Surprisingly sunny weather has inspired me to take my dogs on longer walks around the neighborhood. Crunching leaves under our feet on the wooded trails, we stop often so they can sniff interesting bushes and tree stumps. Back at home, I quickly make myself a cup of hot tea.
QUICK THINGS TO DO TODAY:
- Have you had a glass of orange juice lately? If you don’t have any orange juice in the house, add that to your shopping list for the week. Or shake things up a bit from your normal routine, and pick up some blood orange juice.
- Make some time tonight for yourself; treat yourself to a beauty regimen you don’t normally take time for. Apply a mud mask, a hair mask or hot oil treatment, exfoliate your skin, use a sugar scrub on your hands and legs, or give yourself a pedicure. All these are things you can do while you’re watching TV or in the fifteen minutes before you go to bed.
- Write two holiday cards, stamp them and put on your mailing table ready to go out. The more Christmas or Hanukkah cards you write right now, the easier your life will be come late December. You don’t have to mail them right now – no need to rush the holidays before they begin.
TODAY’S PROJECT: Sorting Casseroles and Storage Containers
With holiday dinners coming up, you’ll want to make sure your casseroles, cake pans, pie pans, and Tupperware, Gladware or other plastic containers are accessible and in order. You’ll want to be sure you have inexpensive, recyclable, reusable empty containers you can send leftovers home in for people.
Sort out your kitchen cupboard, take inventory of your casseroles, and wash any containers that need it. Wipe down and dry each shelf before replacing.
See if all your food storage containers (Tupperware, Glad, Rubbermaid or other kinds) have matching lids. Throw away or recycle any containers that are stained, melted or gross-looking, or missing lids. Match up containers with their lids and store in an organized manner.
If you have more than one or two makeshift money-saving storage containers (ie old butter tubs you’ve saved) really think about how many you need to keep, and recycle anything you can part with. I’ve seen so many people’s cupboards overflowing and spilling empty butter and sour cream tubs onto the floors when the cupboard is opened. Declutter!
If you actually need, and will use, more new food storage containers or casseroles, add to your shopping list.
After Thanksgiving I can send guests home carrying pieces of pumpkin pie and extra mashed potatoes in my inexpensive give-away storage containers.
LOVELY TV: Downton Abbey Season 2
I so enjoyed this BBC series last year. My friends and I took turns hosting dinners at each others’ homes to watch it; and I bought the DVD, playing it a few times as enjoyable background noise while working, sorting and cleaning.
I’m so excited to see what happens next when Season 2 premieres in the US on January 8, 2012. Apparently a new maid joins the household, and we see how the war begins to affect the characters both upstairs and downstairs.
Downton Abbey Season 2, on PBS
LOVELY LINKS FOR TODAY: