After a recent bout of the flu, I’m afraid to say that my home isn’t quite as tidy as it should be. A thumping headache and a rainy morning on Sunday encouraged me to shelve my plans to get myself and the kids ready to go to church and I made the executive decision to stay in bed for a while instead. What a great idea.

At 9.15am I received an unexpected phone call from a friend from out of town. He was wondering if he could call in for coffee to chat and catch up for an hour or so. No rush. He wouldn’t be at my place for at least half an hour. Was that okay? Sure, I said. Sounds like a great idea.

Not only did the house need urgent attention, my purple PJs with the blue hippos on them probably weren’t going to cut it for greeting a guest either. The kids were quickly mobilised into a loungeroom cleaning taskforce while I tried to simultaneously wash up, tidy the kitchen and clear the dining room table. That done, I just had to clean the bathroom, hide the washing pile and get myself showered and dressed. Piece of cake. Cake? Oh no. What could I serve with coffee?

M: I’m feeling sorry for the friend. He was obviously expecting you to be at church, and was planning on leaving a “Sorry I missed you” message.
S: Hmph. At least I got it together in time. What would you have done?
M: Anyone who shows up at my house before 11 on a Sunday morning gets to watch a horror flick entitled “The Undercaffeinated Monster from the Depths of the Doona”.

The whole experience got us thinking and we have come up with a brilliant new business idea – Unexpected Guests R Us. For a small fee, you join our contact list and periodically we call you and say we’re on our way over. It’s amazing how much cleaning you can get done in 30 minutes if you know there are guests arriving.

Basic package would be a phone call with 30 minutes warning. Advanced package would give only 20 minutes. The deluxe package would include an extra challenge. Something along the lines of “We’re on our way and we’ve got Aunt Mabel with us. You know how much she loves your homemade scones with jam and whipped cream. See you in half an hour.”

So give us a call, but best to try on our mobiles because we’re on our way. We’ve got our neighbours two-year-old triplets with us. Will that be a problem?

I bought a new fridge on the weekend. Mostly because we needed more space, but also because I love the idea of a dedicated spare fridge in the garage for drinks. This will also come in handy when my husband brings home “Surprise Meat”.

There are two types of Surprise Meat. The first is that of meat trays won at the Friday Night Raffles, offered up like a peasant seeking indulgences from the Pope, in atonement for spending too long at the RSL after work.The second kind is  enormous bulk bags of dog bones that were on sale when he went to the butcher’s for something to throw on the BBQ.  Both kinds of Surprise Meat would be great value for money, except we have to call the kids in to eat a litre of icecream and 2 bags of grated cheese to fit it all in. Not anymore. “Straight to the garage!” I will bellow, thus taking care of both purchases and purchaser for some time.

Another delight of my new purchase has been the owner’s manual. Now I know what you’re thinking – “It’s a fridge! Plug it in. Turn it on.” But this new-fangled appliance has a special cooling area for meat, as well as some digital display bits and a water dispenser, so I wanted to make sure I was “doing it right”. No RTFM errors for this little black duck.

Of course I forgot to take a refresher course in manualese and techish. This manual seems to have taken a particularly convoluted course through one of the dodgier online translators.

Highlights include:

• When the door is opened, the warmer air can’t influence in the fresh zone. So you can store food more fresh in it.
• Inserted convertible room must be placed at its position. If door is opened, it can’t fill the role of it.
• …and oxidize under sunlight to decomposing malodor by ultraviolet.

Most puzzling were the instructions included with the water dispenser. Do not use anything other than water including. That’s it. Including what? Now I’m wondering what thing I could have possibly thought of that doesn’t fall under the “anything other than water” stipulation.Although I may have briefly considered how awesome it would be to have a chilled gin and tonic dispenser within reach at all times.

But my favourite part of the brochure is the warning box clarifying how to dispose of a fridge safely, so that children can’t become locked inside. Very important information, and the eye is drawn to it because the heading reads VERY DANGEROUS ATTRACTION! I want that on a t-shirt.

Today I should be cleaning. Unfortunately I would have to be one of the world’s worst housekeepers. I understand that doing a little bit every day should make the load lighter but other than washing the clothes and dishes, it’s a bit beyond me. Usually I just wait until it gets out of control or visitors are expected and then set to like a woman possessed for three days and get things into shape.

I’ve tried all the handy hints that have been offered to me to help establish a routine. One suggestion is to get up and put your shoes on straight away. This is meant to make you feel like you are busy and going out, so you will be less likely to laze about on the lounge eating bonbons instead of spit-polishing the shower. This doesn’t work for me because I hate wearing shoes. Plus if you can’t feel the grit under your feet it is all too easy to ignore it. (Found this one out the hard way, when the children got stuck to the kitchen floor.)

Another plan was to put on a timer and just spend ten minutes at each task. The idea is that because you have limited time, you work faster and get things done quicker, plus you don’t lose interest because you are moving from one job to another. I was just left with about 20 jobs half done at the end of the day.

I have friends who schedule cleaning and won’t go out at all on Cleaning Day. If they do have to let it go for some important event, it throws their whole week out.  I’m all “Well I was meant to be cleaning out the fridge today, but hey, you want to go look at paint charts? I’m there!” If life was animated, this would be the point where you’d see a me-shaped hole in the dust.

As for ironing – (yes, I’m looking at you, Mr Abbott) – ugh! My husband happily irons his own shirt every morning while watching the news. Everything else gets hung carefully to avoid wrinkles, and I am often to be seen madly scrunching at clothes in shops to check the material for creasing tendencies.When we were moving I seriously considered knocking back a perfectly good house because the local school’s uniform had pleated tunics. Luckily we found a better house near a wash-and-wear school!

What lengths will you go to to avoid cleaning?

One of our most requested recipes from Keep the Table Laughing is the Vodka Slush.

Since I am about to officially start Slush Week 2009, I thought I’d give all our readers an early Christmas gift, and share the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups water
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 cups orange juice
• 1 1/2 cups pineapple juice
• 1 1/2 cups apricot nectar
• 1 1/2 cups vodka (or just hold the bottle upside down and watch it go glug glug glug, say “whoops!” then keep pouring)

Method:

• Boil sugar and water for 2 minutes. Allow to cool.
• Combine sugar/water mix with remaining ingredients.
• Freeze.

Stirring the mix occasionally helps it maintain a slushy consistency.

To serve:

• Scoop 1-2 ice cream scoops of mix into a tumbler and top with dry ginger ale.
• Stick feet in a paddling pool, grab a good summer read and enjoy!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

As November rolls on the weather is heating up here in Newcastle. We are entering that small window of time where pool-owners feel very smug. Please don’t hate us for our arrogance. We have battled to create these few weeks of summer bliss for ourselves. Each season we endure fifty-nine trips to the pool shop, thirty-two backbreaking retrievals of water samples to test, sixty-eight hose-outs of the clogged filter basket and seven hundred and ninety-six scoopings of leaves. This is just the day-to-day maintenance.

This year our old filter sprung a leak and of course we didn’t get around to replacing it until spring had arrived and the kids were moaning for a swim. The replacement filter was a new design – slightly higher than the old one. We had to adjust the existing pipes to fit – a job requiring manual dexterity, several trips to Bunnings, long forgotten sixth grade mathematics and a choice selection of words from the “F” section of the dictionary.

Of course once the new filter was up and running, the weather turned cold and miserable for several weeks. Once October took hold, we attempted to clean the pool that had not been cleaned since the old filter packed it in back in March. My husband (remember Scooby Doo?) was concerned about a subterranean gurgling that only he could hear. Luckily my man can dig a hole with a Dale Kerrigan-like zeal, and a leaky pipe was soon discovered and (after another trip to Bunnings) patched.  We cleaned and readied the pool for the onslaught of the heat.

So last week the kids swam. And swam.  And swam. Then we thought we should probably get the water properly tested by the professionals. Apparently we’re lucky that the kids still have their eyebrows and haven’t grown scales. Two hundred dollars later, we had a speed lab of chemicals in our shed and a list of processes that would make a Masterchef contestant cry. We were not fazed. We were ready to be smug. Step one – add chlorine. Within minutes the water took on a greenish tinge. The instructions say to wait an hour. We waited. The water that was swimmable two days ago was now the colour of Mountain Dew. A call to the Pool Guy only got us the words you never want to hear from a diagnostician: “Hmmm, that’s strange”. NOOOOOOOOO!

Fortunately, we decided to take two aspirins and call him in the morning, if our pain persisted. Sunday morning dawned bright and clear, and our pool was bluer than blue.  So now we can start updating our Facebook status with “enjoying a few cold ones in the pool”. At work my husband will be able to talk about how refreshing it is to have a quick dip before breakfast.  The kids’ popularity rating at school will soar. I am smug at last.

Earlier this year my beloved popcorn maker died. On reflection, this could be the reason I have had such an unproductive winter. I’ve obviously been in mourning.

I know that you can make popcorn the old-fashioned way, but after years of the convenience of my air-popper, it seems so cumbersome to go back to shaking a saucepan over the stovetop burner (not to mention the hassle of having to clean a saucepan afterwards).

I did plan to simply replace my poor overworked popper, but I never seemed to remember when I was out shopping and when I did remember the stores didn’t seem to have any in stock.

But, those sad and empty days are gone. Today we welcomed (Sunbeam) Cornelius into our home and harmony has returned to our afternoon snack time. Feeling peckish kids? No problem, I’ll just whip up some popcorn for you. Tah-Dah! Done!

We tend to just enjoy our popcorn with a little salt and melted butter. I think I might have a caramel popcorn recipe hidden away somewhere though which I probably should find now that the wonderful Cornelius is here to stay.

Do you have a favourite popcorn topping, sweet or savoury? Please leave a comment with some popcorn “seasoning” suggestions, or if you’ve posted a recipe on your blog feel free to include the link.

Related Links:

The Best Thing Since Sliced – Well, You Know… (new Breville bread maker)

Well, I might have to come up with a shorter, catchier title, but the basic premise remains.

In keeping with my general bull-at-a-gate, jumping-in-the-deep-end, mixing-random-metaphors habit, I’m going to tackle all areas of my life at once in one great big super overhaul. It’s like Renovation Rescue for my life – out with the old, broken, sadly out of date and no longer useful and in with… well, I’m not sure yet. But whatever it is it will be organised, useful and won’t take up much space.

Budget, kids’ routines, paperwork, cleaning, wardrobes, cooking, writing – I’m reviewing the whole lot. Watch out world, I’m a woman with a mission.

There is one significant obstacle to overcome in my headlong rush towards organisational enlightenment however. When she reads this (yes Meredith, I’m talking about you), she will phone me and remind me gently but firmly that I was instructed to make my blog posts funny.

Personally, I don’t think she has anything to worry about. If you could see my house, you’d think the idea of me getting it all under control in a month is the funniest thing you’ve ever heard.

To keep Meredith happy however, I will do my very best to share only the light-hearted, amusing side of my headlong rush into domestic routine. The quirky little highlights in my otherwise dust-coated day.

My first baby step in the direction of a clutter-free life will be to make all posts in my Google reader as ‘read’.

Goodbye witty and amusing posts that I would have loved if only I had read you. Goodbye book recommendations for novels that I would love to add to my TBR if it hadn’t already reached critical mass. Goodbye thoughtful, encouraging, thought-provoking or simply interesting posts. I wish I had read you, but I’m afraid it’s just not going to happen.

Ah, I feel better already.

Anyone want to join me on this odyssey to liberate myself from chaos? Misery loves company The more the merrier. Jump on the bandwagon and we’ll conquer our To Do Lists one task at a time. 

PS I know I posted about this last week. I have spent the past week waiting for you all to send my the links to the miracle website or the name of the perfect book to help me in my quest. Sadly, there were no miracle solutions forthcoming, so it looks like I’m just going to have to do this the hard way.

PPS I haven’t posted a photo with this post because I think I may have frightened Aunt Becky from Mommy Wants Vodka with the photo on my last organisational blog. I will try to find some less confronting images to include in the future.

I have decided it is Time To Get Organised. Note the capitalisation, my friends. I am serious this time. No more procrastinating. No more excuses. It’s time to stop writing To Do Lists and time to start actually Doing stuff…. Well, maybe just a few To Do Lists. It’s probably not healthy to go cold turkey.

I am a compulsive list maker and the queen of all procrastinators. This seems to be getting worse and my home is starting to look so chaotic that even compulsive hoarders would be shaking their heads in dismay.

The time has come to draw a line in the dust and say “Enough is Enough!”

So what does all this mean? For me, it means getting my butt into gear and putting some routines in place at home to help me get some of the mess sorted. For Meredith, it means that it is time for her to start worrying, because it isn’t just my house I need to get in order but my life, which includes our joint writing efforts. Be afraid, Meredith. Be very afraid.

“I think you might be over-reacting”, I hear you say. You think so, do you? You noticed the pile of mess above? Well, that just a sample. Check this out. This is my dining room table:

See what I mean? It’s time to do something before every flat surface in the house is covered with books, papers, kids’ craft, junk mail and miscellaneous stuff.

How do I plan to achieve this amazing organisational nirvana? Well, I do have a bookshelf of home organisation books that I could read. Who knows, they might actually contain some useful tips.

Step one will be to assemble these books, pick out the best ones, Book Mooch the rest and get to work. Hmm. That’s actually quite a few steps, but you know what I mean.

Over the weekend I am going to put together a Susan’s Self-Improvement Project Master List (note the capitals once again. I’m not mucking around here). I will then post it here including links to the books and websites that I’m going to use to help me.

I’m open to suggestions for websites that might be helpful, so please add comments with useful links or general encouragement. I may even set up a weekly challenge if anyone else is interested. You never know. We could have a home organisation revolution! Bwahahaha. Oh, evil megalomaniacal laughter probably isn’t appropriate for this sort of revolution, is it? Sorry.

I think I must be very susceptible to subliminal advertising. Particularly when it comes to food. Often when I’m watching TV and a character is eating something, my reaction is “Mmm I want some of that”. I made cupcakes during the Masterchef cupcake challenge, but I think emulating TV chefs is fairly common. This goes deeper.

If a movie cop is eating a donut, I want a donut. I have sent my husband out for chocolate while watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. A recent weekend spent watching Zane Lamprey’s hilarious drinking show Three Sheets had me sourcing a recipe and ingredients for Jamaican Jerk Chicken. If a trendy New Yorker so much as walks past a hot dog vendor, I want a chilli dog. I don’t like chilli dogs! Brad Pitt munching his way through Ocean’s 11 near killed me with cravings. I even want a nacho hat like Homer, and yes, I want to sing “Nacho Nacho Man” while eating it.

Even reading books can trigger the cravings. Just this week I made a pot of broccoli and cheddar soup – a recipe I only discovered after reading The Devil Wears Prada a couple of years ago. It’s not even a major plot point, but the idea so appealed to me, that I immediately had to try it. Now every now and then I will make it again, and every single time I think “this would be so much more perfect if I had it in a takeaway cup like that girl did in the book”. I can’t tell you the character’s name, but I can remember the soup.

So – am I alone in this, or do others also get hungry watching and reading about people eating? What’s your most memorable book or movie food scene?

In the past 24 hours I have become aware of just how pervasive the MasterChef Australia phenomenon has become. First my five-year old son turned to me and said “The profiteroles for his croquembouche are overdone. I think he will be sent home”. Then when Meredith realised she was sitting down to lunch today wearing a jacket and scarf, she gave me her best Matt Preston impersonation as she judged the pumpkin soup I had made for us to share.

Yes, that’s all it takes. A couple of hours of reality TV and a fake cravat and everyone thinks they’re a professional food critic.

MasterChef Australia has become part of family evening routine. The kids have their favourite contestants and sit on the edge of their seats in anxious anticipation whenever there is an invention or pressure test, team competition or elimination.

I think it’s great that the kids are learning about great food and getting an appreciation for just how difficult it can be to pull meals together. As for me, I am speechless that amateur cooks can create some of the amazing dishes that the contestants produce each week.

Of course, every silver lining has a cloud and mine is the disappointed look on the faces of my children when I serve a hearty meal of meat and three veg while they gaze longingly at the images of the open crab lasagne with crab bisque on the screen. Sorry kids. Not in this lifetime.

Are you addicted to MasterChef? Do you have a favourite contestant? How many more dishes do you think Chris will be able to cook based on beer? Do you dine on fine cuisine every night or do you simply muddle through preparing the evening meal as best you can without a quail, lobster or blood sausage in sight?