The suicidal cockroach

Hannah selflessly decided that she wants her whole class to see the caterpillar in her little bug cage turn into a moth, so we gave the cage and all of it’s inhabitants to her teachers and got ourselves an upgrade.  The new cage is about twice the size of the old one.  We’ll call it bug cage 2.0.

The new bug cage, with a standard 600mL water bottle for size reference

We immediately filled the bottom of the cage with crappy clay soil from the backyard and then found some sticks to prop up for makeshift trees as well.

Since Hannah loves watching caterpillars make cocoons and then emerge as moths, I was really hoping to find another caterpillar, despite the fact that finding one means my beans and leaves are being nibbled on.  I don’t know how I spotted it, but we found a looper caterpillar just like the last one, but way smaller. We are excited that we will be able to watch it grow a lot before metamorphosis.

We also found a weird black and yellow bug.  A few minutes later, we found another one.

The black and yellow (it’s whole underside is yellow. Some of them are more orange, some are more yellow) bug eating an apple next to a beetle. One of the sexes abdomens sticks out past it’s wings, and the other does not.  I don’t know which is which though.

We then found two brownish beetles and a small jumping spider to add to bug cage 2.0. A katydid was hiding in some long grass in our yard, so it too has been sentenced to captivity.  The next day we found another one at the park. It’s like an insect Noah’s ark in our bug cage!

Both the black and yellow bugs, and the beetles were seen engaging in coitus, so I’m not quite sure if the ball of eggs that appeared in the cage are beetle eggs, or weird bug eggs.  I guess we’ll find out later.

The ball of eggs, hidden under a dirt ledge

That night, Rosie (our beaglier x mini foxy puppy) cornered something in the kitchen, alternately trapping it with her paws and putting it in her mouth to throw around in amusement. Uncaged bugs never last long in our house.  Rosie doesn’t eat them, she just likes to torture them until death.

I disregarded my squeamish, want-to scream-like-a-girl reaction to cockroaches and stole it from Rosie for the bug cage.  A cockroach would make an interesting spectacle in there.  Or not.  It just hid under a lettuce leaf.

I also found a big ugly moth on my beans (either laying eggs or eating them, neither of which I condone), so he too went in the bug cage.

We found 3 more weird black and yellow bugs in the garden, so they went in too, brining their number up to 5.  Those little brats can be hard to catch because of their ability to fly.  Or at least glide.  I’m not exactly sure which, but they do have wings.  They just don’t use them much.

Rosie found some more of the same kind of little brown beetles at our front door.  Turns out they  made some sort of nest in a crack between the bricks and the door frame.  I don’t really want a million beetles at my front door, especially since I think this particular kind eats plants, not pests of plants, so about 10 more were added to the bug cage.

Sounds pretty good, right?  I the kids enjoy watching the bugs and drawing them in their science journals (yes, they have science journals, at their request).  The bug cage makes learning about bugs fun.  Every day, we look for new egg piles, holes in leaves, bug hiding places, etc.

a page from Hannah’s science journal. She drew the picture and we talked about snail facts which I then wrote down for her.  The old bug cage had a snail.

But then there’s the cockroach.  After hiding under the lettuce all day, it seems to have decided that escape is impossible, therefore suicide is the best option.  It dug it’s way to the bottom of the cage and wedged itself between the dirt and the wall.  It’s been like that for days, stuck there, it’s only movement an occasional twitching leg.  I could free it, but that means touching it, and I’d really rather not.

Suicide, or accident?

One of the katydids is missing a leg.  Not one of the little legs, but one of the big, long, bent, jumping hind legs.  There is no sign of it in the cage.  I’m pretty sure all the things in there are herbivores, except the spider, but surely the tiny garden spider couldn’t consume an entire katydid leg in one night?  Plus how did it come off?  How does a katydid lose a whole leg?  I’m thinking it’s either a case of mating gone wrong, or the leg got stuck in one of the slits at the top of the cage.  Neither scenario explains where the leg went though.

The one hind legged katydid

The black and yellow bugs are constantly trying to escape.  They can fit their creepy little heads through the slits in the top of the cage, but their bodies are slightly too big. We often see them with their heads sticking out desperately trying to get to the other side.  Three of them did though.  One of the escapees I found in the dining room and killed, the other two remain missing.  One died in the cage and is still in there, stiff and unmoving.  I left him there in case any of the other bugs are actually carnivores or omnivores.  I’m thinking not, since it’s still there.

The spider finally figured out it was small enough to fit through the slits and lived on the outside of the lid for a while before disappearing all together.

The moth also kicked the bucket after only a few days of captivity.  It’s still in there too, standing at the bottom of the cage with it’s wings up, like it’s had an unfortunate appointment with a taxidermist.

There is nothing alive about this moth

Rosie found a cricket in the house (an alarmingly frequent event), so I stole it before she commenced torture.  After a couple of days though, it too went the way of the cockroach.

suicidal cricket, or accidentally stuck?

And the caterpillar?  After one day, it climbed a little branch, and looked like it was slipping out of it’s green skin in favour of white skin.  The green skin clumped together on it’s back which looked like little tiny grapes, revealing white underneath.  Shortly after, a silk like web appeared around the now white, still tiny caterpillar, and then what looks like a layer of black armour appeared over the white skin.  It’s been like that for days, unmoving.  Surely it’s too early for the caterpillar to turn into a moth?  It’s still so tiny!

It’s so small, you can hardly see it, but it’s there on the little stick

I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do when the eggs hatch, since the resulting bugs or larvae or whatever emerges will be small enough to fit through the slits.  I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.  In the mean time, we’re still enjoying bug cage 2.0.  It’s better then TV.

See, it really is better then tv

UPDATE:

Today I found out that the black and yellow bugs are soldier beetles.  They are beneficial insects, so I let all of them go in my bean patch.  The brown striped bugs are actually whitefringed weevils.  As larvae, they eat taproots of legumes as well as underground peanut pods, causing much damage and or plant death.  As adults, they chew on leaves.  At least I caught them all (near my peanut plant), but I certainly hope they don’t procreate.  Hopefully all those eggs are soldier beetle eggs…..

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Copyright 2014 Sheri Thomson

Bathe like Cleopatra: luxurious routines for royally soft skin

Everyone wants soft skin.  Well, I do at least.  I can’t stand it when my skin is dry.  When my hands are dry, touching anything feels really gross.  Yes, I know that’s a little weird, but it’s the truth.  When I put lotion or something on my dry cracked heels, I blob the lotion on and then smooth it out with my other foot because they are so dry that I don’t even like touching them.  True story.  Needless to say, I could definitely use the advice from this weeks guest post:
Cleopatra is famed for soaking in milk baths, which were said to keep her skin in impeccable condition. With the price of milk in our modern world it isn’t likely that too many people could afford this luxury, but you can give your skin the royal treatment and keep it soft and supple.

Luxury for Skin

Bath time is the perfect time to luxuriate your skin. After a stressful day you should take a long bath with scented oil and just relax in it. Perhaps even light a candle and play some gentle music. Allow your mind to relax and your body to feel pampered. Too much stress can negatively impact your immune system resulting in skin complaints. Flaky dry skin, itching or sensitive skin and even acne can worsen with stress. So, run your bath, grab your favourite book and spend some time indulging in a freshly scented bath. It will benefit your skin and your mental health.

Body Butter

An equally royal routine is to soak in a luxurious bubble bath followed up by lashings of opulent and rich body butter applied to your body.

What is Body Butter?

Body butter is the modern answer to Cleopatra’s milk bath. Body butter is whipped to a decadent thick consistency, perfect for your luxurious skin routine. Body butter can be massaged all over the body and has amazing nourishing properties. Shea butter is one of the main ingredients of body butter and has long been known for its smoothing effect on skin. Honey and fruit are often added too. These natural ingredients are said to have amazing moisturising properties and antibacterial effects, however dry flaking skin between the toes or yellowy toenails, could be the result of a fungal infection and will not respond to moisturising. Check out www.excilor.com.au if you have these symptoms.

How to Use

Because body butter is very thick, it can sometimes be a little hard to apply. Placing the container in the bath or beside the bath where it is warmed by steam, will help soften the butter and make it easier to massage into the skin. You should not apply body butter to your face or neck, but it is great for the rest of the body.

Great for Dry Skin

Because of its oily consistency body butter is excellent for really dry skin, like knees and elbows. It can even help control dermatitis if used regularly. If you use body butter often you will find your skin is much more supple and smooth, and that any areas of dry skin clear up quickly.
If you apply body butter at night, the body has a chance to really absorb the nutrients and your skin will be replenished from the day’s wear and tear. Just as you would do with facial moisturizer, try and make this a nightly routine if you can. If you apply at least three times a week your skin will definitely respond by becoming softer and smoother.

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Copyright 2014 Sheri Thomson

The underwear monster

Aaron’s underwear.  Hannah’s and Daniel’s.  Mine.  Clean. Dirty.  New. Old. The underwear monster is firmly against discrimination.  At first our undies were only stolen if we carelessly left them on the ground, or in a newly folded clothes pile we lazily didn’t put away.

As we caught on to the underwear monster though, we started making sure our undies were never, ever left out.  As soon as they are folded, we put them away.  When we get undressed for showers or baths, we put  our undies high up, out of reach until it goes in the hamper afterwards.

For a while, due to our vigilance, our underpants were safe.  But the underwear monster couldn’t resist.  She brazenly found new ways of fuelling her underwear addiction.  Despite the hamper being much taller than she is, she somehow managed to steal underpants without detection.  Today alone, I’ve lost two pairs.  They are now so full of holes that I had to put them in the bin.

When the kids forget to close their bedroom door, the underwear monster sneaks in, like a ninja in the night and snatches Hannah’s underwear from its home in a Dora the Explorer hanging pouch thing.  I think it’s supposed to house shoes, but whatever, underwear fits there too.

There is no stopping the underwear monster, she is an addict and underwear is her crack.

The underwear monster aka Rosie

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The cage of doom

Remember that caterpillar we caught eating one of my heirloom organic Australian butter beans?

The bean eating caterpillar

Yes, that one. I’m pretty sure it’s a looper caterpillar. Well, he/she has made a silky cocoon and is pupating.

Yeah, I know, it’s very hard to see

The caterpillar tried to hide the cocoon, so it’s quite hard to see.  It’s the green thing inside the furry looking thing under the stick about mid photo on the right.  I couldn’t open the cage to get a photo or the vegetable grasshopper probably would have escaped.  As you can see, taking one through the plastic didn’t work out so well, but you get the idea.

I thought Hannah’s class might like to see a weird looking grasshopper and a cocoon, so I asked one of her teachers if they’d like me to bring it in.  I don’t think most kids around here have seen such bugs up close before.  They probably don’t have weird parents who stick bugs in cages when they try to eat their vegetables.

The teacher was very excited and said she’d love me to bring it in.  It’s been raining the last few days, so on the way out this morning, we saw an obnoxious snail about to munch on my strawberry plants (they are in big pots at the front door), so I stuck him in the cage of doom with the grasshopper and caterpillar cocoon.  At least there is a live snail in the cage now, rather than only empty shells.  Never again will any of them taste freedom.  But at least they have shelter and food. And won’t be eating my crops.

Speaking of my strawberries, they are making runners like mad, and have already infiltrated the garden bed next to their pot.  I also have a native finger lime tree in a very deep pot at the front of my house.  When I got it, it was so small that it looked ridiculous in it’s pot.  I left a couple of inches between the soil and the top of the pot, and the tree didn’t go past the top of the pot. That was less than a year ago.  And if anything is crazy enough to brave the long thorns and attempt to eat my finger lime tree, it too will go in the cage of doom.

In the top left is my peanut plant that is in the garden under our front window. Below are my strawberries, and to the right is my finger lime tree which has grown by leaps and bounds since I got it.

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A lesson on unicorns

Hannah LOVES prep.  When she’s not at prep, she wants to play prep.  First we dress all of her dolls, then we sit them down together somewhere in her room, and then she pretends to be the teacher.

Yesterday, she taught them about unicorns:

“I’m going to tell you about unicorns.  Unicorns are real.  They are pink with white horns,” she told her class of dollies confidently as she held up a plush example.

“They eat lettuce and butterflies.”  At this point, I made sure my giggles were well stifled.  She was doing such a good job of thinking on the fly, projecting her voice, and speaking confidently, but I wasn’t expecting her to say they eat butterflies.

“When unicorns see other unicorns,” she continued, “they bite their tails.”

“That’s all we know about unicorns.”

Thanks Hannah, now we all know a little bit more about unicorns.

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Copyright 2014 Sheri Thomson

The bug cage

I seem to have accidentally killed all of the snails that were occupying Hannah’s bug cage
by not feeding and watering them, and leaving the cage in the sun.  Oops.  I guess that whole hibernation thing is negated when it’s 40 degrees (104 f) out.  

The snails ended up in there because they were eating my lettuce and I don’t particularly enjoy the crunching noise their shells make when killing them.  The kids liked looking at them in the cage anyway. “Can I see the snails?” Daniel asked me every day.  You’d think that would remind me to feed and water them, but what can I say, I still have baby brain.  I don’t think it ever goes away.

About a week ago, while I was watering my beans and corn, I found a weird looking bright green grasshopper trying to eat my crops.  I chased him all around the yard, jumping on the ground with my hands cupped, hoping the little brat would be under there until I finally caught him and shoved him in the bug cage with all of the now empty snail shells.  Turns out he is a vegetable grasshopper.  Good thing I captured him.

vegetable grasshopper. Image courtesy of Queensland Museum.

 He probably would have made an awful crunching noise if I tried to kill him, so a life in captivity is much better (for me at least…).  

Our heirloom beans (climbing blue lake which have a green pod and white beans inside, and Australian butter beans which have a white pod and purple beans inside) are actually growing beans now, as opposed to leaves only, and then leaves plus flowers, so I check them every day for pests.  My garden is organic; I don’t blanket spray with insecticides, and if I do need to spray anything, it’s home made white oil with an earth friendly brand of biodegradable dish soap, and vegetable oil.  I’ve only had to use that on the grapefruit tree though.

Yesterday, we found a cheeky caterpillar on one of the immature beans.  Nearly the whole bean had been devoured! He/she went straight in the cage with the grasshopper.  Hopefully grasshoppers don’t eat caterpillars.  We did put a very small baby grasshopper (regular grasshopper, not a vegetable one) in the cage with the vegetable grasshopper, but it disappeared after only a couple of hours.  It was a bit too big to get through the air slots, which can only mean that we are in possession of a cannibal grasshopper.

The bean eating caterpillar on some lettuce we gave it.

A year ago, Hannah found a caterpillar on her pillow, and we put it in the bug cage.  A couple days later, she turned into a moth and we let her go.  Needless to say, Hannah is crazy excited for our new caterpillar to turn into a moth, only this time “we have to keep it in the bug cage or I will miss it too much,” Hannah told me.  That’s even better, then he/she can’t proliferate with other moths and lay eggs all over my vegetables (which hatch into caterpillars and eat whatever they are on after emerging from their eggs).  

Now that we have vegetables growing, I think we need a bigger bug cage.  Captivity is the price they have to pay if they eat my vegetables (or even go near them). *insert evil laugh here*

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Copyright 2014 Sheri Thomson

The spare room

When we moved to this house duplex in the western suburbs of Sydney almost a year ago (oh my gosh, where did that time go?!), we were planning to put the kids in separate rooms. They’d been in the same room since Daniel was a couple of months old because we lived in a dodgy little two bedroom apartment.  Hannah was really excited about having her own room.

A couple of weeks before we moved though, Hannah started climbing into Daniel’s cot at night and falling asleep in there with him. Every night before we went to bed, Aaron and I had to move Hannah from Daniel’s cot back to her bed, which wasn’t and easy task considering the cot rail was nailed permanently in it’s highest position (it was that or buy a new cot).

Turns out they both liked the idea of having their own rooms to play in, and have separate toys in, but they didn’t want to be alone in a room come sleep time, so we ditched the separate rooms idea and set up their room exactly as it was in the old place (in hindsight, that probably helped them settle in quicker). They share a room to this day.

Once we established that they’d be sharing a room for a few more years, we got a bit excited about having a spare room.  Since my parents, and every single other person in my extended family, live in another country, a spare room could come in handy.  Plus Aaron’s sister and brother in law live in a different state, so they could use it too.

No one had any immediate visiting plans, so the room served as a unpacked box den for a while, then an I-don’t-know-where-to-put-this-random-stuff room, before we finally got stuck in and cleaned it out because The Jess said she was coming for a visit.  And by cleaned it out, I mean we mostly played tetris by shoving fitting it all in the closet. Sorry guests, but if you planned to actually hang up your clothes and put your suitcase in the closet during your stay, you are sadly mistaken.  That is what the airspace under the bed is for.

A couple of days before The Jess was due to arrive, we went to Super Amart to get a bed frame and mattress.  I had never heard of Super Amart before, but a shiny catalogue came in the mail, and they had a brand new store in my area.  After checking and comparing prices online, I found them to be the most reasonable.  For just a few hundred dollars, we bought a queen sized silver coloured metal bed frame, plus a super comfortable mattress.

The kids loved trying out all the beds, especially in the kids section.  They really liked the bunk beds, and we were very tempted to buy one, but Daniel is prone to climbing on things, and then thinking it’s perfectly ok to walk straight off of them, so a bunk bed will have to wait until he is a bit less reckless.

The kids loved this bed when we went spare room bed shopping.

After buying and assembling the bed just in time, The Jess didn’t end up staying at our house.  Humph.  My parents haven’t yet visited, and the lovely spare room with the really comfortable bed has only been slept in once.  Oh well, at least it’s there when we need it, which will hopefully be at the end of the year, when my parents plan to come for a visit, and meet Daniel for the very first time.

In the mean time, I can spruce up the room a bit, with some paintings or wall art, maybe some bedside tables (since they can’t use the closet…), a plant, and a mirror, all of which are available at Super Amart.

This would be nice in the spare room. Or my room…. And definitely in the living room

*This post was brought to you by Super Amart.

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Copyright 2014 Sheri Thomson

Farm stay

Every year, we go away with a particular group of friends for the Australia Day long weekend.  We’ve been doing it since I was pregnant with Hannah.  We go somewhere different each year.  This year, we decided to do a farm stay and chose Honeycomb Valley Farm as our destination.

We arrived to two immaculately clean cabins, OJ, milk, butter, jam, and bacon in the fridge, fresh farm eggs on the counter, and a bunch of different single serving boxes of cereal in a basket.  I was kind of expecting the cabins to be dusty and farmish, but they get professionally cleaned after each guest leaves, and there wasn’t a bit of dirt of grime to be found.  Our family got one cabin to ourselves, and our other friends stayed in the other one.  No one else wanted to be woken up at 6am by little kids who don’t yet know the joys of sleeping in, no matter how tired they are or how late they stay up.

One of the goats at Honeycomb Valley Farm thinks it’s a person. She even came up on our porch when we first arrived.

We spent most of our 3 days there outside.

Daniel playing in a big hole in one of the paddocks.

Each morning, guests can (but don’t have to) help feed the animals.  You can do as little or as much as you want, but we helped every day and the kids, especially Hannah, enjoyed it immensely.  Farmer Andrew started with different animals each day we were there so that we got to experience something new each time.  I asked lots of questions and learned heaps.

Selfie with an alpaca. She was very cooperative 🙂

The first morning, he took Hannah and I around some of the far away paddocks in a trailer (with a mattress in it for comfort) attached to a quad bike. Daniel was constipated (I guess he gets holiday poo shy just like me), grumpy, and didn’t want to go on the trailer, plus Aaron was minding our friends’ daughter so they could do a beekeeping lesson, so the three of them went back to the cabin for a nap/quiet time while Hannah and I had all the fun.

Chickens chasing the trailer we were sitting in

We especially enjoyed seeing the chickens that day.  One of the flocks (is a group of chickens a flock?) anyway, there are a few of them.  Andrew converts old travel trailers that were destined for the tip/scrap yard into mobile chicken coops and moves them around the farm every couple of weeks.  During the night, the chickens are safely tucked into the converted trailer that has a wire mesh floor, and during they day they are let out to free range.

Hannah with the chickens in front of the “hens on holiday” moveable coop

Hannah liked collecting eggs and watching all the interesting, unusual breeds of chickens eat the kitchen scraps we brought them.  Some of the chickens even laid green eggs!  Some eggs were big, some were small, and one from an older hen was even quite wrinkly.  All were delicious though.

Some of the different eggs we collected

We also got to see our friends in their bee suits at the bee hives.  One of the other mornings, we saw the native australian stingless bee hives and the bee motel (where solitary bees lay their eggs).  Then we walked up and down hilly paddocks with Daniel on my shoulders and Hannah on Aaron’s to get to the cows.  We didn’t have to do that, of course, but we wanted to see the cows and there were too many of us to fit in the trailer since all of us were helping feed the animals that day.  It was also good exercise, and practice for the Spartan race.  A 7kg bag of sand on my shoulders while I trek up a steep hill is nothing compared to a 12kg boy on my shoulders for at least a kilometer.

The bee Motel

The morning feeding routine takes a couple of hours (at least), but Hannah didn’t get bored at all.  When it wasn’t feeding time, we still had plenty to do.  One day we went to the dam and rode the paddle boats.  Aaron wanted to have a race but was flabbergasted when I smoked him.  He claims his boat was faulty. HAHAHAHAHA if only.

Aaron and Hannah in one of the paddle boats

We were allowed to go in any of the paddocks at any time, so we spent lots of time just running around pastures with the kids.  Daniel was quite fond of jumping up and down in poop piles.

There was also a solar heated pool to play in after all that running around, plus a swing set, balls to kick around, a fire pit and bbq area, and a kids pedal tractor, although the pedals didn’t work.  They didn’t seem to care though, and pushed each other around in it, or got me or Aaron to push them.

The kids enjoying the swingset

Daniel on the pedal tractor

They have honey and tea tastings on a big covered deck attached to the converted shipping container shop.

Honey tasting

And Hannah got to milk a goat.

Hannah milking a goat. She was quite good at it. I gave it a go, but I failed.

Usually when we go away, we have to find things to do with the kids when it’s not nap time.  Last year during the trip, we even went to a shopping centre just for something to do.  At the farm though, we didn’t have to go anywhere else.  We could have stayed another whole week and they still wouldn’t have been bored.  We did end up going out one afternoon, but only because we’d never been to a winery before, and we were in the Hunter Valley.  It would have been silly not to visit a couple, especially since they were only a couple k’s down the road.

Aaron and the kids running between rows of grapes in a vineyard

After the kids went to bed, we played board and card games with our friends.  I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of, or played Cards Against Humanity, but oh my, it’s hilarious.  I usually end up laughing so hard that I cry when we play it.  This trip was no exception, especially when I used the below white card in answer to the black one:

So wrong, but so funny. I won that round.

I am one of those weirdos who laughs at the very mention of the word fart.  Or poop.  Or anything of the sort, so with this one, I was pretty much on the floor laughing hysterically, and everyone knew who played the fart card as soon as it was turned over.

I was quite impressed with the farm in general.  Though they are not certified organic, they do farm organically, and make a huge effort to educate others about conservation and farming responsibly.  There is a huge solar oven that they make cakes and dinners in, plus a smaller one that they melt all the beeswax that they collect in. There are worm farms, a solar fridge, a shop made from an old shipping container (where we bought 3kg of raw honey), a native bee sanctuary, and they are even going to build an earthship (which I am particularly fascinated with and was shocked that they knew what I was talking about when I said something about them) shed.

Hannah riding a horse. Maybe it was a pony, I’m not sure what breed/height it was.  It was either a big pony or small horse.

The kids didn’t want to go home, and Hannah keeps saying “when we buy another house, can we buy the one on the farm?”  She wants to move there, and both kids are still talking about the farm.  Pretty much every day, Daniel says something about how we went to the farm and saw all the animals.

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Copyright 2014 Sheri Thomson

Hannah’s first day

This morning I dropped Daniel off at daycare, the same as I always do on Monday mornings.  Except this time, all the carers/educators/whatever daycare workers are called, told me cute Hannah looked in her school uniform.  It’s true though, she does look adorable in her way-too-big-for-her school uniform.  I still think it’s kind of weird having school uniforms, since I didn’t grow up with them, but it works well here, so whatever.

Hannah before we left home this morning. A yellow dot via photoshop was the easiest way to cover up the schools initials (in case of internet weirdoes).  The kids like colouring the bricks with chalk 🙂

I didn’t have to drop Hannah off until 9:30.  A lot later than usual, but for her first day, each child had a different drop off time so that each got a personal welcome from the teacher to make them feel more comfortable there.  We’re near the end of the alphabet, so we were almost last.

We had a bit of time to kill after Daniel’s drop off and before Hannah’s, so we decided to go to the shops and get her a special starting school treat of hot chocolate, which she spilled all over her brand new school shirt when the cup was down to it’s last dregs, and banana bread.

Carrying her hot chocolate and banana bread. She sat in the trolley and ate/drank it whilst I bought some new thongs (flip flops, not undies) because Rosie ate my other pairs.

I only had the one shirt with me, so I had to send her to her very first day of prep with a soiled shirt.  Maybe no one noticed.  Or not.

Multiple hot chocolate soil spots with arrows for your convenience

How embarrassing.

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Copyright 2014 Sheri Thomson

Three easy ways to de-clutter your kitchen

I have lots of gadgets in my kitchen. And about a million different spices/herbs. And jars of things. And mess in general. Perhaps I should heed the advice given in the guest post below:

Three Easy Ways to De-clutter Your Kitchen

A cluttered kitchen can cause a lot of stress. Things are spread out across the bench tops, there’s minimal room, and you just can’t bring yourself to cook anything let alone clean things up. But a cluttered kitchen is easily fixed. You don’t need to spend hours sorting through your things to find them homes. Here are three easy ways to de-clutter your kitchen.

Jars

If your pantry or cupboards are full of half-used packets of flour and sugar, it’s time for you to buy some jars. This can be a wonderful initiative to begin the de-cluttering of your space. Have a look at the different kinds of jars that are available. By turning the situation into one where you can decorate, you will immediately feel more inspired to clean up. Take a trip to an antique store or a home wares shop. Find some jars or containers that suit your kitchens theme.

Now that’s what I’m talking about. This makes my organisational heart sing. (image courtesy of Shanty 2 Chic)

Storage

As well as jars, it’s important that you have ample storage for all of your utensils and cooking equipment. And this can be combatted in a similar way. There are several cute and interesting things you can find to help organise your kitchen equipment. You could look into hanging them, or again, find some attractive forms of storage that will spruce up your kitchen at the same time. If you’re feeling creative, you could even look into making them yourself – or decorating them, at least. Try and use your creative energy to inspire yourself to clean up and de-clutter.

Throw things Away

I know, it can seem terrifying. But sometimes what we really need to do to de-clutter is to throw away anything we don’t need. While your reorganising your pantry or cupboards, have a look at all of the different things that are taking up your precious space, and decide which ones you do and don’t need. There are bound to be utensils that you haven’t used before – if at all – as well as appliances that are out of use or completely unusable. Be strict on yourself. If you can’t decide whether to keep something or not, throw it away. If you really need it you will know straight away. While you’re doing this, you can try your hand at reorganising the layout of your kitchen. You may find a style that suits you better, and will help you to keep things need and uncluttered.

Clutter, consciously or not, will always have an effect on the way you think. If you’re stressed out, it could well be the cause. Take the time to evaluate your kitchen and the different ways that you can go about tidying things up. For more information about keeping a clutter free kitchen, take a look at Fort Knox Storage. They may just have what you need.

*This post was brought to you by Fort Knox Storage.

If you enjoyed reading this, please vote for my blog. All you have to do is click the link below. That’s it… Clicking the link brings you to the Top Mommy Blogs home page. You don’t have to do anything else. Any clicks from my site to theirs is a vote.  THANKS!

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Copyright 2014 Sheri Thomson