A mess in the kitchen ?

Just look to that image. Don't we feel like that, in the end of the day, so many times?

We make dinner, everybody eats and then rests and we look at all the mess and feel so tired to take care of the kitchen.

Never mind. You would expect me to say now: 

- just engage everybody to help because you are not a slave; 

- you did already all that work making the dinner, now it's time to rest and let them do the cleaning;

- you can't let the kitchen like that, if they don't help, do it yourself

- don't go to bed with a messy kitchen

- God forbid to have a house like that

- and so on.

But now let's think: it's just to put things in the washer, so why to have a war because nobody helps? It's better to do it ourseves and in a minute it's done and everybody will be happy. Then you will have a tidy and clean kitchen, a happy faced family and you too will have some rest.

We must give thanks for having a house with a kitchen and food and family and a living room where to go and talk with your family and watch some television or a film or series.

- But I haven't a washer (for several reasons) and it's so much work.

Ok, then you begin, wash everything and let it to dry. Then you have two choices: either you put it way in the morning after being drying all night, which is ok, or someone will help you.

And clean the countertops, for some the sink it's everything, for me it's the countertops.

We don't need to be perfect, what we need is to live in peace. Do what you feel it's better and remember that you haven't to prove anything to anybody, just do what is needed for you to feel well.

- Oh, well, I have no energy at all in the evening, I just can drag myself to the sofa and rest. 

Well, now I will give you an advice that will raise a lot of eyebrows: do it in the morning if you know that you will have lots of energy then. Never mind what other people think and say.

Wake up earlier, go to the kitchen, shut the door so nobody will hear the noises. Put things in the dish washer or wash it by hand. Dry it and put it in the cup board. Clean the countertops. Sweep the floor.

Now look: isn't your kitchen so nice? Don't you feel well and victorious? And powerful? And full of energy !

And the day is beginning, the morning is such a wonderful time. And you have a nice, clean kitchen.

Now you begin to hear you children and husband waking up to a nice and tidy house. And all that begins with a tidy kitchen.

It's so good to have a home and a family. Thanks be to God.

Partying at Homestead Blog Hop, County Road and Modern on Monticello

Some of my favourite things - I

Shutterstock

I must say, I don't like a lot of things, as everybody knows. Very high ceilings, rooms with no doors, all the house with a big, large warehouse look where all the rooms get together, industrial style, too much grey in decoration, lack of privacy in the kitchen assuming that it's a public place and every guest and friend goes there and stays.

Antique furniture spoiled by corse paint. Old shutters outside windows, making pannels inside homes, as inside decoration. Ladders as towel rails. 

Oh I could carry on.

I don't like most house find and transformation tv shows where, in the end, I think the house is worse than before they began but everybody applauds and even sheds some tears.

Too much people. Wine - well, a little sip of Port or Madeira wine it's ok. Coffee. Extroverts. Political correctness (this I abhorre). Going with the flow, following trends, in clothes and in homes. Or ideas.

Summer with its hot weather and people trying to look their worst showing too much body. Beaches with women showing their bare bottoms - I wonder why they think the others are interested in their backside. But on this, anyway, let them be grotestque, I don't go to the beach anyway.

As I don't intent to please and I show myself as an intolerant woman who dislikes most things that almost everybody likes, if somebody is reading this, now he (she) is wondering if there is something in this world of God that I like. Yes! I do like a lot of things, it's just that I don't follow any trend and I always row against the tide, not because I like to do it, but because I dare, I have the nerve to be different from the madding crowd.

So, now I will show some things I like. Yes, there are a lot of things that I like. - I can't post now about everything I like but I intend to show, slowly, what I like on the course of several posts - not in a row.

Here I go.

Photo by The New York Botanical Garden - Houzz

Flowers, roses and others. Plants that are not succulents - yes, succulents are another thing that I don't like. Lavender.This I like so much.

Ferns.

Photo by Linda L. Floyd, Inc., Interior Design - Houzz

Traditional looking homes. Cottage style, the real one, in the kitchen, with a mix of farmhouse and shaby chic. Or craftsman for kitchens and all the house.

Photo by Ri-novo - Houzz

Shaker style pannels on the cupboards. Subway tiles as splachers.

Photo by Seattle Custom Cabinets - Houzz

Photo by Ri-novo - Houzz

The sink must be overmounted, I don't like undermounted.

The colour white if it must, or cream, that I reeealy like, 

Photo by Ben Herzog - Houzz

and wood tones, but the ones who give a sturdy look, not the soft wood ones.

Photo by Kitchens of Los Gatos - Houzz

Photo by JACK ROSEN CUSTOM KITCHENS - Houzz

Green, that I accept.

Photo by Rosewood Custom Cabinetry & Millwork - Houzz

https://www.houzz.com/

Traditional and Victorian style in the bedroom.

Photo by Linda L. Floyd, Inc., Interior Design - https://www.houzz.com/

In the Livingroom:

Photo by Linda L. Floyd, Inc., Interior Design - Houzz

And to finish, just look to this amazing house.

It's how I like things.

Credits under the pictures.

Partying at Homestead Blog Hop.

A fridge story

So now I will tell you about my fridge, or I should say fridges.

Years ago we moved. Our fridge was old and small and we needed a new one.
There I went to chose one and I came home very happy with a nice fridge that was much bigger, pretty and new. And it worked very well.

Years later, not many, we moved again and the new house had a fridge already, the kind that we look at it and it sembles a armário but we open it and it's a fridge and a freezer.
I didn't want at all to loose my old new fridge and my husband said that we should keep it because in a big family two fridges and two freezers would not be too much. And he was right.

Now, many years later, the one that was already in the house decided to not be cold inside at all. A man to fix it was called and he proclaimed that the money to make an old fridge and freezer work would be better spent in a new one. We agreed.

Now enters the one that we brough with us. He still works well but we made a big decision and some not yet done decisions are to be made.
I will explain.
We went to the shop to see new fridges as the one that stopped working and realized that for the price of one like that we would have another very good, big and not so expensive that would not be inside a armário. We decided then to buy a normal one -we stil didn't do it - and transform the armário where is the old one that must go to the rabbish. It wil be a proper armário. Yay ! I'm really happy with my decision.
We will keep the old one and buy a new one just not one inside a armário. Ah, that empty space transformed in a armário. I'm already thinking on the big help it will be because it will be a place, as Winnie the Pooh said, to put things in.

Then I began thinking: what about, instead of having two fridges, if we had just one but big ?

Oh, well, I couldn't decide yet. I will tell you when I do.

An Old Kitchen

So we went, all happy, to visit this wonderful kitchen that has served Kings and Queens of the XIX and XX Century.

The Palace is all really beautiful, the interior and the outside, not no mention the beautiful park surrounding it. Probably I will make a post on the Palace too.

So, this beauty was built in Portugal, in a town near Lisbon. People may just take the train and then the bus.
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Joining:
A Stroll Thru Life for Inspire Me Tuesday.
Savy Southern Style for Wow us Wednesday.
Organized31 for This is How We Roll
Crazy Organized for Funtastic Friday

On Kitchens

One thing I am sure, I know what I want and I like about kitchens. Each person has his own style and likes so this is not a critic to anybody. At all. Each person has the right to like what they like and want what they want. It's their house and it's their kitchen. But today I will talk about mine. The kitchen, I mean, the one I have and the one I dream about, the one I want to have.

First. I don't like soft lines in the kitchen, you know those floating lines like someone in a painting of Chagal, as if they were a kind of ghost or smoke. I like sturdy kitchens. I like a kitchen that we look at and feel safe, we feel strong - the kitchen and us. Well, that doesn't mean I must have a farm, a country kitchen, those really sturdy, I just don't want cupboards and countertops with soft lines, I want to look at them and feel strength. 

Then I need life in the kitchen. I keep seeing wonderful, beautiful kitchens all over the internet who are so nice and tidy they look they are in display in a shop to be sold. No one lives there. No, my kitchen has to be lived in, with signs of people, even if they are not absolutely tidy. I don't mean messy, just lived.

So I like strong lines on the doors of the cupboards, granite or marble countertops. I like wooden colour doors but I accept that a white kitchen lights up my soul and makes me feel well, wanting to live.

I need some strong colours to complement the white: greens, oranges and yellows. Or maybe red and yellow - even more lively, a kind of vintage even. Or blue and pink. Colours.

And wood accents, no doubt.

I do like my kitchen but it needs some improvement, I don't want to change it, just to make it better.
As I'm getting more and more out of my depression, I feel the need and the strength to live, to really live and my house is my world where I want to live fully.

Oh, life is good, let's live it !

...

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The Scoop @ Cedar Hill Farmhouse

Cleaning fridges

Oh, well, my fridges were in good and overdue need of a good cleaning and the freezer of defrosting.

Yes, I have two because when we bought this house there was already a big, for European standards, fridge in the house but I had bough one, in the previous house, some time before.

What to do, I thought and asked my husband, very sad with the idea of getting rid of my new fridge. Oh, we will keep both , he said, as we are a big family - again, for European standards, mainly for this corner of Europe.

So we kept them both.

I like that idea very much because it's so good to have plenty of room for everything. The problem is when the time to defrost arrives. So I delay it. Procrastinator as I am I always find a good way to procrastinate about it the most I can - till the days when we can hardly close it because we have so much ice in it that is more a box of ice than a freezer and it's difficult to keep things in and close the door.

So...we abstained to buy fridge food the most we could so it was possible to move everything from one to the other and clean it.

So I did it and also the fridge. Everything clean.

But then... I though, oh, no, it's not at all like so many people in those blogs I see where fridges are so neat and beautiful with everything so well organised in pretty containers.

Ok, never mind, it's clean and nice with some containers I had previously.

I will not give my fridges as an example on how to keep a perfectly organised fridge and freezer. But mine are clean and tidy and that is good enough.

Did I say I cleaned both fridges and both freezers? Well, I did and I am very happy about it.

I know my blog will never be an inspiration for people who want to have a perfect home but it will be good enough to inspire people to cope with a non perfect home.

Still, it's my home and for me it's the best place on earth !

...

And now I'm going to this Party:

Amaze Me Monday@Dwellings The Heart of Your Home

The Kitchen

I don't know why when I think of homemaking, of cleaning and tidying I always think on the Kitchen or Laundry. Well, maybe also on some Bedroom tidying.
As for today, I'm thinking of heading now to the Kitchen and make those counters and things on it sparkling.

As somebody has inspiration for that also? I have so... here I go.

On past windowsills

As I said in my last post, I'm dealing with my windowsill in the kitchen. Once it was always pretty but as many things in my life it just lost the usual care it had from me. As in all the other parts, I'm recovering and so
is my dear windowsill. No, not ready to go on the internet, but I am working on it. So, I leave you with some pictures of my windowsill in previous times.

Yes, it will be pretty again.

The Kitchen Windowsill

One of my favourite spots at home is the kitchen windowsill. That window has a very nice view of our low but even so very long mountain and I like to have that view as a painting where my window and windowsill is the frame. But now the problem: as I have neglecting myself for several reasons, also my windowsill have been but now I very much want to have it back. It's one of my goals this month. I'll have a picture here when it's done.

Declutter and tidy up the fridge

The Kitchen is one of my favourite places at home, not only to cook but also to clean and tidy up.
So many things in the house that need to be done but I keep procrastinating about it. Not the kitchen. Or at least not so much. It feels really good when I have the trouble to get out of my comfort and procrastination and decide to get things done there.
So, today, after work, I will tidy and declutter one of the fridges. It's clean, only needs a bit of care. A clean, tidy fridge really makes me feel good.

Most times, homemaking is so anti-depressive.

Cleaning the fridge

We have two friges in my house because we are lots - well, for european standards we are, in our house there are six people.

So, two friges mean the double of work and I often clean just the basic but now I decided that I would take everything out and clean it well.

I put my apron on and began cleaning but as I work outside is not everything done. I will say that is a work in progress but at least I began.

I will post a picture of it probably tomorrow, maybe it will inspire somebody to do the same.

A corner of my kitchen

The kitchen is a place in my house I like very much. It's not picture perfect as some I see in other blogs, it's not ready to be pictured in a magazine and it will never be but it's my kitchen.

I have great plans for saturday related with my kitchen.
Sometimes I see posts by people that, when they say they have plans to their kitchen, they mean to build a new one or to redecorate a part of it. Not me. I have plans to clean and tidy it. It needs and deserves more attention.
Life has been taking me to so many places and I was forgetting my house. Now I'm back. I'm expecting a lot of help from above and a good deal of peace so I can concentrate on the good things of life, like reclaiming my kitchen back.
I hope I will post more about it soon.

A full pantry

...or being prepared.



We are a family of 6, a big family for european standards - and what to say for this corner of Europe standards! We need to be prepared and have a full pantry.
Well, looking to several blog's well stocked cupboards, I reminded some pictures I took of mine some time ago. (So, maybe some of you have seen them already).



I must say, also, that my cupboards are in a urgent need of tidying up so they can be prepared to welcome the lot of things we need to buy before Christmas.



I'm always so much afraid of needing something in the days before the big event that I always buy a lot. I don't mind if, in the end I don't need as much because it stays for the days after.

For instance. It's a tradition, here, to have several fried wonderful things for Christmas Day and Eve so, I can't buy only two bottles of sunflower oil, I feel I must buy four, the same with flour, sugar and so on. It's quite ok because the result is I wouldn't need many things in January and the feeling of buying a lot makes me feel more in the season, a bit like the ants, storing things for Winter.



Well, time for homemaking now. I'll let you know about the progress in the tidying up.
The buying will begin is some weeks.



For Blissfully Domestic.

Show & Tell Friday

Again, here we are at Kelli's Show and Tell Friday.

Today I will show you some chest of drawers tresures.The first drawer shows some towells, pot holders and kitchen towels from previous Christmas. They are quite well so I will use them again this year- but I'm already window shopping for more and can't wait to buy them.

Here we see some kitchen towels and pot holders from my everyday collection.

And here again, from another angle. I must take more pictures of my kitchen towels. I like so much that kind of things, the domesticity emerging from a kitchen towel. I have a lot and I'm always having more.The more the merrier !

See you next Friday.