Chilled bulbs

I bought these containers from Kroger several years in a row. I rehomed the original glass containers. 

Last year, I bought one of these (below), Kroger, February 2023, nearly fully grown, because we had house guests. The photo directly below/full bloom is from last year.

I saved my glass container and liner. 

I had a note from Kroger that their tulips were in stock January 2024. 

I went to see what they had and was very disappointed that they were all fully grown. 

They looked pretty much like the ones in the ad photo (above).

I would be much happier if they were selling bulbs that had just a bit of green peaking out the top. 

Then, I dallied. I did nothing for a couple weeks, which nearly made it too late. 

Talking to youngest one night, I was telling her this story (have my own container, need bulbs, Kroger sets too advanced). 

We both started searching on our phones. We determined “chilled bulbs” was the key phrase. 

Nurseries chill bulbs so they are ready for forcing indoors or planting outside. 

We found various nurseries that sell chilled bulbs, but they were all sold out for the year. We determined chilled bulbs are meant to be ordered in December for January shipping. 

I have a note on my calendar for the first week in December 2024, to order bulbs for January 2025. Youngest has a note on her calendar for the second week in December 2024, to make sure I did this. 

I was pretty sad. We kept hunting.

We found a Wisconsin nursery that was mostly sold out, but had a few varieties still in stock. 

https://fireflyfarmandmercantile.com/collections/inside-winter-bulbs/products/winter-bulbs-pre-chilled-and-ready-to-plant?variant=43972034035948

Mostly these were yellow. I did not want yellow. I wanted red/pink. 

These bulbs have to be planted at middle’s, fall 2024. Middle has red/pink/white at her house.

We cannot plant tulips at our house, the squirrels dig them up and eat them, all, within a few hours of planting. I put human hair, pepper, bonemeal in the hole with the tulip bulb, the squirrels do not care. They once dug up 500 bulbs within 12 hours of our planting them. 

My bulbs arrived, February 20, 2024. The first photos, below, are from the day they arrived. I have one container with 10 bulbs. The container lives on the window ledge. The first day was very sunny, the container photographed better on the island.

The photo, below, is from one week later, 2/26/24. 

Here we are two weeks later, 2/29/24 -

Photo taken 3/5/24 -

Yes, very quick growth. Fast enough that I can see how they are so mature, for sale in the store. I feel like I can nearly stand there and watch them grow. 

I will post photos when they bloom. 

Britbox

I have many series I love on BritBox. 

If you like BBC style shows and have never utilized this app, are not finding anything interesting to watch on your usual sources, I highly recommend subscribing for a couple months and watching lots of series. 

Here are a few of my favorites (below). I subscribed over the winter and caught up on recent episodes.

Shetland had a major cast change, starting with season 8, still excellent.

I kept BritBox for an extra month to watch nine seasons of Lewis. 

I loved them. I was a little teary when I came to the final scene and knew it was over. 

I restarted Morse immediately. Lewis (the character) is in Morse, right from the first episode.

The original series was Morse. 

Then came Lewis. 

The most recent was Endeavor.

All are excellent, in my opinion. Normally I would say watch these in order, without a thought, because everything starts with Morse. But the Morse series is now quite old/dated looking. So some might need to start with Lewis. But - my opinion- have to watch Morse before Endeavor to pick up the references. 

Decluttering books

I am back to regular - once a week - posting. My intention is to post photos of the flowers blooming in my yard this year, so my posting rate may pick up then. That will be a fun project!

Please note - my husband and I listen to all our books these days. We are audio book people 100%. 

Decluttering books is a whole topic/category in itself. 

At one time we had full bookshelves all over the house.

The kids and I are huge readers. We are very pro library, but still had managed to each collect/hoard large collections of books. And we have a relative who sent hardcopy books, to us for years, as gifts. 

All our books have been culled many times in the last decade or so. The cullings happened as very organized projects. 

We have a large built in bookshelf in our living room (old picture, above, when I was shopping for new TV stand, but it shows the shelves). 

Previously, these shelves were full AND we had other bookshelves, full of books, all over the house. And we had stacks of books in various places they did not belong.

Remember, only my husband and I live here, and neither of us read hardcopy. We are both audio book people, 100%.

We now have a means of measuring/controlling the volume of books in our house. We keep only what fits on the shelves in our living room. 

If we find a book, somewhere in the house, that we want to keep, it has to fit comfortably on the living room bookshelf. 

If it does not fit, we have to one-in-one-out. This means we have to get rid of a book or two to make room. The books that are culled cannot go elsewhere in the house, they have to be rehomed. Self rule.

We recently discovered piles of books in a cluttered area of our house. 

My husband took these books to used bookstore #1. They bought many, but not all, of them. Used bookstore # 1 is locally owned. 

Then middle cleaned out the books at her house. And we found more books at our house. I took her eliminated books and our books to used bookstore #2. Please note used bookstore #2 is a chain. There is a note at the bottom of this post about selling to chain used bookstores.

I went in (used bookstore #2, chain) with five boxes -

I was very pleased when they bought all but three of the books from me. 

One of the books they did not want was a local medical directory from 2007. I sent a photo of it to the genealogy department at the library. They wanted it. 

I donated the last two books to a local resale shop.

Note - used bookstore #2 is part of a national chain. They advertise “we take all books”. Yes, they take them all, but they do not want them all. They pitch what they do not want. I am not okay with throwing books in a dumpster. I ask them to only take what they want and return the rest to me. 

Second note - I listed most of these books for sale, individually on Facebook Marketplace, first. They did not sell. When they did not sell, we tried the local used bookstores.  I have sold large collections of books and individual books on Facebook Marketplace in the past. For whatever reason, these particular books did not sell.  I have sold books to the used bookstores previously, sometimes they want them, sometimes they do not.

WILTY

I am back to regular once a week posting starting today. My intention is to post photos of flowers blooming in my yard this year. So there might be a different schedule then. 

 

 

I had forgotten all about this show. I watched many of the early seasons, years ago. 

Oldest and I watched, Would I Lie To You, in 2016. At that time, we watched it (separately) on YouTube. So I think I watched all the early seasons, but nothing after 2016.

Luckily I stumbled upon Season 16 on BritBox, just before my short term subscription expired. 

My husband and I watched season 16 which broadcast 2023. Season 17 is running now (2024), but I am not sure it is available in the USA yet.

So, unless the count got altered around Covid, probably I have not seen seasons 10-16. I think there are 12 shows per season.

We started back with the earliest season available on BritBox, season 8, which I probably saw before, but do not remember. And we are watching all of them available on the system. 

To us, they are very funny. 

I am not sure the British humor translates to everyone, but it does me. I find the show laugh out loud funny, which is unusual for me. 

There are four guests per show. Usually I do not recognize any of the guests. So yes, I am missing some level of the references, but it does not matter. I find the show fabulous. 

Book list source

I follow one quilt blog. 

She writes about cooking, her dog, decorating for the holidays, quilting and books. 

She recently posted three very good lists with lots of book recommendations. 

She writes a very good/short synopsis for each book.

 https://sisterschoice.typepad.com/sisters_choice_quilts/2024/01/my-best-books-of-2023.html

and

https://sisterschoice.typepad.com/sisters_choice_quilts/2024/01/runners-up-for-the-best-books-of-2023.html

and

https://sisterschoice.typepad.com/sisters_choice_quilts/2024/02/books-read-in-january-2024.html

My indoor plants

We attended a family wedding in Chicago mid November 2023. 

The venue was beautiful. There were lots of windows, with deep ledges. Here is my favorite -

I have a window ledge in the kitchen and a window ledge in the studio. Both are narrow and full of indoor plants. My white drip trays are dishwasher safe (food) plates (Target). 

The before pictures (below) are left to right.

Some people transplant to larger pots. I do not.  My indoor plants live in a very defined space. So they stay in their pots. 

If they get root bound, youngest divides/replants. We gift the extras. Youngest did this July 2023, repotting all my plants. 

This time, November 2023, everything needed a hair cut. Plants were a little long and scraggly looking. (There was very little repotting.)

The cuttings went in water to root. They will be added back to their original pots to make each pot fuller looking. 

The after pictures are still left to right, same pairs/sets are still together on their original drip trays, but the order of some sets changed.

If you are wondering - Some of my pots are identical, others are just similar. They are in the same genre as the tiles on my backsplash. (Those backsplash tiles are also my laundry room floor.)

The plants on the ledge in the studio were also tended, but look pretty much the same.

The pantry, part three

Fair warning - this is the last post in this kitchen series. I am back to my regular posting, just on Friday’s, starting tomorrow.

I may have mentioned, my goal is to post garden photos regularly this year. 

My pantry is between the dishwasher/towel drawers and the microwave area, in a corner of the kitchen.

It has a curved doorway that I love. There is another curved doorway in our bathroom. 

It is tough to get photos of the whole area, because it is quite small and very vertical. That’s a 9’ ceiling.

My husband added the eight tiny shelves, tucked under the main shelves, a few years ago. Each shelf required the addition of four boards (three brace boards, one shelf). They are attached to the wall and to the pre-existing curved shelf brackets. It was a lot of fussy work, he did a great job.

Yes, the tiny shelves are fabulous. They store a lot of very small things. Visually, they make the space much more appealing. They break up the empty wall space between each shelf.

The walls are a soft yellow. The shelves are a light green that has a bit of blue in it. The majority of the contents are either blue or white.

Like things are together. Unloading the dishwasher, it is easy to see where everything goes. 

The pantry is extremely functional. 

It is also very pretty. 

The pantry, part two, the lids

Dana K White strongly recommends storing lids on all containers.

Yes, this means less items for most people. That is a good thing for most people. Having everything have a place, everything fit easily in its place, and like things together, improves a house greatly.

I have taken this all to heart. 

My pans are now all stored with their lids (on).

My Tupperware is all now stored with their lids (on or under them).

My glass dishes, that we use in the microwave, are stored with their plastic lids (on). The lids do not go in the microwave. I do not use plastic in the microwave. 

The lids allow these same containers to be used for food in lunch boxes and in the refrigerator. The food is touching the glass. The plastic lid seals it. 

The basket, in the pantry, that used to hold the glass container’s lids, now holds my husband’s two lunch boxes. The lunch boxes used to end up on the pantry floor regularly. 

If I need to use the basket as a carry-all, I simply take out the lunch boxes, use it, put it back when I am done. It is a very sturdy basket which now serves a dual purpose.

I went thru all the lids, recycled a ton of cracked lids, bought new/replacements. I bought all blue. Blue and white dominate in my pantry. I like cohesiveness, having “somewhere for the eye to go”. 

Note - I now hand wash all these lids, I think they will last longer.

The pantry, part one, the dry food/goods

A picture says a lot. I would call this straight up clutter. Clutter begets clutter. 

Between cleaning out the pantry and cleaning out the cupboard above the microwave, I rehomed 8 large canning jars (below) that I previously used for bulk food storage. They served me well. 

The new owner cans vegetables from her garden and buys new (two piece canning) lids each year. She did not need my lids. She was very grateful for 8 huge jars.

There were 12 large jars originally, I rehomed eight, I kept four.

Once upon a time, everyone home, I cooked a lot of volume to feed everyone dinner and generate leftovers for lunches. Then during lockdown, everyone home and supply chain undependable, I kept a lot of staples. If you remember, we were dumping staples from their store wrappings into home containers. Those 12 jars were vital during that time. 

 

My husband cold brews his own coffee. He uses two of these jars regularly in the cold brew process. The other two jars are extras. I also have a few small canning jars. 

I purchased six smaller jars (below), that fit on the shelves built into the wall of my pantry. These are squared off jars that hold 8 cups. 

They are less than half the size of the old big jars (above). My goal is to only have them half full (2 cups) of dry food (rice, lentils, popcorn, etc). 

I ordered these new/squared off jars from Walmart. The lids are lined with cardboard, cannot be washed with water, which was okay with me. It was very hard to find jars that fit this space efficiently.

Now, I do not want a lot of excess. I do not like an over full pantry nor an over full refrigerator.

I *order groceries every Thursday. It is easy to only have 1-2 of canned things in the pantry, not 6-8 like I had in the past, use them, and replace them in my next order.

This is self fulfilling. I want low volume of a variety in the pantry, so I have what I need on hand, without having an over full pantry or refrigerator.

Curbside has made a huge difference for me. It helps me plan. I have a consistent grocery schedule. I only need $35 in groceries to make curbside free. It is a super efficient use of my time.

* Between Sunday and Wednesday night at midnight, I have an active/working grocery order online. I look at what I have, I realize what I need, I think about meals, I think about cooking meat and having it ready in the freezer.  It is all a simpatico relationship/process. 

I have a reminder on my calendar for every Sunday at 9pm that tells me to check my calendar for the upcoming week, sign up for my yoga classes, start a grocery order.

The grocery reminds me of my order. I will not forget,  I curbside on my way home from yoga, Thursday late morning. I fill my car with gas, every Thursday when I drive by the gas station, owned by the grocery. No matter how much is in my tank, I fill it. My grocery dollars generate savings at the gas station. This is a multiple pairing/simpatico relationship of errands and my pantry, refrigerator and car.

The towel drawers

Today’s topic is a set of three drawers between the dishwasher and the pantry.

The top drawer was a junk drawer long ago. When we purchased a tool cabinet for the garage, I think 2019, it became a tea drawer. 

December 2023, four years later, the tea moved. I considered leaving the drawer empty. But a need arose, bottom of this post. 

First, the story of the tea.

When I cleaned off my sewing table earlier this fall, this little drawer cabinet (below) went in the car to go to the resale shop. I couldn’t part with it, the cabinet came back home with me. That might be the first time (ever) this has happened.

When I walked back in the door, I knew I either found a use for it immediately, or it went back in the car. 

November 2023, it became my tea caddy.

I like the juxtaposition of the natural wood against the painted wood of the shelves and all that glass. It is a perfect repurposing.

This section of the kitchen, three drawers, got my attention, 12/1/23. It needed it. 

When all my kitchen towels were clean at one time, the bottom drawer (above) would neither open nor close. It was stuffed. There were more towels in the middle drawer which was stuffed too. 

This is very much a Dana K White philosophy. When everything is clean, it all needs to fit easily in its designated spot/container.

Here are the scrub cloths and drying towels from those two drawers, on the kitchen table. 

The item on the end is a new table cloth, which I did not know I had. If I were looking for a table cloth, I would look for it in my hutch, so it moved. Also a Dana K. White philosophy. Where would you look first? That is where things go.

I divided the kitchen towels/scrub cloths. The keepers went in the bottom drawer. 

These (below) were the rejects, which were all rehomed.

This pile remained -

These (above) are all what I would call “fancy/holiday towels”. 

At one time these towels were in my gift bin in the top of my closet. I have eliminated that bin and the concept. 

I no longer buy things to put away as gifts. This was a major clutter problem for me. It really helped to stop buying “future gifts”. I also now avoid garage sales and sale racks and stores in general, that has all combined to help, the whole house, a lot.

These holiday towels now live in the top drawer. 

They hang over the handle on my stove, each in turn, for each of their respective holidays. 

I dry my hands on them. 

I did not forget the middle drawer, which (very) long ago held phone books. 

I sorted out the aprons, previously in a crock in the pantry. They went in the middle drawer nicely, good use of space (below).