Monday Matters

1. My husband and I own a condo in Providence, RI over near Brown University.  We just recently (like at the beginning of August) started renting it out.  We had to go over there Sunday Morning because "the dishwasher wouldn't work" and "the light and fan in the bedroom stopped working".  Somehow the tenants broke the dishwasher so I have Sears coming to fix it today (thank goodness it's still under warranty).  There was nothing wrong with the light and fan except that they pulled the chain enough times so that they shut the fan off and the bulbs blew out.  I'm already not a fan of being a landlord...


2. Friday night, my mom and I made the most amazing dinner.  I mean, seriously.  Amazing.  She bought ground beef to make burgers but we ended up making meatloaf burgers (it was a compromise since we couldn't decide if we wanted burgers or meatloaf).  And we ate them on bagels.  I forgot to take a picture of them - so that must mean that I will have to make them again so I can blog about them and have a picture to show for it.


3. My mom is a teacher and she is going back to teaching art (she taught art for 14 years, then did elementary ed for 6 years, and now she's back to art).  While she was going through her samples Sunday night, she found projects that my sister and I did back in 1st or 2nd grade.  It was a list of facts with a self portrait and at the bottom it said, "Who Am I?"  The most amusing part of mine was the part that said, "I want to be a Bus Driver."  


4. After being at my mom's for 3 weeks, Scott and I finally put our clothes into drawers Sunday.  We can actually walk around the room!!  Woot!!


5. I'm starting to get the itch to bake.  It doesn't have to be anything fancy.  I'm thinking either brownies or cookies.  Either way, I'll take pictures.  And blog.  And probably give most of them to my dad so that I don't eat them.


6. I'm trying to gather up ideas for quick breakfasts on the go and quick, easy to fix dinners.  I've so far decided on making lots of waffles and freezing them so that I can have my own form of Eggo Waffles. For dinners, I've been getting a lot of ideas from being at mom's house.


7. The past few years, we've attempted to go apple picking and we've always gone too late in the season.  I'm determined to go early this year so that I can pick yummy apples and make yummy apple things.  Like Apple Pie.  And Apple Crisp.  I have an AMAZING recipe for Apple Crisp.


8. The cafeteria at work states that it's open until 2:30 every day.  But every day they start packing up the food at 1:30 (and it seems to be getting earlier than that!) and they get snippy when you ask them to make a simple sandwich.  Work, you fail.  The only good part of this is that I'm forced to bring a lunch (and therefore don't spend as much money).


9. Have I ever mentioned that I LOVE ice cream?  And it doesn't even have to be good ice cream.  I don't discriminate...I love it all.  My favorite?  Soft Serve Vanilla with Rainbow Jimmies (yes, they're jimmies, not sprinkles, so don't even try arguing with me about it).  My current favorite place to get it?  Riverside Creamery.  There may be better places out there with fancier kinds of ice cream, but I like the simple stuff.  Delicious.


10. Laundry really isn't so bad when you don't have to go down 3 flights of stairs to do it.  I actually don't even mind it.  But don't tell my husband that ;-)


11. Just got back from the gym - another Tae Bo / Core class.  38 minutes and burned 408 calories.  Not bad!!  Only downside - everyone can plainly see that I went to the gym....My face is like a tomato!

Everyone will know that I worked hard at the gym today....For at least the next hour!  Look at the color in my face!  Can you say TOMATO???  PS - the angle of the picture makes me look like a bobble head!  

Laundry

I don't hate doing laundry.  I find it to be a mindless task that takes up too much time.  When I was young, I used to help my mom do the laundry by matching socks, folding underwear, and folding face cloths.  Once in a while, she would have me help her fold the sheets.  She taught me this method of folding the sheets:  She would fold the fitted sheet into a perfect square and stack it with the flat sheet.  Then she would fold the pillow cases in half the long way and wrap them around the stack of sheets to make a neat little set (this way, you would never lose the pillow cases).  I taught my friend Amy this method in college; As far as I know, she still folds her sheets this way.
 
I've lived in my own place for almost four years now (my, how the time flies).  I love my condo, but if I could, I would change one thing:  I would get laundry into my own unit.  I'm honestly not even sure if I would be allowed to put it in my unit (I would have to check the condo documents).  In any case, because the laundry is in the basement, and I live on the 3rd floor, I find that I wait overly long spans of time to do laundry.  It's a good thing I have a ridiculous amount of clothes.

Early this afternoon, my husband sent me a BBM (Our usual mode of communication during the work day).  He asked if I had laundry that needed to be done.  He had previously noted that I had started to create a little "sock graveyard" next to the bed, so he collected up the socks.  He figured that he would just add those to his own laundry that he was planning on washing today.  But when he messaged me, I told him that the clothes in my closet as well as the massive pile of clothes on the little table next to the dresser also all needed to be washed.  Well, the husband ended up doing 3 loads of laundry for me today (and none of his own).  I should also note that when he washed my clothes, he also followed all of the washing directions on the tags.  Props for that:  I usually just separate into dark and light, and wash...

I don't hate doing laundry.  I just hate the stair-master workout that I get every time I need to do some laundry...