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Flat Surfaces

Some how every flat surface in my home is covered in endless piles of stuff. If there is a surface on which items can be set, they will be. Case in point, my dinning room table. It is the first flat surface one passes on the way in the house from the garage. It has become the dumping grounds for every random item in anyone's hands as they walk in the door. We don't even eat at the table because it is so rarely clutter free.

The other day I cleared everything off and removed the extra leaf from the table in hopes that a smaller table would collect less. Well I was wrong (it also happened to be A's birthday so her gifts collected). Now C's birthday is coming up and that means family dinner. I'm giving it one last try to clean the table and keep it clear (at least until the party).

I started cleaning and it wasn't as bad as I thought. Gift bags really take up a lot less space once folded. After awhile I had a table again. Now I just have to face the other rooms in this house. And I'm off to clean the kitchen, or maybe it can wait until tomorrow!

On the Chopping Block

I hate dishes! Simply stated I'm lazy and I don't like doing them. So the idea of using multiple dishes to prepare and serve food drives me outright batty. The result of said 'batty'ness is what I like to call cutting board salad.  

Salads are quick and easy and healthy, so anytime we have lettuce we eat a salad with dinner. I chop and serve everything right there, directly from the cutting board. Last night was a combination of lettuce, radish, celery, and tomatoes. The added bonus to not mixing things up is that if you happen to have a picky eater, as I randomly do, then they just pick and choose what to add to their own salad. And of course there's the fact that cutting boards are the easiest thing in the world to wash!

Good Food Loves You

A few years ago we joined a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) in our area. During the warm months we ate amazing locally grown foods and wished for them while it was cold. We then discovered a local co-op and soon after our favorite site Bountiful Baskets.

We order a 'basket' of food every 3 weeks. I pick up one for us and one for my parents. For only $15 a basket we get a lot of great healthy food. We have tried some new foods we might not have bought for ourselves and many that I consider too expensive often come in a regular weeks basket. Several times we have gotten pineapple, kiwis, and mangos.

We've priced out the items on a few occasion at our local super market and found it would run upwards of $40-50 to buy the same items in our basket. Co-ops really work to save you money.

And if saving money weren't a good enough reason to start eating better, the health benefits can't be beat. Good foods show they love you by making you healthier, and sometimes you'll even find your bag of carrots has other ways to let you know they love you.

http://www.bountifulbaskets.org/

PS: I wanted to add pictures of a basket we actually got and not just some random photo from out there on the web. So I had to wait a few hours for our pick up time so I could show you the yummy foods we received today. How great does this look? (This photo is minus a little crate of blueberries because lil' man C couldn't wait until after I took the picture to eat them.)

Unexpected visitor

Many years ago, when we first bought our home we saw deer and squirrel, wild birds and the occasional rodent in our yard daily. We don't live deep in the woods but our area is mountain side terrain and with the 2 acre vacant lot behind us the animals had made our yard part of their home. That was until someone bought the property, tore out nature and slapped up town homes. The project, as expected, went belly up and is still sitting unfinished with only about 1/5 of the built properties being lived it. It was an unfortunate waste of a great natural space.

At the time we lost all our friendly little neighbors, except the rodents who loved the mess more than I care to recall. Recently we have noticed a large number of the nicer animals coming back to the area and the other day a deer paid our yard a visit to snack on some sweet fallen apricots. She stayed for a bit greatly upsetting the permanent residents of our yard, three ducks seen here running in the opposite direction. She came back again later in the day for another quick bite but we haven't seen her since. Hopefully she's found a nice place to live nearby and will pay us another visit soon.

Sports Laundry

It seems nearly impossible to get kids to help with chores. Mine get paid nominal amounts for certain things on a chore list and sometimes I beg for help and amazingly get it. Tonight we implemented a long time favorite, Sports Laundry.

I personally love sports laundry because I get to sit in one place while sorting laundry and don't have to get up and put every little thing away. The girls come running when I call their names. I toss whatever balled up piece of clothing I've found of theirs and they rush to catch it (something they have gotten much better at I'll admit). Then off they got to put away or hang up. They always come running right back and we manage to get through laundry sorting pretty quickly. Now if only I could same the same for washing the laundry!

Do you hear what I hear?

The biggest part of owning an older home is the daily fix and repair. And when I say daily I mean that at some point during everyday there is time spent fixing something. This past weekend the issue to be handled was the kitchen sink. It seems our garbage disposal was suffering from some 'plumbing issues' and was leaking water into the cabinet below.

After pulling everything out, to soak up the water and inspect for damage, we set about installing a new garbage disposal. My husband got everything wired and connected while I kept little hands and eyes far away. Then it was time for the test run. We turn on the water, flip the switch and . . . is it running?

I don't hear anything.

Are you sure it's on?

We stare as the water swirls down the drain and toss a corner of dry toast from breakfast in for good measure. The quiet spinning and faint crunching of old toast as it grinds is all we hear. Wow, that is one quiet disposal! In the 10 years we've lived here I'd gotten so used to the sounds of the mini tornado ripping through the sink drain that this was like a small choir of angels.

The only task left was to clean the cabinet again and put everything back. I also wanted to install a towel bar under the sink to hold spray bottles (I'd seen it in passing on Pinterest). So that went in too, pretty handy really.

Later that day my mum and dad dropped in and tested out the new disposal. My mum comments on how quiet it is then quickly adds . . . We need a new garbage disposal!

What's old is new

With two tween girls in the house we have accumulated a lot of hair accessories. A favorite for lazy hair days are headbands. The bad part of headbands is that they are made of cheap plastic and when they get caught in the middle of fighting girls they often snap! The cheap ones I toss, and we have thrown away many I'm sad to say.

The other day the unfortunate looser of a battle was a cute bow headband we purchased at Steal Boutique. I decided to take on reassembling said headband but first needed to purchase more plastic headbands. But why buy just one when I can buy in bulk and make more! So when a big sale hit Halo Heaven I bought a couple packs of headbands. Then as it turns out I got a size smaller and a size larger than what the headband was. What to do, what to do?

I opted to go bigger and add some extra ribbon. After trial wrapping ten times to decide how to best use the previous ribbon (something I highly suggest doing before you glue anything in place to make sure you don't run out) I began to wrap and glue in place. You can see the broken headband (bottom right of top photo) and the already wrapped original black ribbon on the new headband. I had just started the new ribbon when I remember to snap a photo.

Just when my hands were starting to cramp trying to hold the ribbon tight, I glued the last piece in place and it's finished. Not to shabby and the girls inform me it's better than before.

Cheap is better

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ENJOY!
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Best seat in the house

When hubby and I first got married we lived in a tiny apartment with no where to put anything, especially in the bathroom. So being desperate for shelf space we bought a cheap over the toilet standing shelf.

We loaded it full and when we moved to another apartment that had a shelf above the toilet, we moved it to the kitchen and used the top half as a baker's rack sitting on the counter. (Multi-functioning already see?!)

So when we bought our house and no longer needed a cheap metal shelf I figured why toss it, maybe I can do something with it. But what? Well I thought it looks like a bench, so let's make a bench. So that's exactly what I did. I kept two shelves and back section and used the support bars from lower down to piece it together. Then I grabbed some scrap fabric and sewed a cover over the top shelf. Finished the seat off with some batting inside and stitched up the back to keep it all in. Finally I added spare bed frame feet we had lying around and this is what we ended up with. As you can tell it was a big hit!

The Other Sink fills up

Welcome to The Other Sink, a blog dedicated to nothing but exploring everything. We start our adventures by delving into the world of homes, crafts, cooking, and kids. If you have, or deal with, any of these things you are sure to find use of this blog, so stick with us and feel free to comment on anything that interests you along the way.

My name is Abbey and I will be your guide on this trip. Welcome!

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