and the Kitchen Sink

 I was cruising Martha's cleaning section on her website.  I found directions to clean your drains.  So I thought I could try it.   It was just a 1/2 cup each baking soda and white vinegar. 

 You plug up the drain and let it work its magic for five minutes.

 After the five minutes you pour boiling water down to rinse.  

 After cleaning the drains I cleaned the sinks.  I do this often.  At least weekly with my beloved Bon Ami.  

 Then I spring cleaned UNDER the sink.

 I took out the shelf liner that was down there....

 I laid new liner and cleaned up.

 I've been using this simple neutral plaid liner.  

 I replaced the liner in the cabinets and drawers of the island also.  Straightened up... reorganized a few things.  I feel accomplished! I would have kept on relining the kitchen... but I ran out of liner and wasn't going to Walmart before a big snowstorm. 

How is your spring cleaning going?  

I was reading on Martha's site you should wipe the outside of your kitchen cabinets weekly to avoid nasty build up.... I would like to adopt this habit.  How often to you wipe down your cabinets?   

Bonnie in the Snow

Our Spring Snowstorm

Dave joked when he saw the forecast... 

...he said,"Nah, we'll probably just get an inch"

 We did get our snowstorm. 

 Rapid's total was 21 inches.... the airport reported 25 inches.  We live between Rapid and the airport.  We wouldn't be able to measure anything in our yard of course because it was blowing so much.

 Bonnie really loves 20 inches of snow

 Its her fav.

 She runs really fast into the snow....

 And springs into the drifts.

 And falls in the drifts.

 Then she repeats the process.

 Don't her ears make you laugh?  

 But this was Bonnie running through the snow when we only had 16 inches.... 

It snowed all night Monday, all day Tuesday, all night Tuesday, and its still snowing out my window right now.... 

Dave's work was called off and Nate's preschool class was cancelled.  But the USPS still delivered.  Bless those people!  There was a foot of snow on the top of his mail truck.   But we haven't trudged out to get the mail yet. 

(See our wonderful neighbor Gary with his snow blower?  Bless that man he did our driveway this morning!) 

 The great thing about an April snowstorm is that its still light out at 7 pm.... so we went out to shovel after dinner last night... and I was able to snap a few photos.

 A fort

 Drifts on the roof. 

I took a video of Bon in the yard this morning with the fresh snow.  Ill load it up.

Our first BIG spring storm.   

I bet your tulips are coming up eh?  Yeah so were mine ;)  

Back At It

Can it be right?  We are IN April now?  Easter has passed?  

 This year, since I booked a visit to the Qs then realized Easter was in March this year, I wasn't home for Easter. I emailed the EB and he said it would be no biggie to come Friday night instead of Saturdaynight.  He hid the eggs and stuffed the baskets.  

 One of the eggs had a whole bunch of little NASCARs.   

We had banana pancakes and then the boys took me to the airport to fly to Georgia.  

The boys still went to church on Sunday to celebrate Jesus of course.  I went with the Qs family to their church where they make fun of Yankees..... rude.  

 The week was nice.  It was fun getting to know Meredith!  She is a fun girl. 

 Frank took a day off and we went to downtown Atlanta.  

 We went to the world of coke.  The tasting room was fun especially with the variety of Fanta which we fell in love with when we lived in Japan.  Although there was a whole crap ton of 2nd graders running a muck in the tasting room and I literally saw kids doubled over groaning.  My fav... vomit.  

We ate at the varsity and then went to CNN.  I'm such a news geek that the CNN tour was pretty exciting.  Although Frank thinks Fox News probably has a better tour.... and since I bought a mug and the "CNN" decal  rubbed right off the first time I touched it after being washed... I myself have to guess  that Fox news mugs aren't crap either.  SO if you ever come over and see a blue mug with a 'CNN' written in black sharpie don't ask because you'll just get a 'damn liberals' response. 

So I came home.  Gave Nate the new undies I had bought him and we had a nice three day weekend together.  We went to Lowe's on Friday and purchased a new stove.  Its such a momentous occasion in our house.    

 It was delivered yesterday.  

It isn't fancy.  It isn't the all popular 'stainless', but dang this baby preheats the oven in lightening speed. Other dorky things I love-  It has a window,  a light, a timer, it doesnt have three pilot lights, and when you open the oven door the light comes on(like a fridge!).

So since its Monday and we may be snowed in this week (possibly 20 inches???!??) I'm going to jump back into my spring cleaning!  First I want to clean out the bathroom cabinets,  and do a major cleaning to the shower.(with Bon Ami of course)  I'm going to skip the master bathroom though because we just have so much work to do in there- tile walls, flooring, and painting.

If we really do get twenty inches then I'll move on to wiping down kitchen cabinet shelves and drawers.   I want to remove the shelf paper that is in there and put down fresh.

How about you? 

Are you spring cleaning yet??

Spring Seeds

 Most of our snow has melted recently.  We are enjoying sunlight until well after 7 pm, and recently a few nice-ish days.  I've had visitors checking in several times a day to see if I've filled my feeder.

The yard is a mud pit which makes the in and out, in and out, in and out of the dogs even more annoying.   Bonnie is a sad thing when I tell her she can't go back outside 5 minutes later. 

Since its springy and I have this awesome app telling me I should start my seeds I decided to get on that this morning.

If you have a iPhone and are going to do a garden you should look into it! You tell the app where you live, what you want to grow and it sets up a planner telling you when its safe to plant outside depending on the vegetable, and when to start seeds inside!  Hot Dog!  Isn't that smart??

So, this is my last shot at starting seeds inside.  If this flops I'm not doing it ever again.  Last year Bonnie knocked down my healthy 3 or 4 week tomatoes..... We tried one year in New Mexico with no luck.  If this doesn't work I'll just buy the dang plants at the greenhouse!  I'm trying this potting mix this year.  *fingers crossed*  

The directions said to put it in a container and water it until was moist... I didn't seem to have an appropriate vessel, so I used a kitchen bowl.  I didn't want to use the bucket we use for mopping and washing the car.... I think I need to look into some gardening gear.  

Once the soil is moist then you fill the cups half way.

 I thought it was smart of me to label the cups BEFORE I sprinkled the seeds in so I wouldn't forget which ones had what.  Ask me how I knew that would be an issue for me.....

I had the seeds ready 

Nate helped.  He sprinkled the seeds.

He follows directions really well and was happy to be part of starting the garden.

 Some of the seeds were really tiny!

  Good thing we had a magnifier!

 After we covered the seeds with dirt Nate misted the tops.  The veggies were done. 

 I got a tray set up for some flowers and Nate told me we were going to need a LOT of dirt!

 "Like a bag THIS big Mom!"

 " THIS HUGE!"

The flower seeds were tiny, so I put them in the cups and covered them up...

 .....While Nate and Bonnie ran around the house like crazies until Nate wiped out and was hollering....

 "I can't get up! No Bon! I can't get up!"  But then he got up and they started running around again.  

 The seeds are sowed.... we will see what happens!