How much fun are these adjustable denim KitchenKuffs!!

There are several statements that take place in our house over and over again:

• Pick up your dirty clothes
• Chew with your mouth closed
• Throw away your trash

And my all-time least favorite:

• Can someone come push up my sleeves?!?! PLEASE!?!?

Well, Kate, bar the door, those days are gone. May I present:

KitchenKuffs!!!

That’s right, people. It’s time to say goodbye to soggy sleeves!

The brainchild of Barbara Doran, KitchenKuffs mean you’ll never have suds-soaked cuffs (or anything else, for that matter) on your long-sleeved tops EVER AGAIN! I was so impressed when I first saw this product that I contacted Barbara. She gave me a pair of regular and a pair of adjustable KitchenKuffs to review for you guys. I’ve had ample opportunity to try them, and as far as I’m concerned, they are a must-have in every kitchen, bath, basement and garage. I’ve used them while cooking dinner, washing dishes, painting a bookcase and potting flowers. They go on with total ease, and stay right where you put them.

Here’s a video from Barbara showing the myriad of ways she’s put her KitchenKuffs to good use:

To me, this is true American ingenuity – entrepreneurship at its finest! The product has even caught the eye of Martha Stewart’s Dreamers into Doers, where Barbara was recently featured as Doer of the Week.

Shown here are the denim KitchenKuffs (adjustable) and the pepper pattern regular KitchenKuffs

I highly recommend that you pick up a pair and give them a try. They’re machine-washable cotton, made here in the USA, very affordable, and come in a variety of patterns in the regular and adjustable KitchenKuffs. I think these will make great gifts for teachers, gardeners, moms and sisters, dads and brothers – anyone who needs to “Keep their sleeves up!” And at a time when many families are pinching pennies more than ever, KitchenKuffs are a unique and thoughtful gift they’ll use time after time, without having to break the bank!

I love ‘em, Barbara – I know our readers will, too.

-Liz

Visit www.kitchenkuffs.com for a patterns, pricing and sizing.

Related articles

• Lining Up Yer Linens (alidoesit.wordpress.com)
• Interview with Barbara Doran – Inventor of the KitchenKuffs (theworkathomewoman.com)
• Raising a Foodie? (thedailymeal.com)

Yesterday marked the warmest day of the year for many here in Kentucky – Louisville hit a record high of 90 degrees. Not bad for the second week of April. So I thought we’d briefly explore some of the tell-tale signs that spring fever has hit you.

• You find yourself at the store with a cart full of flowers and plants, and are filled with a strange urge to fight anyone who takes that nice looking geranium that has the biggest red blooms.
• You pull out all your summer clothes in full knowledge that the temperatures won’t stay this way consistently – at least not for a few more weeks. But out of spite, you pack away every last item that remotely reminds you of winter (even that light-weight jacket you’ll be going back up into the attic for as soon as the mercury drops below 60), and vow to live in shorts, tank tops and flip-flops for the next 6 months.
• You look at your pale skin and decide you can’t be seen in public with the tank top and shorts until you’ve tanned. And you need a tan fast, so you forgo the sunscreen, bake in the sun for a few hours and get the worst sunburn you’ve had since this time last year
• You plan a new workout routine. Note: this is not to be confused with the New Year’s resolution you made to get into shape. This time, it’s different. After all, who can refuse a nice walk around the block to take in blooming trees, buzzing lawnmowers, friendly neighbors, warm weather and abundant sunshine.
• You decide to restock the refrigerator and pantry, tossing out all remnants of comfort food in exchange for carrots, lettuce and tofu, and make a new resolution to fix a big salad for every meal.
• You fling open all the windows and re-organize every room in your house, and go on a massive cleaning binge, clearing out cob webs that have been in the making since last fall.
• Unable to take the heat, you turn on the air conditioning and complain, “Boy, it’s too hot outside.”

Has spring fever hit you? Maybe you have other symptoms – if so, drop us a line and tell us how spring fever affects you!

-Liz

Spring fever?*#! Are you taunting me here, Liz, with your talk of sunshine, shorts and flip flops?  I only wish I had the ability within me to have even a teeny tiny touch of spring fever. I have just endured a never-ending 3 days of snow flurries. We are on day 1 of our spring break. It’s almost 9 AM and currently 32 degrees. The heater is blasting and I am wrapped up in a blanket as I type. I do see some blue sky peaking through, and the snow from the weekend has melted. I’d be happy with a few days of mid-50′s and sunshine. Please tell me that the whole ‘turning on the air conditioner’ thing was merely hypothetical. You haven’t really turned it on yet, have you?

Forget that she was getting massive emails to achieve this perfection. I’d just delete them.

But somewhere along the way, I got sucked in to the wicked world of shiny sinks.

Don’t misunderstand me – on its face, it isn’t that bad. You shine your sink every night, you wake up to a shiny sink, and all is right with the world. You declutter little by little and before you know it, your house is a FLY house, if you will.

Now the original Flylady will insist that our homes didn’t become the catch-alls they are (OK, the catch-alls that mine is) overnight. So likewise you can’t expect all that clutter to disappear overnight.

Sounds like a diet plan, doesn’t it?

Don’t get me wrong, here. I LOVE the Flylady’s plan. It’s just that I am a messy perfectionist.

There. I said it. I hope you’re happy. I can guarantee you my mother is not.

But as a messy perfectionist, I can tell you that decluttering and putting a time limit on it is great in the beginning, but I tend to set that 15-minute timer for 15 more minutes, then 30, then an hour, and before I know it, the day is gone, I’m exhausted and the house, alas, is still not perfect. And somewhere in all this is a little voice that says perfection can be reached in a day – regardless of how much time I’ve wasted in a cluttered environment.

But as I clean, and since my living is made as a writer, I think about all the writing still to be done, and the guilt sets in, knowing that I’ve spent a day cleaning. Within the guilt, I feel this overwhelming need to keep cleaning. Because the floor may be mopped and the sink may be shiny, but the baseboards are dusty and I’ve written nothing.

Double guilt.

Plus which, I HATE doing laundry. Well, let’s be more specific. I hate putting it away.

And from there, the tangled web that is my housekeeping guilt knots up even tighter.

But let there be no mistake. My sink is shiny. I hope you’re happy.

-Liz

I found a great site full of tons of good stuff. Organizing tips. Cleaning tips. Motivational pep talks. Everything I was looking for, all rolled up into one great site. It was a site where you have to join, but it was free. You just put in some info, click some boxes, and off you go on your journey to perfection.

One of the boxes I clicked offered me the chance to receive  email updates from the site. I checked “yes”, excited to get daily updates to keep me motivated, focused and moving in the right direction.

That was a week ago. In the first 6 days, I received 76, yep SEVENTY-SIX!!! emails from this site. Every single email offering some valuable tip for helping to organize my life.  Here’s the thing, from what I can tell, they are all good tips.

Get fit and healthy by Memorial Day!

Do It Now! Can keep your family safe!

Holiday clean-up! Missions 1 – 10 (all separate emails)

Finding a happy person inside me!

Food for thought – develop the dinner habit!

Homework help for the kiddos!

And that’s just 6 of the 76 emails!  Excuse me helpful website, but all I want to do now is run and hide and stick my head in the sand. I don’t even have time to READ your 76 emails, never name implement them into my unorganized and time crunched  life. Could you possibly overwhelm me any more?

Then one of the emails in particular caught my eye:

Beginner Baby Steps: You can do anything for 15 minutes!

That’s me. I’m a beginner who is in dire need of baby steps. I can do 15 minutes!

Here’s a snippet of the email,

“Today we are going to learn the power of just 15 minutes. You can do anything for 15 minutes. This is all about getting started and giving ourselves permission to stop when the timer goes off… The timer helps to keep us focused on what we are doing.

Now set your timer for 15 minutes and go gather up all the trash you can find to throw away and put it in the garbage can outside. Then set your timer for another 15 minutes and sit down and put your feet up and read a favorite magazine till the timer goes off.”

So I gave it a try. I decided to tackle an area of the house that is usually near the bottom of my “To do” list: the entryway and stair railing. It’s a catch-all spot in my house.

The railing is home  on this particular day to jackets, scarves, backpacks, a Walmart bag,Victoria Secret sweats hanging out to dry. Not a pretty sight.

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Let’s play “Where’s Waldo” with the contents of the entryway itself. Can you spot these items? football, tanning lotion, bottom half of sled, camo backpack, hockey stick, box of screws, and an explosion of shoes.

I wish I could tell you this was an abnormal day, like maybe a pack of wild children on school field trip mistook my home for their school’s coatroom and threw their junk willy nilly throughout the place. But alas, this is the typical scene in my entryway.

I set my timer for 15 minutes and set out to tackle the clutter. It is amazing what can be done in a mere 15 minutes!

I even got finished with 3 minutes to spare. And then as a reward I did just as the email instructed. I set the timer for 15 more minutes, grabbed an ice cold diet coke and my book club book for this month (The Alliance) and enjoyed the peace and quiet. It is as good thing I set the timer, though. The old me wouldn’t have budged from that comfy reading spot for at least an hour. The new and improved me, however, hopped right up, headed over to the computer and wrote up this escapade for you.

Check out the site I found this tip on, FlyLady Baby Steps

Consider yourself forewarned, however, should you decide to opt in for the email updates.

~Kate

Enjoy your Coffee Break!

*Leave a comment on this, or any post, to be automatically entered in this week’s giveaway.

What is this thing that is so dreaded that I am putting so much energy into NOT doing it? This chore that I’m working so hard at forgetting?

I’m talking about taking down the Christmas decorations, of course. Sure, they are all fun and exciting and sparkly in November, when I just can’t wait to crack open the red and green storage tubs to see my holiday treasures that have been hidden away for almost a year. But by the time the first week of January hits, those very same precious  snowmen, Santas and ornaments have become dusty, commonplace and overlooked. Suddenly they have evolved into one of my least favorite household duties.

Every day for  the past week and a half, I have successfully distracted myself with other projects, pastimes, and activities. But today I could no longer put it off. I was expecting some neighbors over at three and I had to get those decorations put away and the house back into pre-holiday order. I felt sure I was the only slacker who had not un-decorated. No problem I thought. Plenty of time.

It was at this point that I posted this confession as my Facebook status,

“Kate is done procrastinating about taking down the Christmas decorations. Company coming in 3 hours. (I know…it’s well beyond the socially acceptable time to still have Christmas decorations up. Perhaps I LIKE being socially unacceptable. Ever think of that??)”

(Note the tone of defiance at the end of the confession, practically daring anyone judge me on my holiday clean-up dawdling.)

I left FB up and went to work. I started off with the fragile nativity sets, carefully wrapping each piece in newspaper. Not so bad. Then I moved on to clear off the fireplace mantel, the shelves and the top of the piano. Still making good time.

Checked in with FB. Four comments: three also confessing to having their decorations up, one saying her tree had been taken down “forever ago”.  Moved on to unwrap the pictures on the walls that I had so excitedly wrapped 4 weeks ago. Next project – to put away the unwrapped presents that were still under the tree that had yet to find proper homes in the house.

Back to check into FB. Three more comments all admitting to having their Christmas decorations still up. I was NOT alone. There were others out there like me. I was feeling pretty good. That is until I noticed what time it was. My neighbors were due over in less than an hour, and I still had my tree to take down and my regular decorations to put back up.

I rushed into supermom mode, quickly getting all the ornaments off the tree (only breaking one!), and untangling  the lights and garland which had been woven so lovingly through the tree branches.. Then the big debate in my mind…how to best get the tree out of the house all by myself. Preferably without sloshing water on the floor, and with as little needle loss as possible. I decided to slowly drag the tree, still in the tree stand, across the living room floor, through the entryway, out the front door and down the outside steps. Let me tell you that this was probably NOT the wisest method of tree removal. I DID slosh water all over the floor, and I did get pine needles EVERYWHERE.

And now I only had 20 minutes until the arrival of the expected company. Twenty minutes…and a wet floor, fallen needles in every nook and cranny, boxes of decorations filling the entryway and of course, no make-up on and unfixed hair. (Who had time to get ready with all that un-decorating to accomplish?)

So I did the only thing I could do…I called the expected guests and told them we would have to reschedule our visit.  That I had an unexpected “appointment” and wouldn’t be available…Well, I did! It was unexpected and it was an “appointment”. I just didn’t tell them it was an appointment with cleaning up the disaster I created. (Come on. Don’t judge me. It’s merely semantics.)

I now have 14 comments on that FB status. Overwhelming support for my procrastination. Thanks for the validation, friends. (FB is great therapy.) Here’s a few excerpts:

• “You know, when my tree is up this long its as if my tree is a little person talking to me everyday saying things like “take me down, think how long its going to take to put away these ornaments, don’t you want to have this over and done with?” Very similar to how I used to feel having an English paper hanging over my head.”
• “One year I left my decorations up until March, just because I could.”
• “I haven’t even toyed with the idea of taking my tree down. I enjoy it more after the holidays than during them…less pressure.”
• “You mean you’re not supposed to just leave them up all year? Sure saves a lot of time….”

~Kate

this surprising use for a coffee filter!

Shine your mirrors.

A cheaper alternative to paper towels, coffee filters clean glass surfaces without leaving lint or streaks behind.

Tomorrow…Tip 2.

these surprising uses for olive oil.

* As furniture polish.  Mix 3 parts oil with 1 part vinegar. It works on all finished wood surfaces – and on stainless steel too.

* As a zipper fixer. Dip a cotton swab in olive oil and spread on a stuck zipper. This should have you zipping in no time.

* As a makeup remover.  Dilute the olive oil with some water and use as a makeup remover. It’s gentle and moisturizing and cheaper that drugstore makeup remover.

I ladled out soup for the rest of us, then returned to the family room for dinner around the TV (it was the  weekend – back off). About   five minutes later, a scratchy little voice said, “Can I have some of your soup?”

“Of course you can honey.”

Talk about a regrettable decision…

Because in no time  she was shivering with a nice  case of the chills. By the next morning, her status hadn’t improved and we were in the midst of a holiday weekend. Luckily, there’s a doctor in the family.

Or maybe that wasn’t so lucky after all. Because the first thing I heard after an on-the-spot, out-of-office check-up was swine flu.

“What?!? Impossible!!”

Or was it? Maybe all the hype wasn’t hype afterall. And if it wasn’t hype – and was pig flu, I’d eaten after her, putting myself in jeopardy as well. I don’t know what was worse – the possibility of pig flu, or the fact that the holiday weekend would mean a definitive diagnosis was three days away.

After my momentary (and severe) attack of panic, I decided to take a proactive stance, sterilizing everything I could get my hands on – pillows, blankets, dishes – you name it. Then I got out the disinfectant spray, leaving no surface untouched.

I decided maybe I could do my own diagnosing as well.

I looked for obvious signs – the corkscrew tail, the flat round nose. Nothing.

I asked her if she had any desire to root around in a mud hole. Negative.

With that, I decided it was no longer worth my unfounded panic – we’d wait it out, hope for the best, and pop Vitamin C like it was going out of style.

Thankfully, it turns out it’s not pig flu. I’ve learned a thing or two along the way. Namely, no one will be stealing a drink from my glass or a bite of food from my plate, no matter how pathetic they look.

And I’ll need a few more cans of disinfectant spray, because flu season is still a month away.

-Liz

Enjoy your Coffee Break.

Want to submit your own story to be considered for the Guest Headline post to run on Fridays?  Just let us know at lizandkate@live.com.

this quick and easy way to remove built up kitchen gunk from your stove.  Just pour some cooking oil on a paper towel and wipe off the gunk.  Then just remove residue with some warm soapy water and a sponge.

Enjoy your Coffee Break!

I likely wouldn’t have known had I not decided to fix muffins for breakfast (yet more proof that cooking is over-rated at best).

I heated up the oven and reached into the oven drawer to get the muffin tin, only to find nasty little black pellets in 11 of 12 muffin rounds.

Alas the muffin baking was promptly canceled and I was sick at my stomach. I yelled for my son and announced the dilemma, at which point he started making those creeped-out gestures. I told him we were in for another fight – that I’d need his help with this one (at which point, he asked to go out and play).

Fine. Go. I’ve been dealt worse. I’ll handle it myself, I thought, playing total martyr.

I’d have to now disinfect everything in the kitchen (which would lead to total disinfection of the HOUSE), drag out the stupid mouse traps (and I think we all know the only ones that really work are the neck-snappers) and declare war – again – on the mice.

Unfortunately, I feel more like Bill Murray’s character in Caddyshack. We all know the groundhog won out in the end.

So at the risk of sounding like I’m giving up, I must ask you, the readers, to provide a helpful hint or two for ridding the house of the ratty rodent(s) and disinfecting without going crazier than I already am.

Meanwhile, I’m headed to the health food store for a case of peppermint oil. Apparently if you douse a cotton ball with the oil and set them in “mice friendly” locales, it wards off the little varmints. (Another suggestion was to place snake poop in mousy places. I will sooooo not be going there…)

I figure bleach is the best disinfectant for the dishes. Not that I’ll ever want to eat out of them or cook with them again, anyway.

I will be waiting patiently for your responses. So HURRY UP!

-Liz

Enjoy your Coffee Break!

Want to submit your own story to be considered for the Guest Headline post to run on Fridays?  Just let us know at lizandkate@live.com.