Good Days

Mark and I went grocery shopping last night.  We only bought gluten free, casein free products.  It took us nearly three hours.  Mark was completely irritated (he made the same face he's making in the above picture and will make it again when he finds out I've put it on this blog) that many, many, many Great Value brand products "may contain milk, wheat, soy, tree nuts, anchovies, cod, herring..."  You only think I'm kidding.  Do you know what's in your Great Value beef broth?  I do.  Yikes.  Mark actually later found an app for checking products for gluten (not one for casein, I told him he should invent it), but in the store we read labels for hours and were, in the end, able to get groceries to feed all four of us for maybe a week and a half or so and to avoid buying any foods that were not on Auj's new diet.  Whew.  Mammy and Pops were good enough to keep the kids for us while we shopped (Thanks again!!), but we were still beyond exhausted when we got home and finally got all the food (and children) into the house and put away and to bed.  Mark and I still felt rather like we'd been run over by a large truck, a minivan, and then several bicycles when the alarm went off this morning, but on the bright side, we are alive and we have food fit for everyone in the house in the pantry and fridge.  Which, considering how difficult some of that food was to find, is quite an accomplishment!  I revived somewhat after I had a few cups of coffee in my system (I'm not exactly sure how Mark survives, seeing as how he does not drink coffee or even very much caffeine.  He's a stronger man than some people might give him credit for I think, but then all of you already knew that....  He did marry me after all.)  Anyway, after my morning addiction was slated, I actually felt rather in the mood to get some previously dreaded housework done.  I surprised even myself by completely cleaning the refrigerator out.  I'm not sure how often other people clean their fridge.  My mom, probably once a week at least, if not more frequently, but I do not honestly remember and could not tell you even a ballpark figure of when I scrubbed mine last.  I wipe down the doors on the outside pretty regularly and I throw out the old food and leftovers on the inside every time I get groceries.  But really, truly clean it?  Nope, no idea.  Well, today, I did it.  And it took a while, believe me.  I used a LOT of baking soda (apparently my old GV brand baking soda may contain milk and wheat, so I had to do something with it...) and it worked very well.  I figured the baking soda was a little more food safe, but I did cheat and use PineSol in the meat drawer, just in case.  After scrubbing the fridge and getting the rest of the kitchen into relative order, I thought I might feel up to tackling our hallway bookshelves.  I love these shelves.  Bad Dad himself built them 'way back when' and they're one of  the many things I love about our creaky old house because they make it feel like home.  But....lately they've become more of a dumping place for homeless books and DVD cases than part of the charm of home.  I showed those shelves who was boss.  My books are organized, and the DVDs are (nearly) all in their proper case and shelf.  I did NOT alphabetize the movies, though this might Mark's one true pet peeve, other than mixing PlayDoh colors.  I will let him tackle that one, because he has own system and I am not privy to it.  For real, the man who has no second thought about leaving the same pair of shoes for me to trip on in the bedroom floor every night, has a DVD organization system.  (I don't understand it either.)  Lol!!  He knows I jest.  Sort of.  I really do hate tripping on those shoes.  Anyway, I feel good about the things I accomplished today so far and on top of that Auj took a long nap this afternoon, which was much needed by her (and me).  It may be silly, but my favorite thing I did today was actually this:  I made a clean/dirty dishwasher magnet.  Some of you just laughed, some of you have no idea what a dishwasher magnet is.  I didn't until I saw one yesterday in a shop.  It was simply a magnet that you flipped up and down that said, "Dirty," on the bottom and "Clean," on the top.  What's the point?  You put it on your dishwasher and flip the magnet to the appropriate label so you know if your dishes are dirty or clean.  I thought it was a cute idea, especially for Aid since one of his chores is to help with dishes and he's forever throwing them in the sink because he assumes the dishwasher is clean (convenient for him huh?).  However, close on the heels of my appreciation for the cleverness of a magnet was my derision and balking at the idea of having to pay for something so SIMPLE!  So then, this morning as I was reading my latest Family Fun magazine and drinking the last cup of coffee (always a sad time of day), I saw an article where someone had made one!!!  Duh!!  And even cuter than the store-bought version, they used a picture of their kids to illustrate each word.  They suggested staging a dirty/clean before and after photo shoot specifically for the magnet, but I do not like to clean or give baths that much, so I chose to use photos I already had.  And who doesn't have a picture of their kids getting dirty?!  I happened to have one of those magnetic photo sleeve things laying around.  (I'm thinking I bought it for a vacation picture that never made it in the sleeve.)  So I found some old pictures to use and typed right onto them using good ol' Picasa.  I printed them out, taped them in the sleeve so they didn't slide around, and lastly, taped up the end of the sleeve to be sure they didn't fall out.  I stuck it on the dishwasher and voila!!  DIY dishwasher magnet. 

And I still had time to blog about it!  Today was a good day.  This past weekend was a fun one, but busy.  Saturday, maybe not such a good day.  We tried to clean and didn't get much done, we decided on an impromptu store visit that did not go so well as we'd hoped.  We actually went to town in one car, realized Mark and I both forgot our wallets when we got to the store parking lot, drove all the way back home, realized we were out of gas in that car, switched the kids carseats to the other car, went in and got the wallets, drove back to the store, ate a quick fast food dinner, tried to grab a few things at the store, Aid had to go to the bathroom, Auj had a meltdown because she wouldn't wear shoes but wasn't allowed to walk through the store barefoot, and in the end we spent too much money on not enough stuff, and to top it off, when we got home, I realized I forgot to buy hairspray.  Grrrrrr.  Oh, and I forgot to mention the part where we got ready to walk out the door and Auj came out of wherever she had been hiding with mascara painted all over her face....  Anyway, they're not all good days.  And there are tons of things I didn't get done that I could have liked to today.  But in spite of the fact that today started out with Auj pouring her bowl of cereal and an entire half gallon of vanilla soymilk in the kitchen floor and that I've had to scrub black craft paint out of the living room rug; overall, today is a good day.  So now, I think I will check my chicken I stuck in the newly cleaned fridge to marinate and start chopping sweet potatoes for my newly found GFCF Ginger-Roasted Yams recipe.  Here's to good days!!