Domestic Goddess

Not really, but periodically the house gets into such a bad state that even I can't stand it. I have found that the easiest way to get things put into order is to introduce a new element to the home dynamics.

One such element is my new refrigerator. Meet the Black Hole.



The previous refrigerator was almond, so this one startles me with its black sides and reflective door. Since I am used to seeing an almond wall in the refrigerator nook, the blackness feels like nothingness and from my peripheral vision I think something is missing, so I keep having to look at the refrigerator to get my bearings. It's a little disconcerting, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. And if mildew grows on the gasket, it won't show.

Anyway, what happened with the advent of a new refrigerator is that I threw out a lot of wildly outdated jars of crap and frozen blobs of something (chicken?), which makes the new refrigerator seem more roomy even though it is the same size as the old one. And in the process of cleaning out the old fridge, I made a mess on the kitchen floor, so I vacuumed there, which led to vacuuming the whole house. And since strangers were going to be in my kitchen, I cleaned off (most of) the kitchen counters. Not that you can tell today. After all, two days have passed since the delivery. And I felt like cooking today: oatmeal cookies (to use up the oatmeal and wheat germ I found in the freezer) and black bean and yam quesadillas (to use up the yam that had been sitting on the counter since Thanksgiving).

Another new element to the house is wire cubes (on sale at Target for $12.99):



I took this picture last night, after wrestling with the assembly of the cubes. Today I sorted through my stash and loaded much of it onto the shelves. Then I sorted through all my patterns and put them in notebooks. In between, I managed to create my own knitting kits, matching yarn and patterns. It will be like having my own personal yarn store!

And some knitting was going on as well. Poor Fern staked out a piece of the couch as best she could.



In this picture are the following: the red-red-red sweater, the Blue Lagoon baby blanket, a scarf (more on that tomorrow), Sensational Knitted Socks, and the pattern for Monkey socks. And poor fat friendly Fern.