Swiffer tip...short and sweet!

This is probably old news to many of you, but I wanted to share, just in case you haven't heard....

You don't have to buy those boxes of swiffer refills!  My friend, Debbie J., at Homemaking Dreams, mentioned her floor cleaning tools in a recent post.  I started searching on google for the best home made swiffer pad.  

Yep, a chenille sock. I have several of these in my sock drawer and I never wear them. (too hot for my feet) The website that I used says you can buy these at the dollar store for ....yes... $1 a pair.  Anyway, I slid it over my swiffer mop, cut a slit in the back to make the handle stand up again....

And OMG! look!! I thought my floors were pretty clean this morning before I swiffered.   (this is embarrassing... ha ha)  

So, yes....here's to my new swiffer socks! Throw them in the washer and ready to use again!  

(I like the wet mop pads too....now to find a homemade cleaner to try with my new sock pads!)

You are what you eat....mentally, too.

borrowed from internet...not me :))

This is who I have always wanted to be....the happy housewife.  Years of raising children and having to work didn't really make me the 'happy' housewife, though I did enjoy what time I did have at home during those years.

Now that I am 'semi' retired from my nursing job, (my husband told me to start using that term....it sounds more encouraging than working 'part time') I have so much more time at home. I have always enjoyed just being at home, but it seems that  now, more than ever, I tend to waste more time here.  I  blame it on the internet...instant access to anything I want to read.  That can be a good thing...but can be a real distraction, too. It's so easy to get caught up in reading and searching for anything that crosses my mind.  Before I know it, I have spent hours in front of the computer. 

I don't want to look back ten years from now and be disappointed by all the time I've wasted.  I have decided to feed my internet addiction with things that make me who I want to be. It's true, you are what you eat...not only physically, but mentally, too.  I have found that if I spend half a day reading facebook, my mind is then focused on people I know (and even those I  don't truly know) and what is going on in their world.  Oh, they went on a cruise?  I want to go on a cruise.  Oh, they ate at such and such a place?  I want to eat there.  Oh, they got a new car?  I want a new car.  Really???  Why do that to ourselves??   

Truth is:  I really don't want to go on a cruise (right now, anyway) I don't need or really want a new car, and I eat out entirely too much as it is.  My heart really is at home!  For the past few days, I 've been reading homemaking blogs and quilting blogs.  Now, THAT's what I want to do!  (what are your favorite homemaking blogs...I hate to say it, but I prefer the ones written by mature women... I just can't seem to accept that 20 something year old women with 2-3 kids already have 'it' altogether!  LOL)

I want to take good care of my home, enjoy my home..."feeding myself"  more homemaking blogs has renewed my desire to be that person.  I am encouraged to get away from websites that do nothing to 'benefit' my life.  I have started asking myself  before I sit down to read or do something : "how is this helpful?" "how is this helping me to reach my life goals?"  

Today I am piddling around the house.  I have cleaned the floors, I have  cubed steak simmering on the stove, and I'm waiting on my little grandsons to come over to spend the afternoon with grandma.  That is definitely a good thing, no waste of time in any of that!  I hope to spend time this afternoon going through some cookbooks and thinning my collection.  I have always had this thing about cookbooks....I always wanted everyone I saw...but with the addition of internet, I truly don't need all those cookbooks any longer.  Do you still use cookbooks?

I actually enjoy hand washing dishes (as long as I don't let them get away from me).  Why wait two days for the dishwasher to get full?  There are only two of us in the house now.  It takes hardly any time at all to keep the dishes washed up.

not my cake...borrowed pic...looks delicious!!

Last night I had to send hubby to the grocery store to pick up a few snacks for the grandsons for today.  However, I want to be the type of homemaker that can whip something up from the pantry for the boys.  I would love to be the person who can always offer someone a snack, like that yummy looking slice of cake, when they enter my home.  (problem is: there would be more cake than visitors, and you know how that would go....hubby and I would eat way too much cake).  

I think the moral of this story for me is: one day  when I read that book shown above in the picture, I want to see really happy and satisfying things in it....not a checked off bucket list of empty deeds, but a life fulfilled with satisfaction that I did what my heart really wanted to do.  I want my grandchildren to remember me as a grandma who was there for them, who opened her home to them with good food and fun, who worked in her garden and kept pretty flowers, and one who enjoyed every little thing they did.  Not a grandma who was addicted to the internet, who couldn't put her cell phone down, who always took us to McDonalds, who lived in a messy house and was lazy.  I am responsible for writing my own story.  So for now, my focus will be on becoming a better homemaker, a better wife, a better grandma, a better daughter, a better sister, etc.  What about you?  Are you writing a true story of who you really want to be?