Feb
1
Bye bye January
by Sofia - in Random
Tammikuu oli ihana! Joskin se meni hieman sairastellessa, mutta ainakin saimme nauttia hetken lumesta ja pakkasesta. Pidän toki lämpimästä ilmasta ja jokaisesta vuodenajasta, mutta taidan silti olla pohjoisen tyttö, sillä syksyt ja talvet sopivat minulle hyvin. Syksyissä rakastan myös niitä sateisia ja tuulisia päiviä kun ulkona on kaunis ruska. Talvessa ihaninta ovat juuri kauniin lumiset päivät. Eivätkä pelkästään ne aurinkoiset pikkupakkaset, vaan pidän myös kunnon lumisateista ja pakkaspäivistäkin. Kukaan meistä tuskin rakastaa yli kaiken sitten niitä sohjoisia ja vesisateisia talvipäiviä. Tässä muutama kuva kuluneelta kuulta puhelimestani…
Leivoimme herkullisia keksejä.
Jan
29
Missing a pair
by Sofia - in Random
I promised to start writing about housekeeping and wanted to start off with a very good, easy and useful idea that at least works in our house. I know we are all sometimes anxious about the weirdly missing pairs for socks. First of all, if you open up a little part in your washing machine you may find that it actually does” eat” the occasional sock. Some small items get sucked in with the water and we have found children´s socks in a kind of an sieve there ( I have no idea what it is called in either Finnish or English, just something we check every now and then). But mostly the socks just loose a pair in the laundry basket and it comes out in the next load of that colour or it may be found hiding somewhere else.
So a long time ago when I got tired of trying to find matching pairs of socks I came up with a very simple solution. All the socks that have a pair are obviously rolled together so when you take them out you always get two socks. We keep all the girl´s socks in one basket under the other girl´s hanging clothes and then undies in one on the other girl´s side ( as for these they wear the same size). So on the side where the socks are I added an extra basket. All the socks that come from laundry and have no pair are put in that basket. No socks without a pair are allowed in the bigger basket. And every time we add a single sock in the smaller basket we check if it would have a pair there. If it does, and most often it does, it gets rolled together with it´s twin and moved to the bigger basket. I´m telling you it works like a charm. And if there is a single sock that never seems to find it´s pair then after a while we say goodbye and throw it away or use it for crafting something. No more weird single socks and no more trying to find a pair for single socks in the big basket.
The girls ankle and knee high socks in the big basket, Bubble Gum´s tights in the smaller basket and the lonely socks in the white box. ( the baskets are from Ikea)
I really need to make a trip to Ikea and get two more of those smaller white baskets. On the other side in Cotton Candy´s closet is also one of these white boxes that holds the ballet outfits. You know it´s one of those things that you get kind of blind to after a while and stop seeing until you see them in a picture.
Jan
25
I´ve had requests about posts regarding home keeping. So I thought why not!? I sometimes wonder if writing about such matters makes one easily sound somehow “Stepford wife´ish” giving silly ideas about how to keep your home tidy. But then again I always like to read about great tips and hints to ease my everyday life. I know some are not that interested in such subjects and then for some these are matters of heated discussions ( honestly, I´ve had wonderful conversations about shiny countertops that would bore some of my friends to death). But I will actually try to make this a new fairly regular subject on the blog. If you love reading about people´s housekeeping because you want to read their confessions about how their laundry pile is so high then this series is not for you ( yes yes, mine gets too high sometimes too but I´m not one for taking pictures with my laundry hanging in the background if you know what I mean). I want this to be inspirational and I would love to also learn great new tricks from you in the comments.
But I do have to make a few comments ( or confessions) about tidiness before I start the whole thing. I was asked how I run my household chores so that for example the magazines don´t pile up and everything runs smoothly. I don´t. I mean I don´t do it by myself. My home is definitely not always in absolute spick and spam order but I do like it orderly and clean. It just makes me happy. But I´m fairly sure that without my husband the house would not be quite as nice as it is. So I´m going to share a few very easy tricks that he ( as a very neat and orderly person) has taught me by example.
1. Put everything in it´s place after you have used it. Let´s say clothes. After you used it put it either back to the closet or in the laundry. Don´t leave it lying around on a chair. If you don´t put used clothes that you tend to still wear back in the closet then have a designated space for it but then use it again and don´t let things pile up.
2. Clean as you go. If he spills he wipes up immediately, if he cooks he puts everything in the washer, if there is hand washing he does it right away. It really makes a difference.
3. Do it now, not tomorrow. This is my weak point. If I´m tired, I want to drink my cup of tea and watch something on Netflix so I think I´ll just take that box of Christmas decorations to the attic tomorrow. He does everything right away. It takes 5 minutes and then it´s done. It´s worth it! I´m also a procrastinator when it comes to filling any formal forms ( In Finland for instance those maternity papers for Kela were a nightmare for me) or such. He does it immediately when it comes, it´s done and won´t bother you after that.
4. Recycle immediately. If he´s read a newspaper or a magazine he throws it away ( honestly sometimes too efficiently as I find the newspaper in the paper trash when the girls are out the door with him in the morning and I finally have time for my coffee and reading). But the point here is to not leave that stuff around too long. Take the bottles to the store, the glass and metal to a sorting station ( luckily we have on in our building) etc.
