New Year's Jambalaya

Berwyn showing off his Christmas presents, a fluffy bed and Blue Dog

Well, it is the 2nd day of the new year and so far so good. I thought I'd share with you something that I'm eating today, since it is Recipe Monday and also it's a New Year's tradition.

First, the story. It was New Year's Day 2009. We had been partying for about 3 days in our small Austin apartment and had quite a few people still in town. I had planned to make Black Eyed Peas, our usual traditional dish for luck in the new year, but I was worried that my tiny can of peas would not feed everyone. So several of us ladies (myself and two good friends, both named Mrs. A but no relation) started digging through my pantry to see what we could add to the peas to make it go a little further. Here's what resulted.

Kick-Ass New Year's Jambalaya

Boil 3 cups rice with 1 T. butter in appropriate amount water (according to package). Toss in some cut-up beef jerky for flavor. Now add canned goods: Ro-Tel tomatoes, black eyed peas, & black beans. Add 1 chopped onion and about 3 cloves minced garlic. Season with Tony's or other Cajun seasoning as hot as you can stand. Reduce heat to med-low and simmer, covered, about 40 minutes or until rice is tender. Reheats well for a few days and serves a lot of people. Pretty good on a hangover.
*Not kidney friendly!

Now in other news, I have resolved to de-clutter. Yes, I should go to the gym more. Yes, I should eat less melted cheese. But I think my big, life changing resolution is going to be to get our stuff reduced as much as is reasonably possible before we move. This sounded like a great idea on New Year's Eve, but after a 4 hour car ride back to Waco, our house looked like a bomb went off and I was tired. Today I have graded papers and made my grocery run (back on that cleaning plan and on schedule so far), but we have Christmas gifts to find homes for and so much laundry! I am really itching to use my brand new Dyson vacuum (!) but I have got to put things away first. Baby steps.
Anyway, I found a neat little calendar online that has de-cluttering tasks for every day so that I can work gradually toward my goal instead of charging at it haphazardly and feeling inadequate until it's done. If I can follow this and my cleaning schedule at the same time, boy will I be a happy girl!

Homemaking Bits

My kitchen helper.

So as y'all know, while I teach full time and have been the household breadwinner for 5.5 years now, what I really want to do is be Susie Homemaker. That said, if you did a white-glove test on my home at any given moment (especially during the school year), I'd fail. So I'm perpetually on the lookout for ways to manage chores better, despite being exhausted.
In a spree of forward thinking* this weekend, I came up with a plan that will keep our home under control with a minimum of weeknight time, but also not require that Saturdays be marathon cleaning days. I made an agreement with SexyLawyerMan that he'd also stick to it, and half a week in, it's actually working. This is the plan:

	Me	Him
Sunday	One load of laundry	One load of laundry
Monday	Grocery run, sweep floors	Tidy his half of bedroom
Tuesday	Guest bath	Change and wash sheets
Wednesday	Pick up living room and kitchen	Master bath
Thursday	Mop kitchen, entry ways	Vacuum living room
Friday	Tidy my half of bedroom	One load of laundry
Saturday	Catch up if needed	Catch Up if needed

Other chores that are monthly have their own checklists so we know they get done at least once a month (such as straightening the back bedrooms and dusting.) There's also an agreement about kitchen chores that focuses on me cooking and him cleaning up, with each of us in charge of clearing plates and washing our own lunch and snacking dishes.

I did have to switch one thing around. Originally, I was scheduled to clean the master bath and he did the guest bath. Well, see... guests use the guest bath. And... um... he's really bad at cleaning stuff. (I had to teach him this week how to turn off the faucet and use a cup to wash dirt from Berwyn's bath down the drain. I thought everyone knew that trick.) So we switched and now I will clean the bathroom that other people see and he can practice on ours. I had a 22 year head start on learning to clean, and he's getting there, but it's slow going. Old dog, new tricks, yes?

What I like about this system is that I no longer feel perpetually guilty for not cleaning NOW. If I have done my load of laundry, for example, I know I'm keeping up and I will get to the bathroom on its regularly scheduled day. No guilt. Also, assuming we can stick to it, my house is cleaner because I'm actually doing it. This is a vast improvement over my old system of not doing it until I get sick of how dirty everything is and I got to the "Bad Place" where I listen to angry music on my iPod and scrub furiously for a few hours while sighing and glaring a lot.

I saw this idea on Pinterest.

In another attempt at Domestic Diva-ness, I have resolved to be greener about wiping counters. We go through a lot of paper towels, so I decided that I need to have washrags in easier reach. I rolled them up and stuck them on the paper towel holder, hiding the actual paper towels under the sink in case we need them. There's a big basket in the kitchen where I can collect used towels until they are washed.

*I also laid out a week of school outfits. Aren't I fancy?