Baby Steps

Well, this last week has been a mixed bag.

It's been successful in some ways --- I was able to get all my weekday walks in and made it through five laps at the park yesterday. Today's goal: six! I filed my federal tax return on Thursday and mailed off my state return yesterday, so $638 should be winging its way to me within the next few weeks.

It's been unsuccessful in others --- I'm really struggling to find the motivation to do anything at home. I'm not having any trouble shopping, however, so I have been enjoying buying some new spring clothes to fit my new body and some new bedding to fit my new mattress. I find myself resisting the thought of having to start from scratch, but I guess there's no other way out of this hole. So I'm making a pledge right now - whatever else I do or don't do this week - to put the routine back in my morning. Remember these? These nine simple steps I adopted one at a time beginning in November 2007. They became the core of my housekeeping routine:

Open window in bedroom on arising, for free circulation of air.

Throw back bed covers, including top sheet.

Carry soiled clothing to the hamper. Hang up other clothing. Put away any personal possessions out of place in the bedroom.

Prepare and serve breakfast.

Clear away dishes and misplaced articles from dining room, after breakfast.

Operate ventilating range hood while scraping, rinsing, and stacking dishes in the dishwasher. Leave pots and pans to soak in sink.

Put away food.

Make bed.

Close bedroom window if air conditioning will be used during day.

There's no excuse in the world that feels as good to me now as I used to feel having accomplished these nine simple steps every morning of the week. Whether I'd like the extra sleep or not, my body is used to getting up at a certain time and getting things done, so I can't even truly enjoy re-setting my alarm and spending another hour in bed! I just lie there, tossing and turning, feeling stupendously unaccomplished for not getting up and doing my chores. I'm resolving, in fact, to do every one of these chores before I press "Publish Post" on these very words this morning. By the time you read this post, I'll have finished each and every one of them...

There, I've finished the first three steps. Now for a little fun. I've asked my parents over for a vintage dinner party on April 11 before they head back East for the year. It's the Sunday after Easter, but I'm planning a 1940s springtime menu complete with vintage table decorations. I've been doing a little research into Easter menus from that time period. Leaving out the meat, of course, I'm sure to be able to mix and match from these dishes to come up with a menu appropriate for my dinner party. Which one is your favorite?

Milwaukee Journal (April 18, 1943)
Broiled Ham Slice
Parsley Buttered Potatoes
Steamed Peas in Orange Cups
Fresh Fruit Salad
Baking Powder Biscuits with Honey
Cake [made with coconut and candy eggs] and Fresh Pineapple
Coffee

Better Homes and Gardens (April 1945)
Baked Ham Slice
Easter Eggs
New Potatoes and Peas in Cream
Little Green Onions
Carrot Curls
Rosy Radishes
One-a-Penny Buns
Mile-High Lemon Chiffon Pie

St. Petersburg Times (March 18, 1945)
Cream of Fresh Vegetable Soup
Celery Crisps
Chicken Loaf
Frizzled Ham Slices
Glazed Sweet Potatoes
String Beans Hollandaise
Fruit Fan Salad [segments of chilled citrus fruit, strawberries, apple slices, and raisins for garnish]
Toasted Crackers
Cheese Spread

Toledo Blade (April 16, 1946)
Orange and Grapefruit Cup
Fried Chicken
New Potatoes with Watercress
Butter
Fresh Asparagus
Endive and Hard Cooked Egg
Salad
Corn Meal Muffins
Rhubarb Cream Pie

Pittsburgh Press (April 1, 1947)
Three Fruit Cocktail [frosted peaches, grapefruit, strawberries]
The Easter Ham [garnish of peach halves]
Sweet Potato Puffs
New Asparagus
Mock Hollandaise Sauce
Molded Spring Salad
Hot Biscuit or Rolls
Preserves or Jelly
Meringue Shells with Ice Cream and Strawberries
Coffee
Candy
Sliced Nuts

Tomato Consomme
Crisp Wafers
Olives
Radish Rose
Celery
Roast Chicken with Stuffing
Mashed Potatoes
Green Beans with Celery
Mixed Fresh Fruit Salad
Frozen Strawberry Dessert
Coconut Frosted Cup Cakes
Coffee
Candies

Fresh Fruit Cup
Crown Roast of Lamb with Mint Apples
New Potatoes in Cream
Buttered New Potatoes or Cauliflower
Spring Vegetable Salad
Daffodil Cake a la Mode
Coffee
Salted Nuts
Candies

[Spokane] Spokesman-Review (March 18, 1948)
Fruit Cup
Baked Ham
Creamed New Potatoes and Peas
Candied Sweet Potatoes
Jellied Gingerale and Pear Salad
Relishes
Hot Cross Buns
Orange Chiffon Cake
Coffee

Southeast Missourian (April 14, 1949)
Consomme with Cut-up Vegetables
Roast Leg of Spring Lamb
Mint Sauce
Brown Gravy
Surprise Baked Potatoes
Green Peas
Buttered Asparagus
Parkerhouse Rolls
Butter or Fortified Margarine
Watercress Salad
Angel Pie with Crushed Strawberries and Pineapple
Coffee
Milk

You can definitely see some trends as to what kinds of foods were considered springlike in the 1940s, even if there was no way on God's green earth most Americans could put fresh peas, asparagus, strawberries, or pineapple on the dinner table in April! Unless you lived out West, you probably wouldn't be able to pull that kind of thing off 'til June. Most housewives would have had to rely on canned (or frozen) fruits or vegetables for an Easter menu like these. Maybe that's what these Easter dinner menus are really all about --- a taste of what's to come in a couple more months. A hint of your first harvest from the garden, even if it's weeks away and those seedlings aren't even yet in the ground!

Back to work. Let's face it, my kitchen's a mess. And the last thing I feel like doing is any kind of baking or cooking in a mess. I've been stalled up on this last week's breakfast menus ever since Tuesday's called for some baking. I need to address that, but I can't do it before eating my breakfast this morning - so I'm going to shoot for something simple, but filling. How 'bout Thursday's menu:

Grapefruit Half
Poached Free-range Eggs
Toast

I've just finished steps four, five, six, and seven. It's literally the first time in weeks I've eaten a meal sitting at my kitchen table. I've still got two more steps to take, then I can publish this post and go forward with my day...

Check, and check! I'll have to share some of the decorating I've started in my bedroom in another post. For now, my bed is made. The room has been aired, but it's warm enough these days that I should be able to open the window again in a couple hours and leave it open 'til sunset. Thanks for holding my hand while I worked my way thru these chores. Clearly - even after all this time - keeping things clean and organized does not come naturally to me. Will it ever?

Back to the Basics

I've been off caffeine for four days now. You know what? It hasn't been half bad. A long nap on Sunday morning, lots of yawning on Tuesday morning, a fever/chills thing goin' on today - but no headache, no jitters. I'm surviving. Without that kick, decaf isn't even very interesting to me these days. So I spent some time looking at herbal teas at the grocery store this evening and finally settled on a box of vanilla honey chamomile. I do like nursing a hot cup of something in the a.m., so maybe I'll try out a few of these herbal teas...

This has been a tough fall. Ever since my boss went on vacation in September, I've been floundering a bit when it comes to The Experiment. And I can't seem to get my legs back under me. My crush really isn't doing me any favors either. Curly and I are definitely becoming what I'd call "work buds" --- which has been great, don't get me wrong. He's a wicked neat person and I'm enjoying getting to know him, but I'm also wildly attracted to him and I can't tell for the life of me whether it's mutual or not. As heady as it feels on the days I see or talk to him, I feel just as crushed as can be on the days I don't. It's got me in a tailspin. I thought a crush would be kinda nice in the beginning, but it's been a mixed bag lately and I hate that it's having a negative impact on my housework, etc.

What I'd like to do is to revisit some of my most basic missions and see if I can't pick myself up and carry forward with this thing. (I've still got so far to go!) Beginning tomorrow morning, I'm going to continue doing all that I've been doing, but there'll be no "hit or miss" when it comes to the specific tasks listed below. No excuses. I'm going to focus for the next seven days and make sure I've got my morning housekeeping routine back in place from beginning to end. This time without the caffeine.

Open window in bedroom on arising, for free circulation of air.

Throw back bed covers, including top sheet.

Carry soiled clothing to the hamper. Hang up other clothing. Put away any personal possessions out of place in the bedroom.

Prepare and serve breakfast.

Clear away dishes and misplaced articles from dining room, after breakfast.

Operate ventilating range hood while scraping, rinsing, and stacking dishes in the dishwasher. Leave pots and pans to soak in sink.

Put away food.

Make bed.

Close bedroom window if air conditioning will be used during day.

Nine More Minutes

I've never backtracked on a new mission before, but I've got to make some adjustments to this one. With four new exercises and an increase in each of my exercises to 20 reps apiece, I totally overdid it yesterday. I couldn't even do a single leg lift this morning. My abdomen felt so weak. And it feels like I might have a kink or something in my small intestine, so I'm taking it very easy today. Lots of warm fluids and nothing but my walk this morning... What I'd like to do - starting tomorrow morning at the earliest - is to go ahead and do the four new exercises, but shift all the exercises back to their original number of reps. I guess I bit off more than I can chew! I need to remember that my surgically renovated abdomen is still a fragile area and needs to be improved very, very slowly.

Speaking of broken things, my ancient alarm clock-radio stopped functioning on Friday night. You know the type. Great big digital numbers and push button controls. There's no time to waste when an alarm clock has bitten the dust, so it was off to Target - and I soon found myself coveting this lovely little double-bell alarm clock with a vintage feel to it. Why not add a timepiece with some '40s flair to my bedroom? Without another thought, I popped it in my cart and smiled like the Cheshire Cat at home last night as I carefully set the time and wound the alarm hand to a position shortly after 5:00. (That walk takes place pretty early on the weekends!)

So it seems I forgot something.

Not only is a double-bell alarm clock loud enough to jar you into consciousness in one second flat, but there is no snooze button!!! Egad. Imagine living in a world where you didn't have the luxury of nine more minutes of sleep. Without a snooze button, you don't have the option of nestling back into your pillow "for just a few more minutes." The day has begun, like it or not. Turn the alarm off to get that terrible jangling bell out of your ears --- and relax at your peril.

On the other hand, not having a snooze button for a crutch might have some real benefits. I could put that extra nine minutes - or 18, 27, or, well, 36 minutes on truly desperate mornings - to some very good use with all these exercises and chores and vintage grooming habits in the a.m. Isn't it funny how a simple little thing like an alarm clock can remind us of something in the past so fundamental to daily life?

Track and Field

My routine descended into pure chaos last night.

I was late getting out of work. Rushed to Trader Joe's to do my light marketing. Raced home to wolf down my supper and change. Hurried over to the rec center - which closes at 8:00 - and found myself nauseous before I had walked for even 10 minutes. A quick supper and a workout do not mix. I powered though 30 minutes, then gave up the game. (I'll make up the missing 30 minutes during my lunch hour tomorrow.) I was still feeling so crummy when I got home that I just curled up and went to sleep. Hey, I had a great night's sleep --- nine hours for a change --- but when I finally crawled out of bed, my apartment was in disarray and there was extra tidying to do. Believing that the envelope I needed to drop at a mailbox was my Father's Day card, I rushed out to work without even having finished my morning routine. It turns out just to have been a student loan payment with plenty of time before the due date. My Father's Day card was mailed a few days ago! One misstep after another this week. There must be a full moon approaching.

Actually, it's only when I make mistakes like this that I have a chance to really learn what's working - and what's not - with my routine. Like perhaps it isn't a good idea to try and do my light marketing as well as my workout on the same night. I think I'll move my light marketing forward to Thursdays. There'll still be plenty of time for cleaning the bedroom if I get home 15-20 minutes later than normal on Thursday evenings. Wednesdays will be a workout-only kind of night.

Something else that's not working is trying to add errands to my morning commute. "I'll just stop at Walgreen's on the way in" or "I'll just drop this off on my way past the post office" or "There's plenty of time to run by the library book drop." With all the extra haircare and lipstick and stretching-and-limbering exercises in the morning, there simply isn't time to do anything extra. And I usually end up with these errands in the morning, because I've been to lazy to stop and do them on the way home from work. The evening commute is a much better time for errands --- unless it's workout night, that is!

And it turns out that I'm not very good at styling my hair. I've attempted a 1940s pageboy twice this week. The first one was semi-successful. The second was a flop. Hairstyling is definitely a craft that requires patience, and that's never been a forte of mine. I know so little about my hair. Would it take a wet set or will it need heat to hold a curl? What do you even use to make pin curls? I've been using a curling iron, but I'd much rather use a method which would take less product to stay in place. It sounds like the pin curls create the longest lasting curl. What kind of curlers were women using in the '40s? Or are pin curls literally made using pins?

I'm going to need another inch or two in length before I'm able to do a good pageboy, so in the meantime I'm going to try and assemble the tools I'll need and get plenty of practice. My mission doesn't really dictate that my hair be styled in vintage fashion, but I think there's something to be said for having a vintage quality to my hair - even if it's styled with a more modern look sometimes. Our grandmothers wouldn't have dreamed of leaving the house with the frizzy bedhead that's so popular today. (Imagine the looks they would've gotten!) Hairstyles were glossy, sleek, controlled - and curls were king. It probably looked a lot healthier, though I'm not sure they were using any less product than some women use today even if only to achieve to perfectly tousled look. I think I'll strive for something in the middle here. Can I achieve a shiny head of curls with minimum product?

Oh, how I wish I was having an easier time with reducing my calories... Truth be told, I should probably have held off on this step for just a little while. I did great last week in changing my snacks to fruits and vegetables --- during the early and middle part of the week, at least. At the end of the week, I was strafed with cravings late at night. Pushed through them the first time, but gave in to them the next two nights in a row. When my scale showed a loss on Monday morning, I figured I'd go ahead and jump into the next mission. But thus far I've cheated two out of three nights. The same experience. I don't have any real powerful cravings until late at night. Bedtime. Sure, I could try doing the small, healthy snack thing, but I know me. One bite and I'd go bananas and eat much more than I'd planned on. I'm an all or nothing kinda gal, I guess. The only reason last night went okay is probably because I was already asleep!

I'm not proud of any of this, but I wanted to put it down here and lay out what this experience has been like. Those late-night cravings feel like a hurdle - and if I could just jump over it once, I'd be able to do it again and again. I must have really done a lot of snacking late at night in order for this to be such a problem now. They're phantom cravings in a way. Like the phantom pain somebody who's lost a limb feels in the place where that limb used to be. It's going to take some time for those cravings to subside.

It's strange what an emotional experience reducing calories - really getting to the nitty-gritty of dieting - is turning out to be. For years after an illness I suffered in my mid-twenties, I ate everything and anything I wanted. I was so frustrated with the side effects of medication and the complications from surgery that I figured the least I deserved was to eat whatever I wanted. In the beginning, I needed to. I was dangerously underweight and needed to put some weight on my bones. (That stage didn't last too long!) Eating was an easy fix when the process of physical recovery in other ways was prolonged and painful. During the two years after my next-to-last surgery, I gained about 80 lbs. And so when I feel those cravings late at night, all those old anxieties come right on back with 'em.

I guess I can only take this one night at a time. Just focus on the one in front of me and no further. If I can fill the rest of this evening with good, honest work - the bedroom is calling! - maybe I can jump the hurdle tonight. Tomorrow night can take care of itself.

Irons in the Fire

No sooner did I get home from work this evening and it's almost time for bed! I don't know how the time away from work slips by so quickly on these weekday evenings... It's going to make some of my weekday housecleaning missions loom large. (Can you tell I'm getting the jitters about the mission ahead on Thursday evening?)

On the other side of the equation, I've noticed that ironing my laundry in one fell swoop has actually created some time in my mornings. How cool is that? I pick out my clothes for the day and just pluck them from their hangers. Ready to go. No lugging out the ironing board. No heating the iron for one or two items. One of the reasons I never used to iron everything at once is because I thought the clothes would be wrinkled again by the time I went to wear them. That they'd get wrinkled while they were hanging in the closet. That's actually not the case - which has been a wonderful surprise. It's been a couple weeks, but it's nice to see some payoff from the ironing mission.

And speaking of ironing, I'm getting ready to do just that tonight. The manual advises me to arrange my ironing area with an eye toward moving the clothes from left to right: "Place the clothesbasket at your left, a clothes rack at your right, and be sure there are coat hangers near at hand." Here are a few of the Top Ten tips I'm still striving to be mindful about:

2. When you straighten material on the ironing board or roll of a rotary ironer, use the palms of your hands and smooth from the center out. Your fingers are apt to stretch the fabrics and pull them out of shape.

3. Iron with straight strokes, with the thread of the fabric.

5. Collars, cuffs, sleeves, belts and trimmings are ironed first, then the flat sections of the garment.

My breakfast menu for the last two days has been another of the trio from the 1944 edition of the Good Housekeeping Cook Book:

Half of Grapefruit
Omelet
Toasted English Muffins

The secret I've discovered to making a lovely, golden omelet is keeping the heat at a steady medium. A shade hotter and the omelet starts to brown. At least that's how it works on my stovetop. They're all a little different!

Hospital Corners

I've decided to go ahead and make my bed every morning, but I'll wait to do it until after I've eaten breakfast and cleared away the breakfast things. That'll give my sheets as much time to air as possible. For years, I've been living like an unkempt teenager - only making my bed when I change my sheets or when company's expected. (My grandmothers would be shocked!) It's high time for a change.

Here's a quick tutorial on bedmaking, courtesy of my 1947 housekeeping manual:

How to Make a Bed

1. Spread mattress pad smooth.
2. Spread bottom sheet right side up, even and straight, with center crease exactly in center of bed and wide hem at top.
3. Tuck sheet in at head and foot of bed.
4. Make "hospital" or mitered corners on all four corners. Be sure sheet is smooth.
5. Spread top sheet right side down, even and straight, with wide hem at top.
6. Tuck sheet in at foot. Make mitered corners at foot only.
7. Spread blankets on, one at a time. Tuck in at foot, mitering corners. Tuck in at sides and turn top sheet down over blankets.
8. If desired, spread third sheet or blanket cover over blankets, mitering corners and tucking in sides.
9. Plump up pillows and place at head of bed.
10. Adjust bedspread. If the spread is not fitted it will hang better if mitered corners are made at the foot.

Need a refresher on hospital corners? Not to fear...

To make "hospital" or mitered corners:

1. Pick up edge of sheet about 15 inches from foot of bed. Lift up into diagonal fold; lay fold on mattress.
2. Tuck the part of the sheet that is left hanging, under the mattress.
3. Drop the fold, pull smooth; tuck under mattress.

Better get my ruler handy!