Still Tweaking the Spare Room

Uppuma - Indian Style Cream of Wheat

On Friday, I cooked uppuma for my breakfast - this is made with cream of wheat, to which I added curry leaves, chilies, and peanuts.  I posted how I make it, here.

Later, Friday afternoon, I removed all the large cooking pots and cake pans, etc., that were being stored on the bookcase I had in the garage and got friend M to carry it outside, where he and I cleaned it (so much dust and cobwebs, etc.!)  I thought I could bring it inside the house to use as storage space in the spare room.  However, upon closer inspection, I realized that the bottom portion of the unit was water damaged and the particle board had begun to split.  It was still useful in the garage, but, not something I wanted inside the house.  So, M carried it back to the garage and set it up there, now nicely dusted and clean!  Well, that answered that question!  Now I know that if I want a taller shelving unit in the spare room, I will have to buy one.

In the meantime, I found a different container for my button collection:

Old Button Box

My mother and I used to buy buttons when they went on sale for $.10 per card, many, many, years ago.  Plain buttons, decorative buttons, in all sizes and colors.  Plus all kinds of trimmings, too.  My mother stored them in this repurposed wet wipes container.  I used to store it in one of the desk drawers.  On Friday, I pulled out this other container, a small round thin wood box that I had covered with gift wrap paper, several years ago (I used to store spare batteries in it), and dumped the button collection into it:

New Button Box

Everything fits in nicely and, best of all, I can close the lid!

Closed Button Box

There's another round box like that, covered with the same paper, which holds all my decorative edged pairs of scissors for scrapbooking.  I'm thinking of gluing a button to the top of this box to make it easier to tell them apart.  For now, the button box is placed on the chest of drawers, with the other sewing supplies and the scrapbooking scissors box is on the desk, near the scrapbooking papers.  

If I get additional shelving in the spare room, these would be the sort of things I'd store on them.

In addition to playing with buttons and cleaning the garage shelves, on Friday, I scrubbed my bathtub, did some grocery shopping, and decluttered these plastic Easter eggs and bunnies:

Plastic Easter Eggs and Bunnies

The Easter Bunny no longer comes calling at this house since there is no little girl to get excited about waking up to find trails of glitter leading to hidden eggs containing treats (she didn't like candy, so, she received things like hair bows, novelty erasers, coins, etc. in the eggs).   These days, the only bunnies one is likely to encounter here are dust bunnies, of which there are plenty!

Today, Saturday, I pulled the desk and the chest of drawers away from the walls and swept behind them!  Then, I swept the floor again and went over it with a damp mop.  The main reason for pulling the furniture out was to reach the outlets behind them - I plugged in a radio I had in another room and set it on the chest of drawers, and I plugged in an extension cord to the outlet behind the desk, to make it easier to plug in the sewing machine or a hot glue gun, etc.  I also need to buy a desk lamp for the table.  

After that, I went through another file of papers (car insurance and auto club membership) and tore up everything other than the most current ones.  I took a full bag of paper to the recycling bin!  

Breakfast, today, was a rice cake spread with peanut butter.  For lunch, I pulled out a container of spaghetti  sauce I had in the freezer and a package of ground beef I had browned and frozen.  It was a matter of thawing them in the microwave before heating them together in a saucepan while the water boiled and the spaghetti cooked.  There is more meat sauce left for a couple of meals, as well.  For dinner, I had a sandwich with the last of the beef steak I had cooked earlier.  

Today, I am grateful for:

- A sunny day

- Chatting on the phone with aunt C

- Lunch from the freezer

- All what I was able to accomplish

- No phone calls from the doctor on Friday, either

Tomorrow, a member of the extended family is hosting the monthly rosary and a brunch to commemorate her father's first death anniversary.  I will be giving cousin P and friend F a ride to the event and back.  I haven't made any other plans for tomorrow, but, I'll probably sort through more files in the evening, after I get back.  The forecast calls for scattered showers, tomorrow.  Depending on how much rain we get, I might not have to water the garden for another couple of days.

How is your weekend coming along?  What are your plans for Sunday?