Pantry, as promised

A while back I told you about re-organising my pantry (pantries), and promised to show pictures. I've had problems getting everything working on the computer, but now its all playing nicely together, so here we go!

Click any of the pictures to see them bigger.

Like I mentioned, the biggest problem with using one of the extra cupboards as extra pantry space, is that the doors kept getting in the way. Every time I wanted to get anything out of the pantry, I had to move everything off the counter, out of the way so could open the doors. Which was annoying, because there was a decent amount of space there for me to use.


Because of the way the doors opened, I couldn't even just move things over to the side - they would still be in the way. I would have to either put everything on the stovetop - if it was off - or next to the sink, and then move it back again.


I mentioned to Hubby that maybe we could take the doors off, and then we wouldn't have to keep moving everything. He said it sounded like a good idea, and the clever man removed the doors just like that. I reorganised the pantries so that mostly only the 'nicer' looking things were there like my canisters and the old coffee jars I use to store herbs, spices, and other powdery things, along with other baking stuff - baking powder, gelatine etc. The few non 'nice' items don't bother me the way a whole shelf full of oils and sauces would have.


Finding the hooks under the bottom shelf was brilliant. I can never find my measures in the drawer, and this way, they're right there where I need them. I also don't have to go rummaging in the towel drawer for my oven mits - they're hanging on the hooks in the pantry too! The counter space is easier to use (and theres even a little more of it without the doors in the way), and I can grab a jar of spice, use it, and put it back, without having to plan ahead (a little difficult when you add stuff at random the way I do when I cook) or move everything constantly. Because it's now open, it gives me extra incentive to keep it tidy, too.

The other pantry is not such a dramatic difference, and has actually been reorganized slightly since these pictures were taken, but it still easier for me with all my sauces together, all the spreads together, all my foil/plastic/paper together. It also serves as generic 'extra' storage, with excess bottles and packages sitting in the back behind the more frequently used items. Pretty much every shelf has regular use item in the front, and bulk storage in the back, from oats, to sugar, to bicarb, to teriyaki sauce, to olive oil.


I don't have any pictures, but I have actually commandeered another cupboard as pantry space, as well. It's one of those annoying corner cupboards that you can never quite reach everything when you try to use it as storage for plates, or glasses, or pots and pans, so I'm using it for things that won't fit in the other pantries. Juice, cordial, and soft drinks, cereal and muesli, and all our cookbooks and spare placemats.

Blah Blah Blah

• I'm knitting gloves.
• With only 2 needles.
• From a pattern designed for double-pointed needles.
• Which I'm altering to knit flat AS I GO.
• I may in fact be insane.
• We finally collected paintings from mum's house and hung them up here.
• Its amazing what a few landscapes will do to break up the expanse of lemon-yellow.
• I really need to get back into the habit of shopping at Aldi.
• And baking bread.
• And making yoghurt.
• I need more clothes-line.
• In winter I can only hang one load of wash.
• I have to hang on every second line or the clothes don't dry because they are too close together.
• This didn't seem to be an issue a few months ago when it was warmer/less rainy.
• This means I am using the machine EVERY SINGLE DAY when you count all the loads of nappies and cat-pee soaked rags I have to do.
• Our almost 14yr old cat can't seem to stay in his tray, so I have to clean pee off the floor EVERY SINGLE DAY.
• Gosling made use of the toddler toilet seat yesterday.
• There was a lot of applause and exclamations of "good girl!!!"
• The second time I put her on she fell off and bumped/scratched her head.
• I expect she won't be very enthusiastic about sitting on it today.
• I need to clear out her drawers.
• How can someone so small have so many clothes?
• Because she makes such a mess of them feeding herself with a spoon.
• And now she's shaking her bed so its probably time to go get her up.
• Bye.

Shampoo

Today I used shampoo for the first time since last November. Don't worry, I haven't been walking around like a grot with skeezy unwashed hair, I've simply been using baking soda and vinegar* instead.

Since we've been programmed by companies to believe that nothing can get clean without bubbles (hair, hands, teeth, laundry, dishes..) many people find it difficult to imagine that you can wash your hair without shampoo.

Trust me, you can.

Not only do I generally wash my hair less frequently when using baking soda, it takes less time to wash, and my hair is in better condition. This morning I spent over half an hour in the shower trying to get all of the shampoo out of my hair (I don't use conditioner, ever, because I would be in there for over an hour trying to rinse it out - my hair does not like that stuff) where as I usually take 15 minutes on a hair-washing day - I know this seems like a long time, but my hair is long, I wash it twice (not including the vinegar rinse), and in reality a fair portion of that time is spent washing my hair before I turn the water on**.

So why did I revert to shampoo this morning? The simplest answer is, it was cold. The more involved answer is, I didn't realise I had no baking-soda-solution until I was already in the shower cubicle, and I decided it was far too cold to go traipsing through the house to make some. If it was summer I might have gone and done it, but I already couldn't feel my toes. I'm not going to let that happen again. (I did briefly consider just not washing my hair and waiting till tomorrow, but my hair REALLY needed to be washed.)

Once I realised I was going to have to use shampoo, I welcomed it as an experiment. Its been so long since I used shampoo that I'd almost forgotten how different it feels, and I admit, I probably used a little too much - in my defense, my husbands shampoo comes out of the bottle a lot quicker than mine used to - but I don't really think the amount I used had an impact on the way my hair feels.

If I can possibly avoid it, I have no plans to use shampoo ever again. I've stopped colouring my hair, and haven't been to the hairdresser since last October, so other than my own laziness, there is no reason for me to use shampoo again.

Which is good, since I don't really like it when my hair feels like the nylon strands they use for doll hair.



WASH YOUR HAIR WITHOUT SHAMPOO:

You will need:

• squeeze bottles (I bought some, other people have had success with very well rinsed detergent bottles) (Actually, these are not absolutely necessary, just easier. For quite a while I made each batch as I needed it, instead of 'in bulk' and used it out of a pyrex measuring jug)
• baking soda (also called bicarb)
• apple cider vinegar
• water
• hair

NOTE: This is what worked for me, for my very-fine-but-gosh-theres-a-lot-of-it, naturally-dark-blond-but-coloured-lighter-for-the-past-4-years, hates-conditioner-with-a-passion -which-is-fine-because-it-hardly-tangles, almost-waist-length hair. The proportions you need will depend on your exact hair. I had to fiddle around a little till I found what works well. Don't be discouraged if it doesn't feel right the first couple times. Change your proportions till you get it right.

"Shampoo":
For every 2 cups of water, you want to add about 1-heaped-Tbsp bicarb. This becomes tricky, because Australian measures are different to US measures. For 2cups - 1pint (about half a litre) - you want about 1/8cup bicarb - for me, this is easier as 2 heaped tablespoons, since there are 3tablespoons in 1/4cups and I don't have a 1/8cup measure. 4cups - 2pints - 1quart (about a litre) - use 1/4 cup.

"Conditioner":
The proportions for the conditioner are similar, excepting that since vinegar is not a powder and therefor won't dissolve, you put your 1/4cup vinegar in your container and top up with water until you reach your 4cups (2 pints, 1quart, about a litre) of liquid.

- You may find that your bicarb solution is gritty. If that happens, you need to boil your water before adding the bicarb - while it is still hot. It will fizz like crazy, so do it slowly, but it will dissolve better.

- You may find, like me, that your hair washes better if you start it from dry. My best friend has to start hers from wet. Whichever works best for you, focus on your scalp. This is where most of the oil is, and you may find the ends of your hair dry out if you add too much soda there. For my hair, I use about 3/4cup per wash, pouring on a little, working it in, pouring more on elsewhere, working it in, etc etc. If your hair still feels dirty, and/or your scalp still feels oily after rinsing the soda out, do it again. The first time will loosen all the oil and dirt, and the second time will well and truly wash it out. Twice is usually enough, no matter how oily your head feels before hand***.

-"Massage your scalp" the same way you would with your shampoo. It works out all the dirt and flakes.

-Make sure you rinse your hair thoroughly between the soda and the vinegar. Ever mixed an acid and a base (alkali)? You don't want that on your head. If you don't believe me, put a teaspoon of bicarb in the bottom of a jug and pour in some vinegar. I don't imagine it would feel nice on your scalp.

-Use your vinegar solution the same way, but pour a little more through the rest of your hair, not just your scalp. Your hair will feel dry if you don't use some sort of acidic rinse to counteract the bicarb. Be sure to rinse it out well, too. The smell is not noticeable once dry.

-Apparently vinegar is better for brunettes, and lemon for blonds. I imagine you would use about the same proportions of lemon as vinegar, but here, vinegar is cheaper than lemons, so I haven't tried it (despite being blond).

-I like the smell of chamomile, so sometimes I rinse my hair - after the vinegar - in dilute chamomile tea, too. I've convinced myself that it makes it soft and shiny, but I may be delusional.




*Separately. Don't try using them simultaneously, it would be messy and feel terribly odd.
**Yes, I wash my hair before I turn on the water. It seems to get cleaner if I use the solution on dry hair rather than wet, and it saves water.
***Did you know the shampoo companies aren't just trying to rort you out of more money by making you use more? Your hair will actually get cleaner if you wash twice - the first time loosens everything (oil, dirt, dander, peanut butter...) and the second time washes it all away.

But What if You're Wrong?

Much as we may hope and pray that one day all will recognise Christ as Lord and Saviour, the plain truth is that many, many people don't. There are those who follow different religions, those who believe in some sort of God-like being but aren't really sure who has it right, and those who flat out do not believe in anything. When you die, you turn into dust, the end.

When discussing religion in general (and Christianity specifically) with people from either of the latter two categories, a common response seems to be "but what if you're wrong?" and lets face it, it is a possibility.

It is possible that the entire new testament is a false. It is possible that Jesus was deranged, and everyone who believed him was equally crazy.

It is also possible that I am crazy and imagining everything going on at the moment. There is a history of mental illness in my family, maybe I snapped and am currently drugged up to the eyeballs in a mental facility somewhere, spinning elaborate fairy tales to comfort myself. Perhaps the depression that plagued me as a teenager got the better of me. Maybe something went wrong during my c-section and I'm in a coma. Maybe I got hit in the head.

Its possible, but its not likely.

Lets face the possibility that our faith is unfounded for just a moment though. What if we are wrong?

Well, what if we are? I will have lived a happy life, bringing joy to my family. I will have spent time budgeting expenses so we never go hungry, and we can help those with less than ourselves. I will have made strong friendships with fellow misguided churchgoers, sharing tips on wrangling children and running a house, helping others and being helped in turn. I will have spent many hours singing joyfully, instantly lifting my mood, and hence lifting the moods of all those I have come in contact with. I will have been faithful to my husband, and he will never have to doubt that he is his children's father. My children will be well behaved and polite.

Do I need to go on? Even if I am wrong, I will still have led a happy and fulfilled life. If I am wrong, so what?

And if we are right, and Christ is the risen King, exalted Saviour, bringing us home to Heaven by His grace alone, and not by anything we can do, and all those who do not believe are cast out.. Well. I know what I'd rather believe.

Metabolism

I love weetbix. Just like any good Australian. I love them with a little bit of brown sugar, and enough milk that the outside softens just a touch, but the inside is still crunchy. This necessitates eating them rather quickly.

The fact that I love weetbix so much, is actually one of the reasons I haven't eaten them for a few years. I love them TOO much.

Something that is often asked on ads is how many weetbix you can eat. The serving suggestion is 2, but many sportsmen claim to eat 6, or 8. Football players mostly, big burly guys that you expect to eat half a cow for dinner and still have room for dessert. Or swimmers, who burn so much energy they are constantly eating just to stay in shape.

When I was 18, I would eat 10.

10 weetbix for breakfast. With sugar and milk. A cup of milk with each set of weetbix. Eaten by 2, that makes over a litre. A good tablespoon of sugar spread over the two weetbix, 5 times over, makes half a cup. and then I would have a glass of orange juice.

This didn't stop me eating during the rest of the day, either. When I was at school, I would eat two sandwiches for lunch - thats 4 slices of bread, 2-4 slices of cheese, and 2-4 slices of ham. Plus an apple, plus a muesli bar. And a glass of juice with lunch.

When I was working for my father, at 19, I didn't often have sandwiches for lunch. Instead I'd go to the local bakery and get a loaf of their cheese and bacon bread. And a sweet bun. And a 600ml carton of chocolate milk. And eat it all.

Dinner wasn't any better. If we had pizza, I would eat a pizza. By myself. Thin crust, yes, but not home-made, and I'd eat 1/3 of the loaf of garlic bread too. Milk with dinner as well.

Sometimes I made myself pasta - from a packet. You know the kind - add milk, water and butter, microwave for 10 minutes. Serves four. I'd eat the whole packet, plus a couple slices of bread to mop up the sauce.

What did I look like when I used to eat so much?


I looked like that. That is a 17 year old Sarah. Who hadn't started eating 10 weetbix at a time yet, but would regularly eat 6 (with all the accompanying sugar and milk) and one time ate 4 cheeseburgers, 20 chicken nuggets, 3 large fries and a thickshake within half an hour, then went to the movies and had a large popcorn and three packets of sweets (snakes, maltesers and violet crumbles for anyone wondering). I looked approximately the same until I had my son when I was 22.

HOW COULD I LOOK LIKE THAT????? On a day when I ate 10 weetbix for breakfast (with milk, sugar, and orange juice), pullapart for lunch (with finger bun and chocolate milk), and pizza for dinner (with garlic bread and milk) I would easily consume 5000 calories. Thats nearly 3 times what my current suggested intake is.

I HATE my metabolism.

Ponderous Thoughts

Jenni at One Thing has posted a series of "would you rather" questions, asking about things like Twilight, vomit, Robert Downey Jr., and sheep's brains. (Um.. not all in the same question.. that would be weird.) The last question was "Would you rather answer all of these questions, or come up with 10 of your own?" I answered her questions, as I'm not sure I'm capable of coming up with 10 of my own, but there are 2 that I've thought about quite a bit over the years.

The first one is easy, and coming up a lot at the moment: Would you rather keep coughing all night, or actually take some of that disgusting cough mixture?

Coughing usually wins. That stuff truly is FOUL. And it doesn't seem to have much of an impact on my cough.

The second one is harder, but one that I'm extremely unlikely to ever have to properly think about again. Would you rather go into labour entirely alone, with no opportunity to get someone to help, or have your waters break spectacularly in the middle of a shopping centre?

Hmm. Solo Birth, or Extreme Embarrassment? Before I had kids (and I used to ponder this while I was pregnant with Critter, so I'm really not just making this up), I would have taken the Solo Birth. I probably would have died of embarrassment if my waters broke in the middle of a shopping centre, and women all around the world have babies all the time, without the aid of a plethora of medical staff. We've been doing it for thousands of years. Our bodies are MADE to do it.

Then I had Critter. I was in labour for only 4 hours, he got stuck, and I lost a lot of blood. I was on iron tablets for over a year to get my iron count back up, and I have NEVER had a problem with iron levels. After that, I started thinking that maybe I wouldn't be one of those women who could do the whole solo birth thing. Then again, my mother had fast labours, and hers were relatively uneventful.

And then, I had Gosling.

Knowing that a four hour labour with the first child is VERY FAST, and that labours tend not to get longer with subsequent children, my husband already insisted that we head to the hospital at the first signs of labour. In the end that wasn't necessary. At my 39 week check they ended up deciding I needed an emergency c-section, when the baby's heartbeat dropped so low I thought the machines were just picking up me. That was probably the most terrifying day of my life.

If I ever get pregnant again, Solo Birth is not going to be an option. I will camp out on the hospital doorstep for the last month if necessary. I am just not someone who can have a baby alone. I hate having babies in the hospital. I hate the fact that pregnancy is treated as a disease as much as a natural process, and that birth is considered impossible without medical intervention. But, without medical intervention, there's a possibility that I could have died having my first child, or that my second would never have made it out alive.

And really, after an open-door hospital birth and a c-section, so many people have seen me naked that a little amniotic fluid in the middle of Westfield probably wouldn't even phase me.

Knitwit

I'm teaching myself to knit.* My mother knits, in fact I think she even knitted a lot of my baby clothes, seeing as when I was born it was the tail end of winter and we lived in Melbourne (I know she didn't make any for my sister, born mid-summer in Darwin, that would probably have constituted child abuse). She tried teaching me when I was younger, and in fact I think I even made a scarf. But I am 27 now, and I can't have been much older than 8 then, and with nothing in the intervening years, I couldn't remember anything other than "two sticks, wrap the wool.. um.. help?" which isn't really that useful.

To be Absolutely Honest, mum showed me again last year when she was up for a weekend, and I wanted to make a blanket for Gosling (who so far has a beautiful Steve, and blue hand-me-downs from Critter). But, in true mum-manner, she cast on for me, then showed me how to make the stitches, believing that casting on would be too hard for me. Um, hello? I'm 27, make clothes without patterns, and have taught myself to sew and cook, but casting on is too difficult? Alrighty then.

Anyway.

The knitting went slowly for a while last year, a row here, a row there, whenever I had a free moment, but then summer came along and I got more interested in sewing. And stopped knitting until a couple of weeks ago. By which point I had forgotten everything and had to find instructional videos online. Which would have been easier if our internet hadn't decided to play up on the night I decided to pick up my knitting. Sigh.

I've discovered that I'm actually not too bad at it. I can in fact cast on -and off!! - by myself, and while I'm not a speed knitter by any stretch of the imagination, I don't feel like I'm going at an absolute snail's pace, either. So far I've limited myself to the knit-stitch. I know my tendencies to jump in at the deep end, but I don't want to confuse myself, get frustrated, and give up. So until I've finished at least 2 more blocks, there will be no purling for me.

I've also discovered that I can knit and watch TV at the same time. Not only does it give me something to occupy my hands with - something WARM to occupy my hands with on these cold, cold nights (we still don't have any heating), but I knit better when I'm slightly distracted and not paying full attention. As soon as I start thinking too hard about the stitches, my speed drops off, and my tension ends up all over the shop.

Gosling's blanket is not going to be a masterpiece. I haven't managed any major mess-ups so far, but my tension is still wonky, and I am, after all, a beginner. But I will have made it with love, with my own two hands, and by the time its finished, I should be a fairly accomplished knitter.




*Interesting note - I originally spelled this "teasing myself to knot". Which is just as appropriate. Knitting is a lot like one giant knot, and I'm almost certain I'm teasing myself as much as teaching.