in progress.

Not so bad, right?

But let me tell you: renovations are like childbirth. 

It's easy to forget the sweating and screaming and only remember the results.

Awww, isn't a pwecious widdle entryway?

And they always, ALWAYS take longer than expected.

I can GUARANTEE that a floorboard will shatter, 

paint will run out,

or tiles will be just half an inch too big on one side,

 requiring laborious chipping of a dozen tiles to shave down to the right size.

But!

 Without my sweat equity and envelope of Etsy cash,

we'd still be living with smudged flat-white walls,

 eau de pet dingy carpeting,

and tile that is grosser than a bus station's bathroom.

So I say...

Zoidberg To The Rescue!

I made this excellent kitchen island last January...

...BUT it ended up becoming The Place Where Junk Mail Resides.

Another kitchen problem was my pages and pages of new recipe ideas

from Pinterest, the newspaper, the office staff room, etc.,

that just got buried under other stuff, never to be cooked.

(I think I see that Butterbeer recipe I've been meaning to try under that stack on the left.)

So I bought a wall pocket thingy from Office Depot...

...trimmed scrapbooking paper to fit the inside,

screwed it to the side of my island...

...and added Zoidberg to give me some handy advice.

Now the mail goes in two slots, the recipes in the other,

and when I'm making the grocery list,

I can just pull out a new recipe to add the ingredients to my list.

Anyone care to join me for dinner next week?

 I'm trying something new!