The Working Gal's Guide to a Clean House

I have a little confession to make. I love a clean house. But I hate putting in the effort to get it that way. Especially when it eats up all of my free time on the weekends. I'd much rather play with my kids, blog, shop, sleep, exercise... than spend hours upon hours at a time doing the laundry, cleaning bathrooms, sweeping, mopping... you get the picture. So, to reclaim my weekends, I created a schedule that helps me spread the tasks out over the week. Am I dog tired Monday through Friday? Yes. Do I sometimes not feel like doing the extra work once I get home? You bet. But I'll let you know this: In the few weeks that I've been living according to this schedule, I have had THE MOST fun during my weekends! I have gone to kids' basketball games without fretting about what I needed to do once I got home, I've taken naps, exercised, watched Law and Order marathons, and done things that make me content. It has been wonderful!

And so, here is my schedule for household chores:

Monday: Clean the bathrooms (I have two). Luckily, I have two boys that can help me. They wipe the counters down and scrub the toilets. I scrub the sinks, the tubs, clean the mirrors, sweep and mop. I also wash the towels.

Tuesday: Clean the kitchen. I wipe down counters, scrub the sink, wipe down appliances, clean out the microwave and oven.

Wednesday: Sweep and mop the house. I don't have a whole lot to sweep and mop; just the kitchen/dining areas, the living room, and a short hallway. It is also personal laundry day.

Thursday: Make the beds and vacuum the rugs/carpets. "Making the bed" entails changing the sheets and washing them.

Friday: Dusting day and children's laundry day.

I can keep to this schedule for the most part because I do a large-scale seasonal cleaning twice a year. That includes washing baseboards, cleaning windows, steam clean the carpets and freshen the upholstery. Another AWESOME contraption that helps me keep on top of floor cleaning is my Roomba! I love that little robot. I have him programmed to run daily while I am at work, so all I have to do is come home and empty his collection bin. It keeps the house floors extremely tidy throughout the week. It is a lifesaver.

Tasty Tuesday: White Wine Cake

This one is from the archives, but it is such a popular and easy recipe, I thought I would post it again. It is also known as "the cake that goes with many kinds of liquor" cake! Besides the white wine, I will make this cake with a few other spirits. The most popular ones with my crowd are Amaretto Cake, Praline Liqueur Cake and King Cake Vodka Cake (the Praline Liqueur and King Cake Vodka are Nola specialties that I get when I visit). Try it with your own spin!

White Wine Cake

Cake:
1 box butter recipe yellow cake mix
4 large eggs
1/2 c. vegetable oil
1/2 c. water
1/2 c. white wine I use a Riesling, but anything will work. It'll give the cake a different taste depending on what you use)
1 small box vanilla instant pudding

Glaze:
1 stick unsalted, melted butter
1 c. sugar
1/4 c. white wine

Preheat oven to 325. Grease a bundt pan and pour 1/2 cup of finely chopped pecans into the pan if desired. Set aside. Mix the cake mix, the 4 eggs, oil, water, wine and the pudding well. Pour into the bundt and bake according to the cake box directions (between 42-55 minutes).

When you pull the cake out of the oven, let it cool in the pan on a damp kitchen towel so the cake's pores will open to soak in the glaze. Mix the melted butter, the wine and sugar together and pour over the cake in the pan and let it soak in for a while. Serve warm for gooey deliciousness, but the cake is so awesome, serving it completely cooled is acceptable, too.

Mardi Gras Fun

It's been a very long time since I've updated y'all about the goings-on in my life. And I've done a lot of cool things, too! Too bad I didn't write about them. That stops now. I wanted to share some photo fun of a trip I took to New Orleans a couple of weeks ago.

Now, I go to New Orleans quite frequently. It's only an hour and a half or so from the town I live in, so it's a very easy weekend trip to make. Even better: I have a dear friend at work who actually has an apartment in the French Quarter who doesn't mind letting me borrow it from time to time. She and her husband actually just keep it to go hang out on the weekends, and for Mardi Gras, of course.

This time, I went to the Big Easy with my good friend, Karen. She occasionally works with me at the army post, but hasn't lately because of the assignments she's taken with her work in Spain, Korea and Germany. I hadn't seen Karen since the end of June, and we thought it would be a great idea to hang out together and catch up during Mardi Gras season.

We left Friday evening and made the drive in two separate cars. Karen's mother was coming to town on Monday for some doctors' visits and Karen was going to accompany her, so she needed to have her car, and I had to come back to the real world for work on Monday, so I had to have mine. We got down to NOLA around 8:30 and spent about 3 hours just chatting and catching up. I was telling Karen about my life changes and she was telling me about hers, as well as her travels. We had such a great conversation! So great, even, that we forgot we needed to eat, so we went to the Cajun Kitchen on Bourbon for a midnight meal.

The next day, we spent time shopping (of course), and watching a couple of parades. It was very windy and chilly out, so it wasn't as enjoyable as we'd hoped, but it was great for both of us, considering it was our first Mardi Gras experience. We walked all through the Quarter, eating king cake and drinking coffee at CC's... talking and laughing like we used to.

After the full morning and afternoon, we headed back to the apartment for a nap. And after getting rested, we got ready to go to the House of Blues for the Bustout Burlesque show. That was so much fun! I was in awe of the performers. I mean, yes, I was in awe that I was at a burlesque show to begin with (my new motto is "Live Boldly"), but I was also in awe of the sheer skill and talent that the dancers possessed. Not to mention the confidence. Asses out, bosoms exposed, and everything jiggling. Including cellulite. But every single one of them smiled. It was very impressive.

After the show, Karen found out that Kermit Ruffins was playing at One-Eyed Jack's. So we headed over there and caught his set just as it was starting. It was a fantastic show! I had never heard his music before, but it was very... New Orleans-y. :) Kermit and his band wrapped up around 1:30 am, so Karen and I once again headed out for dinner.

We slept in on Sunday, got the apartment cleaned, packed up, and then went out to what ended up being my favorite part of the weekend: the Krewe of Barkus. That is a parade of dogs. And it was so much fun! Not only were beads thrown, and moon pies, but Milk Bones for the Fidos in the crowd, too! Check out my pics!

Krewe of Barkus. The theme was Mission: Impossible.

Karen and me at the Ponchartrain parade!

At the Kermit Ruffins concert.

You Win!

Thank you all for the entries and the new follows to this blog! I am so excited to get back into it, and glad I have some new people to share my thoughts with.

And now, without further ado, the winner of the blog makeover giveaway from Utterly Chaotic Designs and the $100 gift card from Sephora is....





AMBER!!!!!!!!!!


Congrats, girl! I will tweet you to let you know about your win.

Makeover Monday! And A Giveaway

Well, lovelies, here I am with a brand NEW blog! I figured it was fitting. My blog I was hosting here on palmettobelle.com was getting a little heavy. And depressing. And it wasn't me. Yes, I'm thoughtful and introspective, but I'm a lot more than that, and I wanted my public blog to reflect my many interests and my generally bubbly personality. Ok, bubbly could be a stretch...

Anyway, in the spirit of this relaunch of my blog, I have decided to host a giveaway! Did you notice my new look? I absolutely love it. Brea at Utterly Chaotic Designs did it for me. She was very patient as I figured out exactly what I wanted. I think the orange and purple is very fitting. :) The makeover was crucial to my rebranding of my blog, and like any good makeover, it's made me feel brand-spanking new. I'd love to pass that feeling on to a lucky reader.

For this giveaway, I am giving a lucky reader a total blog makeover from Utterly Chaotic Designs! You will work with Brea to create a unique and stunning new look for your own blog. You will have the chance to select your colors, background, design kit... I really can't say enough about Brea's work. I'm very pleased with the new look of my own blog. I know she can make you happy, too.

BUT WAIT! That's not all...

In addition to the blog makeover, the lucky winner will also receive a $100 gift card to Sephora! A new look for you; a new look for your blog. What's not to love?

To enter the giveaway, take the following steps:
1) Join this blog.
2) Leave a comment on this blog entry about your blog makeover idea or an item you'd like to try from Sephora.

These steps will get you ONE entry into the giveaway. (For my 5 followers that joined prior to today, you have THREE entries awaiting you in this giveaway already!)

If you'd like to get an extra entry or two, you can tweet about this giveaway (make sure you mention @Palmettobelle so I see it) and/or you can grab my new button!

The giveaway starts tonight, 2/6 at 9pm CST and will go through 2/13 at 9pm. A winner will be announced February 14. Good luck!