Exercise or clean house? Both!

Yippee! Thank you for the comments jakeone and anonymous! Finally, it looks like everyone can comment! Sorry for the frustration to all of you who tried but weren't able to. It took me a while to figure out how to open up the comments section to all. See, I told you I am not a computer person.

Onto those projects!

Despite not starting to eat until well afternoon yesterday, I still managed to get well over my 10 per day of fnv's! We are very fortunate to have a produce market nearby that sells fnv's in bulk on the cheap, and I mean, cheap! Of course, it's cash only, non-organic and who knows where from? It appears to be a Latino owned and operated business, so maybe eventually I will be able to speak to them in Spanish and find out where the fnv's come from. But for now your guess is as good as mine. But look at all of those fnv's! Don't they make your mouth water?

Here's a picture of the salads we ate for dinner last night. Poopers prefers pecans and I prefer pine nuts, but otherwise they both have cukes, fresh figs, spinach, capers, sundried tomatoes, Italian parsley, fresh basil, dill, onion, and I sliced half of a cooked potato onto each of them. His dressing was a poppyseed dressing and mine had balsamic vinegar on it. Very yummy!

After dropping Poopers off at the train station - yes, train station, he decided to try the train for the first time post-op today - i went home and struggled between deciding to clean the house or getting some exercise. Hmmmm. Would really rather do anything other than clean house, but the house is pretty disgusting at the moment. And when there's picking up, putting away, sweeping, dusting, vaccuuming, laundry, a bathroom and a kitchen to clean, and mopping, etc, to do, I decided that is exercise.

So let the cleaning commence. Where to begin? How about with an experiment. Has anyone tried the non-toxic drain cleaner concoction of 1 cup salt, 1 cup baking soda followed by a kettle of boiling hot water? I wonder if your experience was the same as mine? There was no way a cup of salt was going to go down that drain. After, oh, about a millenium of poking my finger down the 4 little holes in the drain, trying to shove the salt into those holes, scraping my fingers, rubbing them raw on salt no less, i decided to stop after about 1/3 cup of salt. But it called for a whole cup! One thing was clear, that was not going to happen, no way, no how.

So over the salt I poured 1/3 cup baking soda and pushed and scraped for another eon. Eventually I decided more of the white stuff was in the drain than around the drain and I poured about a 1/3 of a kettle of hot water over the drain. Nothing happened except that the water pooled around the drain.

Rut-roh. This is not good.

About then i envisioned having to call a plumber to the house and explain how i didn't want to use toxic drain cleaners when all of a sudden the puddle began to fizz and bubble and swoosh!! The drain was cleared!! And with 1/3 of the ingredients to boot! I chased it down with the rest of the boiling water and all of a sudden my sore and tender fingers weren't quite so sore anymore. And by the way, the denture cleaners made the toilet bowl sparkle! Maybe this non-toxic stuff is a good idea after all! I would love to hear any suggestions you have for tips on how to save time cleaning house, or any experiences you have with using non-toxic household cleaners! Please post them in the comments!


Yesterday I read a few pages in my Easy Spanish Reader. That's the title of a book that is actually a lot of fun to read. Each entry is a one page short story in Spanish followed by a page of questions about the story to see if you understood. There are usually 4 or 5 short stories that are related by topic and build on each other and then a finally summary page, before another topic begins. I highly recommend this book if you can get it from the library or bookstore. What books (Spanish or otherwise - who can resist a good book?) do you recommend?? Please post them to the comments!

Poopers and I are meeting with the kitchen designer tonight! And yes, we will definitely have an island in the kitchen and hardwood floors in the kitchen as well. At the moment we're thinking about a drawer microwave in the island, so it is not over the range. And we were told it is a code requirement to have electrical outlets on the island. Do any of you have any comments about a side-by-side (frig on one side, freezer on the other) vs. a french door frig on top with freezer on the bottom style preferences? Please share them!

Happy cleaning, speaking Spanish, and eating to all my friends!
Poodle