All the while.
This week I am deviating slightly from the Nana posts although this subject has many Mum and Nana ways about it!
Last year I wrote a post called Get the Ball Rolling.... which shared a lot of ways I get more done. This came from a place of loving to get tons done but being a single Mum (from before Lucy was born) and from suffering chronic migraines when they were small. Oh boy! Thankfully I no longer have the migraines!
Another time I wrote about having all your handmaidens helping you and how wonderful that is! Today I can't even find that post! But I will refresh it here. Long ago I learned from Laine that we do in fact still have handmaidens. Over and over I heard women say that it was all marvellous for the Proverbs Woman to get so much done because she had hand maidens! Well, so do we. Ours are mainly electronic. The hand maiden that might have worked on the washing for the whole day is now a machine. The one that might have scrubbed dishes is a dish washer and so on. We have many handmaidens!
Today, being Monday, I like to start out the week well. This morning I got everybody working! The dishwasher and washing machine were going. The mixer was mixing up batter to go in my fruit cakes. The oven was on. The dehydrator was running and so was I! I had the ball rolling! So all the while the washing was going I was able to get on with other things. After two days out over Easter I seem to have had so much tidying up to do!
Aside of having the handmaidens hard at work I now how a dripper system that waters all my fruit trees. Andy set this up before summer. It has been fantastic. I used to spend hours watering the fruit trees out in the heat. Now I can be busy on other things knowing all the while my trees are well watered. So if something can be automated somehow it is the most wonderful thing!
Chloe has become a fantastic sour dough baker. Her boys go through a lot of toast in the mornings! Even Chase has his own piece of toast and demolishes it. She has just figured out how to adapt her recipes to a bread maker. She times it so that while they are still sleeping the process begins and fresh bread is ready right on breakfast time! The bonus is waking up to the house smelling so good! My friend who had five teenage boys (that went to school with my girls) timed her bread maker the same way and then it would have another loaf of bread ready as the boys came in after school. All the while she was busy in the afternoon the bread was baking. Many things are about good timing!
I love to use essential oils for health purposes and another "all the while" thing I do is before I head anywhere in the car I add a couple of drops of a protective/immune blend (ie Plague Defence or Germ Killer) to a wooden clothes peg. (pin) I put the peg onto the air vent in the car. All the while I drive to and from my destination I am breathing Plague Defence. Through the pandemic and flu season I did this. I also have a necklace that hides a little cotton circle and so I can walk around in my own personal cloud of germ fighters. You can do the same with a diffuser and have it that all the while you are working you are breathing something uplifting or therapeutic. In the evening you can have something calming/sleep inducing.
Maybe my all time favourite "all the while" is putting the slow cooker on with some soup or a pot roast in the morning. If I know I am having a really busy day or I am going to be out this is what I do. Later in the day I usually remember dinner!?! Then I remember.... all the while I have been busy dinner has been cooking and is almost ready. What a relief. There is so much to be said for some planning ahead.
If we are travelling and Andy is driving I crochet or knit. Oh wow this is a chance to get so much done! If I am waiting.... in the doctors office or years ago waiting for the kids to come out of school... I take a pack of cards, envelopes and stamps and write letters. We used to have a Doctor who was notorious for being very late. We became used to it. Once I completed my tax return waiting for him. I went with paperwork to do.
Holy cow you are productive! I find I am most productive early in the morning. When I worked I would get into work before 6 (most people arrived between 8-9). Now that I am retired, my housework gets done early too. Yesterday morning, I was done by 8…laundry, changed linens and towels, dishwasher started, and some house clean out. By 8 am I was sitting down quite pleased with myself ;). Great blog today, I will look to see what else I can start early in the morning! Hilogene in Az
ReplyDeleteDear Hilogene, I am most productive later in the day and most creative at night time! But I like to get as much going as I can early as I can as it certainly helps in getting things done. When the girls were little I always would start my sewing and things once they went to bed. It is funny as we are all wired differently and have natural hours where we feel most energised! With thanks, Annabel.xxx
DeleteGood morning! I found your old blog years ago when I went searching for Laine’s Letters. I read her letters back when she was still publishing them and my kiddos were still little. I’m 52 now and all 5 have married and we have 5 Grandies and 3 more on the way! I very much enjoy your blog. It’s nice to have something lovely to read, considering what we are constantly bombarded these days. Have you heard any news from Laine? I pray she is doing well. 💕Tracy
ReplyDeleteDear Tracy, Thank you so much! Laine is going ok... she is having alternative treatments for the cancer she had in the bowel but going well. She recently travelled to have time with two of her sons and their families for a couple of weeks. She has had many health battles but things are moving in the right direction! With love Annabel.xxx
DeleteLove this post ... and I remember reading your handmaids post awhile back. I do so many of these same things -- washer running first thing in the AM, dishwasher unloaded and reloaded, dehydrator (in season) whirring at the same time my crock pot is simmering dinner throughout the day. A coulpe of others -- My herbs are grown on my deck, so when I'm harvesting, I take my stack of dehydrator trays out with me and cut my herbs directly into the trays. I also have a "stairs" basket" and rarely go to my upper level without something else in my hands. My leftover water from overnight / bedside is used to water my houseplants, so it doesn't just go down the drain. Lastly, my housecleaning routine is based on the layout of my house and by rooms, not by tasks. While this may not work for a home with lots of kids, it works for me (widow, and with 2 of us, before hubs passed years ago). One room / area per day, Monday thru Friday, and it rotates over a 2-week period, and includes a day for tidying up the deck and outdoor areas, and another day to tackle the garage and automobile. This keeps my household tasks do-able and allows for me to integrate my other interests, albeit home canning, reading, crochet, and meetings outside of the home.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to know more on how you achieve your cleaning routine
DeleteDear Lori, I absolutely love your method of taking the dehydrator tray out to the herbs and cutting them to go in directly!! This just jumped out at me as so clever! I will be adopting this. Also I like that your herbs are on the deck and easy to access.... easy to grab when cooking!
DeleteI also love that you save the water that would otherwise go down the drain. I really like your method of room by room and your interests are very much my interests! Thank you so much Lori I enjoyed this so much! With love Annabel.xxx
Lori, repeating the same love of your ideas.
DeleteWe have two smart canners and they are wonderful for being able to load them up and set them and let them do their job without any babysitting from us. We keep whole meals in jars on the shelf and many canned meats and beans ready to open and eat. This is a huge time saver for us. I don't know what we would do without our bread machine! With bread now at $4-5 for a good loaf we are still making bread for around 80 cents a loaf. Yesterday I loaded ingredients for dinner rolls and then spent just a couple minutes making the dough into rolls. Forty minutes later they were in the oven baking and we loaded the machine again for a loaf of bread. This morning our washer and dryer are cleaning our clothes and the heat is clicking on and off as it needs to keep the house warm. The toaster toasted bagels for us for breakfast and the coffee maker made us delicious coffee with almost no effort on our part. After breakfast we put the dishes in the dishwasher to get washed for us at the end of the day. On Friday I washed the breakfast dishes by hand because Hubby had to make a repair to the dishwasher and then I knew just how nice it is to load it and walk away. The refrigerators and freezers are keeping our food cold at the temperature we selected and the icemaker just keeps on making ice cubes for us all day long. We are so spoiled and we don't even know it!
ReplyDeleteDear Lana,
DeleteI saw becky on Acre Homestead has a smart canner and I am very impressed. It does all the thinking! Lana I am seeing bread for $8 a loaf. The cheap stuff is less but the sour dough and fancier ones are this price. Breakfast at your house sounds heavenly! You are right... we are very spoiled and very lucky. We take much of it for granted until it doesn't work or the power is out! Your dinner rolls sound just beautiful! Many thanks! With love Annabel.xxx
This is such a beautiful post! I'm inserting a line about Chloe/bread making and begging for more info on her adapting to the bread machine...".She has just figured out how to adapt her recipes to a bread maker. She times it so that while they sleep..." Especially using sour dough. Thank you so much. God bless yu ad your family
ReplyDeleteDear Annon... well Chloe has answered you! She has prepared a tutorial for us. It took her a lot of experimenting but now it is reliable and wow you should see her bread! I will try to get this posted soon. Many thanks! With love Annabel.xxx
DeleteReally looking forward to Cloe’s post.
DeleteI love all that you do. God Bless you
ReplyDeleteThank you so much! xxx
DeleteDear Annabel,
ReplyDeleteThank you for this reminder. I have several handmaidens we bought a couple of years ago and still haven't used. I have a nice Instapot that has sat in our downstairs kitchen and has never been used. I am slowly using items that I can still lift and manage.
I think, as I am below par today and not up to much energetic work, I will list all of the handmaidens we own and put uses to them. I am one of those purpose driven individuals. If there isn't a purpose for an item that fits into our lifestyle or if there isn't a purpose for a goal, then I won't spend time on it.
Have a blessed week.
With much love,
Glenda
Dear Glenda, I have been so busy lately and I understand how health issues while wanting to do so much is very frustrating. This is where I know I have to use my handmaidens all I can. Tomorrow I am getting the slow cooker working as it is time for soups. I am trying to think of other things we could automate like the fruit trees! It has cooled so much here and more rain! I hope Spring is warming things up there! With love Annabel.xxx
DeleteLove this! I am mentoring a young mum down the road and this was one of the things I explained to her just today! She has four small children and wants to learn so many things! I keep telling her to master one thing at a time… it is t a race and USE YOUR HANDMAIDENS! She finally got it today! Thanks for the encouragement!
ReplyDeleteHow wonderful you have a young Mum who wants to learn things! I love her already! Thank you so much! xxx
DeleteThank you for another excellent post of encouragement! Saturday I had many handmaidens working - I started by grinding whole wheat flour in my electric grinder, and starting a loaf of bread in the bread machine. Then out came the Instant Pot to first hard boil eggs, then pressure cook the potatoes for Sunday’s potato salad. When they were done, the IP began making yogurt. When that had started, I heated my smaller counter oven to bake a loaf of Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes, and while that baked, I ground more flour to replenish my container of homemade baking mix. I cooked dinner until the bread machine finished the raisin loaf, then reloaded the bread machine with the ingredients for our Easter Sunday dessert - pound cake! You have aided me in appreciating my ‘helpers’ so much more, realizing they are instrumental in caring for and serving my family well. God bless, Conni
ReplyDeleteDear Conni, I love all you are doing! I am now going to ready my IP book and see how to do yoghurt! I love raisin loaf also! You have all your handmaidens working hard! Many thanks! With love Annabel.xxx
DeletePresent day Handmaidens are wonderful. I do wonder how they ever got done with their work in the pioneer days! I know they would bake, clean, and laundry certain days and I could fully understand that! Great encouragement post!
ReplyDeleteThanks Vickie. I cant even imagine doing the washing like my Great Nanas did. I know they boiled the clothes in a copper. Laundry truly took the entire day. We are really lucky! With love, Annabel.xxx
DeleteDear Annabel and Bluebirds,
ReplyDeleteCan I write how I got the ball rolling without many of the handmaidens that you mention here? I don*t have a dishwasher, a crockpot, a clothes dryer machine, a bread maker or any gadgets like these.
I have learned to organize my work and my time so I can do as much as possible, and sometimes I have help from my husband and my son. My husband calls me a kitchen octopus. I have a small well organized kitchen and when I cook usually I do more than one dish, while I wash the dishes I can make some pancakes, put a meal in the airfryer for dinner, I hand knead some sourdough bread that makes two loaves of bread and while it is growing I make a cake in the oven. I never use the oven just for one thing - if it is heated first the cake, then the bread, then I would throw in some potatoes or maybe some fish and vegetables/chicken/potatoes - voila batch cooking ahead and using utilities at a minimum. While the soup is simmering on top of the heated oven. Then I organize them in different meals and put them in the freezer for hard days, when I am tired or late from work and my son just opens what he wants and warm it up in the microwave.
I wash the clothes at night when electricity suppose to be cheaper and hang them outside on the clothes line at dawn, before going to work. Until afternoon when I came home they are all dry and smelling nice. I just fold them and put them either in the wardrobe or beside my bed to be mend on time, before it goes wasted. I have saved many socks or t-shirts that way......
When I sweep and then wipe the floors I threw open the windows, I go outside to water the vegetable garden or the flower pots, to play with the dogs or go for a walk until all the floors are dry and clean.
For me it is a matter of organizing time, work and priorities. Reading all your posts and about your helpers it is far from being the best but I do my best with what I have. And never complain, but feeling gratitude. (I actually love washing the dishes and hanging out the clothes - I am weird that way...)
Thank you, Annabel, for this post. I love life with its everyday things to do - that shows I have my grandmother and my mother DNA.
Sending love for you, your family and for every Bluebirds here, Laura_s_world from Romania
Dear Laura,
DeleteI love how your organise your kitchen and you days! Also I love that you feel happiness in it all. I love my air frier. I think they save money as smaller to heat up than the oven. And faster.
Gratitude is really a key to happiness. Our days can be filled with joy in the ordinary! With much love Annabel.xxx
My plans for an early morning the last 2 mornings have gone out the window due to colds and being up half the night for both DD12 and me. However the diffuser has been going to fight those germs and not just on once or twice but being going constantly all day and night. An a migraine both days has not helped.
ReplyDeleteWhen it is not school holidays I am up and put my washing on before going into the kitchen where my day starts and by the time drop off is done the washing is ready to hang just after 8am.
On big vacuum and mopping days this is usually started before school drop off and finished by 10.30am
Slow cooker has been going over the weekend as well as the oven getting ahead with things to freeze for school lunches and making dinner with leftovers to freeze for a lazy night or when unwell in the future
I can not believe how much you fit into your days.
On Monday while I was in the garden I had the Slow cooker going making roast beef for dinner and just before lunch I put the Thermomix on to do boiled eggs for lunch whilst I finished in the garden and had the dishwasher going as well as the washing.
Tomorrow I will have a helper doing the floors but sometimes it takes longer than if I do it myself but alas I much make DD12 do somethings around here. I might get some dusting done while she starts vacuuming
Aly xxx
Dear Aly, oh no I hope you are both feeling better. The school day routine used to be really good as I was like you and got things going early. Also when school went back after holidays I would be having an extra big blitz!
DeleteIt is good slow cooker weather now, this is a great help. I hope your migraines are gone. With much love Annabel.xxx
We have so many blessings. What my precious German great grandmother would have given for an electric food processor. I still remember her rapidly grating cabbage on a huge wooden mandoline at the sink with a bowl underneath. As a little girl i could barely watch fearing she would cut her fingers but she never did.
ReplyDeleteShe also managed to keep a lovely home without an electric vacuum or shampooer. Throw rugs were taken outside and beaten a couple times a year. Wood floors were scrubbed with soapy water. Great grandma had no electric washer or dryer like we have now either, yet everyone had clean clothes. That task was performed on a wringer washing machine and everything hung to dry. No electric blow dryer either, nor electric curling iron. Little curlers with pins was what she used. Her life was full, beautiful and simple but probably not easy. And i dont remember ever seeing a crockpot. Things were simmered on the stove while she did her ironing or mending. She had no central air conditioning to cool her small house but managed fine with metal oscillating fans on the dressers and in the living room, sitting outside in the shade in old metal lawnchairs, and letting cool air in especially early morning and at night. She would have loved you Annabelle.
Yes, we are blessed with so many appliances homes and that can be helping us all at the same time. I recently heard time management explained as not feeling like we need to fill every moment of your daily calender, but being sure we get the right things onto the calendar, or rather the to-do list that align with our values and purpose and priorities. Focusing on the right things for each day, vs. The number of things we do.
Lovely, timely post Annabelle.
I love your memories of your Grandma thank you for sharing them! The floor boards and the rugs that were shaken outside... this is familiar to me. I live this way now and I greatly hate carpet because I like that floor boards can be mopped and cleaned properly.
DeleteI agree we have to have our priorities straight as it is easy to be endlessly busy but miss the important things. xxx
Hello Annabel and everyone,
ReplyDeleteThis is such a helpful and timely post, and it makes me doubly thankful for indoor plumbing and electricity. I also like to use time I am sitting (in conversation or watching a movie etc) to knit!
I use all the things you mentioned and like to get the washing machine, dishwasher, and crockpot going first thing, too. This is where I admit I have 2 large crockpots and 2 bread machines (these do not have to cost the earth, one bread machine was purchased from the thrift store for $3) and try to double everything. If I'm making bread or scrolls, it takes the same amount of time to measure the ingredients twice and end up with twice as much prepared and an easy way to stock my freezer. I just use the bread machine dough cycle, and do the final rise and baking without it. It still saves me 90 minutes of fussing with and hand-kneading the dough off and on, and is easy to clean. If I'm making a roast and veggies in the crockpot, I try to make potatoes or baked apples or even another dish to freeze in the other one. It's only a little more time to prep extra veggies or fruit and the return is well worth it.
I also count my big standup freezer, clothes drying racks, and rain barrel as handmaidens. The freezer holds a ton of homemade ready meals and ingredients purchased at a good price, saving lots of time and money. From the rain barrel, which is in an out of the way spot, I water my herbs in pots all spring and save on our water bill. The clothes drying racks are such a help for delicate items and also large items that may be heavy when wet and overtax my dryer.
I hope everyone has a good week.
<3
Kathy
Dear Kathy, Oh I love having more than one slow cooker going! I often do. I am admiring you having more than one bread maker going! I agree.... both are easily picked up very cheaply or free! My best slow cooker was $5. I love clothes drying racks! I have one that I can set up anywhere... inside or on veranda usually. It works a treat. I also love saving rainwater! What a resource! So valuable. The extra veggies or fruit is another good one. Even PART of another meal ready to go is a huge help! I really like that one! Many thanks! With love Annabel.xxx
DeleteAnnabel, I remember the post you mentioned having in your blog archives. I remember it because I still think of you when I have all my handmaidens working for me! I do not keep a lot of appliances and as another mentioned, I try to not have single use items, or I learn to make more things with them than the manufacturer might originally have intended. But yes, yes, yes on using the oven heat fully when baking bread (or cake, etc) and making that heat work harder for the money. I am very blessed and like others many of the appliances I have cost little or nothing (gifts) and yet they have saved me so much time and physical energy!
ReplyDeleteAnnabel, I also remember Laine's post about her "handmaidens." I like to think of my household helpers in the same light. God has richly blessed me with them.
ReplyDeleteAlso, thank you for the clothespin & EO in the car idea. I will start using that.