The 31DBBB Day 2 task is to write a list post.

I do this a lot. Usually it’s a list of funny things. 31DBBB suggests that your lists should be used as an easy to read, concise way to share information. I’m not really full of that much useful information.

Obscure facts no one cares about? I know lots of those. Trivial Pursuit and Jeopardy are my games.

I’ll do the best I can.

Favorite Uses for Vinegar Around the House

Vinegar is to home-making what duct tape is to McGyver. There’s almost no end to the things you can do with this all-natural product. Good to know for people like me who are allergic to the chemicals found in household products today.

Here are some of the more useful everyday things you can do with vinegar.

1. Clean the coffee maker. Add a cup of vinegar to your coffeemaker reservoir. Fill the rest of the way with water. Run through a cycle. Rinse the pot. Fill reservoir again with just clean water. Run through one more cycle to rinse. This removes build up from hard water.

2. Substitute for buttermilk. Who has buttermilk just taking up space in their fridge? Well, not this Yankee anyway. So when I need it for a recipe I substitute by putting a tablespoon of vinegar in a measuring cup, then filling it up to 1 cup with milk. Stir and let it stand for five minutes before using.

3.  Substitute for liquid fabric softener. Just put in the same dispenser.

4. Brighten a load of whites by adding half a cup of vinegar.

5. Remove the smell from a load of musty towels with half a cup of vinegar and half a cup of baking soda added to the wash.

6. For all-purpose cleaner I mix 1 cup of vinegar, 1 cup of water and 1/4 cup of ammonia. I put it in a spray bottle, and use it clean everything from counter tops to mirrors.

7. To clean linoleum I mix a tablespoon of dish soap, 1/4 cup of baking soda, and 1/4 cup of vinegar with two gallons of hot water.

Public Service Announcement: Remember that when using ammonia never, ever mix it with bleach.

Bookmark To:

My first vlog!

I share a tip for organizing all those hat, scarves and gloves in your coat closet.

Bookmark To:

I can close my eyes and in a moment be transported back there.

I am seven years old.

The kitchen smells of boiled potatoes, fried pork, dogs and barn boots. But it’s not a bad smell. It’s comforting, welcoming.

The air is hot and moist from the cooking and simmering that’s gone on all day.

A green kettle sits on the gas stove ready to heat water for tea.

There is a worn old table surrounded by mismatched chairs. A cookie jar that looks like a hen sitting on her nest rests a top the table.

Behind the refrigerator, the kind with the freezer on the bottom, is a yard stick, often threatened, but never actually used, on a gaggle of rowdy grandchildren.

There’s an old metal stool at one end of the table covered in peeling green paint. The seat spins. Sometimes it’s a merry-go-round for a bored kid.

But now Grandma sits there peeling those potatoes, served at almost every meal, usually mashed.

Oh, how I loved that week every summer when we stayed at Grandma’s house. For an only child, lots of nearby cousins meant instant comrades.

For a child who lived in town, the farm meant new experiences and adventures.

I fed calves with a bottle, watched chickens meet their fate at the end of an ax, climbed the hay elevator up to the loft, collected eggs from the hen house, helped slop the pigs.

There was an old pony, a pack of friendly dogs and a gang of ferocious barn cats to provide hours of entertainment.

And Grandma was the queen of all of this. The royal matriarch of this magical, rural realm.

When you’re seven your Grandma is a Fairy Godmother.

I think of this today as news comes that the farm has at last been sold.

I can’t go back there anymore.

I’m no longer seven.

The house isn’t the same.

Grandma doesn’t live there anymore.

Grandma, who time is now catching up with, isn’t the same.

Our family, changed by time and scattered by distance, isn’t the same.

But I have all these memories, and can recall so many details about the house and the farm. I can see every room of that house just as it was 25 years ago. I remember the dusty lane and how the field looked full of growing corn. I see the cows eating at a trough in the barnyard. I hear the loud ruckus as aunts and uncles and grandchildren fill up that big old farm house.

That house is just a place in my heart now. A part of dreamy childhood reminiscences where innocence and naivety still exist. Where there isn’t a care in the world.

But to soar on the tire swing hanging from the hundred year old tree in the side yard once more!

To laugh with cousins around the kid’s table once more!

To bound up the steps on the back porch one last time  into the kitchen where Grandma is busy cooking something and the tea kettle is whistling happily away!

These are sweet, sweet memories.

Do you have fond childhood memories of a special place? Talk to me.

Bookmark To: