Financial Clutter

July 31st, 2010

You’d think that financial clutter would be stacks of coins and money sitting on surfaces throughout a house. Or having money stuffed into mattresses. Or even the stuff that was purchased using money sitting around not being used.

Those could all be definitions of financial clutter, but what I had in my house was several shoeboxes full of receipts from bills paid, carbon copies of checks, and lots of bank statements which I’d managed to put in a three ring binder. Those shoeboxes were stacked in the top shelf of a closet and frequently fell down on my head and spilled onto the floor. I had had enough of them.

One afternoon, with the help of a movie from Red Box for diversion, I pulled out all those shoeboxes and the binder and began to sort all of those papers into dates by month and year. I bought a box of file folders—I wanted to color code the years, but the files only came in lots of 20, which wouldn’t cover two years, so I bought one box of the same color—and gave each month its own folder

I set up a simple system that only takes one banker’s box to house. Each year got its own hanging file with twelve folders in it, one folder for each month. The hanging file for 2003 is in the back of the box and moves through to 2010 at the front with the most recent statements in the front of the box. The folder for 2003 only has bills and statements from August through the end of the year. I didn’t bother sorting the bills alphabetically within its folder for the month. I figure that having it in a place I could access by date was good enough.

I know that you only need to keep records that relate to taxes for seven years, but I filed the utility bills and credit card statements as well. I also put a hanging file with the carbon copies of checks in the very back of the file and I bundled the checks by year so they can be tossed annually.

My system is to have the most current month’s file at the front of the box for easy filing of all the month’s bills and statements. The contents of the last file in the box gets purged each month, and then I’ll recycle the folder, changing the date from August 2003 for example to read August 2010, then move it to the front of the box.

It wasn’t that hard to do and I feel great knowing that I have all my receipts and statements in one easy-to-get-to place. I also recycled all of those shoeboxes and shredded a pile of old statements and checks that were more than seven years old.

One of the pleasures of the sorting was to see how much the balance on my mortgage is going down. That’s incentive enough for me to go through this process. And I have more room on the closet shelf too—always a plus.

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Throwing in—or Out—the Towel

July 28th, 2010

Last week I visited my friend Irene. At the end of the visit, she brought me a stack of flour sack dish towels (14 in all!) that she had embroidered, with a design that captured each month or time of the year. I didn’t know that she embroidered, but she makes up her own designs, embroiders the towels, and then gives them to friends. She also told me that I had to use them. She recounted how cleaning through family members’ belongings after they die, she would come across perfectly new towels or other items that had never been used and she felt sick inside. “If you don’t use them, I’m taking them back,” she warned. I promised I would. Irene is very generous, but not a saver.

I’ve had that stack of dish towels ready to be put away for a few days. As I thought about it, I decided that I could also use some new dish cloths to wash the dishes with, as the ones I had were rather ratty and dish-water brown. I went to the local household store and bought four new cloths made from 100% recycled materials.

So what should I do with my ratty towels and cloths? I have a stash of rags that I use for cleaning. I asked my husband and he said he could use them in his work, as he often leaves rags behind or gets them so dirty that they can’t be salvaged.

This afternoon I took about ten minutes and sorted through my dish cloths and towels and pulled together an impressive stack. All the brownish dish cloths got pulled out of the drawer. All the dish towels that were frayed, burned, or I didn’t like got culled (including those seasonal Christmas ones). The only cloths I kept were the ones in good condition, especially those made of 100% linen, as they just get better with age. I hung a new, white towel up for drying my hands and put a fresh washing cloth next to the sink. Then I piled the old towels next to my husband’s work area.

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Apricot Leather II

July 27th, 2010

I like working with apricots because they are a forgiving fruit. The ones that I picked at my friend Stephanie’s house more than a week ago were still ripe and ready for me to finally get to them this week. I’ve made two batches of leather now (the second one is still drying) but took some as a snack to work with me. I loved the sweet-tartness of the leather and felt I was getting a good dose of fiber along with some vitamins and great taste.

I use the sun and baking sheets covered with net when making fruit leather. You can certainly use a food dehydrator or the oven with the temperature set no higher than 140 degrees.

Last year I posted a recipe for apricot fruit leather. Here’s another one—a bit more measured and formalized.

Apricot Leather

2 ¼ pounds of apricots (weighed with the pits inside the fruit)
¼ to ½ cup honey, to taste
Juice of ½ of a lime
A dash of sea salt

1. Line two baking sheets with plastic wrap, overlapping the wrap along the edges. I use two sheets of wrap per baking sheet because it isn’t wide enough to get full coverage.

2. Wash, pit, and quarter apricots, removing any dark or soft spots.

3. Place apricots in the bowl of a food processor and puree until smooth, about 1-2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl a couple of times to ensure that all the apricots are blended.

4. Add the honey, lime juice, and salt and whir once again.

5. Pour the apricot mixture between the two baking sheets, spreading thinly, but not so thin that the pan shows through the apricot slurry. The mixture should come to the edges of the pan.

6. Place netting across the tops of the pan, securing with binder clips. (I like the binder clips because it gives me flexibility in securing the netting).

7. Place in the full sun for a day. The leather should be relatively set by evening. You can put it back in the sun for another partial day or in the oven for a few hours at 120 degrees. However, the edges of the plastic wrap will curl.

8. When dry to the touch (it may be a bit tacky—that’s okay, you just don’t want the leather to stick to your fingers), remove the plastic wrap from the baking sheet which will also pull the leather off the pan. I cut my leather in four pieces, with one horizontal and one vertical cut. That way I have two sides of the leather that still has plastic wrap borders, making it easier to pull off when ready to eat.

9. Roll the fruit leather into tubes and place in a quart jar. Fruit leather can also be stored in the refrigerator.

Makes 2 pans, or 8 sheets of leather.

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Clutter in the Freezer

July 26th, 2010

Yesterday I wrote about cleaning through the utility room in anticipation of getting equipment related to solar panels. Our standing freezer is also in the utility room and needed defrosting. Once the room was tidied up, it gave me the incentive to go after the freezer.

Since the harvest really hasn’t begun to come in, and with our most recent Pantry Challenge finished, the freezer was about as empty as it was going to get. I brought in two camping coolers from the garage to put the contents of the freezer into them while the accumulated ice melted. I didn’t have quite enough room to put the nuts and seeds into the cooler, but they weren’t exposed to room temperature for long. It took about two hours for the frost to melt, helped along with some prodding by my husband and me.

Although we try hard to eat what we store and store what we eat, there were items that went into the trash rather than back into the freezer. For example, I found a pint of peach jam that had been in the freezer for about four years. My husband won’t eat it and I prefer cooked to freezer jam, so out it went. I also had some batches of strawberry jam from a couple of years ago that was rather grainy. The contents of those jars went as well. I pulled out raspberry chipotle jam that I made last year. While the flavor was good, it was a bit runny. So I put the jam into a small saucepan and reduced it to a thick, smoky paste. I took it to two parties over the weekend (served over a block of cream cheese with crackers on the side) to rave reviews. If I find some raspberries, I think I’ll make another batch to have on hand, cooked down first, of course.

The last of the purge items were bell peppers of various colors that I had cut into strips and frozen. I used several bags during the Pantry Challenge, but those pulled out of the freezer were covered with frost and had lost much of their texture. They went into the trash, along with three bags of celery tops, also a bit too freezer burned to really be good any longer.

The other nice thing about defrosting the freezer was that it was done on a very hot day. But the melting ice made pleasant dripping and plopping sounds and the work kept us cool.

So the freezer is clean and ready for the tomato sauce, corn, pumpkin puree, and other goodies to fill it up. I’m looking for some sustainably raised beef and pork to put in it as well. I only have one package of salmon and two pounds of bacon left. I’ll make a fresh inventory of what’s in the freezer so that as I add to it, I’ll know what’s inside and how much there is of it.

Sometimes clutter is clutter, whether food or folderol. And sometimes it’s necessary to just get rid of it.

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Cleaning out the Utility Space

July 25th, 2010

It’s amazing what can collect in an area dedicated to utilities: old doors, pieces of molding, and ancient machinery are just a few items my husband unearthed and discarded as he cleaned out our utility space in anticipation of moving the furnace. The furnace is being moved to make space for the other tanks and equipment related to the solar panels that are going to be installed on the roof.

My husband orchestrated this move and clean-up. (Woohoo!) We also have a shelving unit in the utility room where we put games, paint, paper and products. He took the stuff stored on it, pared it down a bit, and then took the unit apart. The room adjacent to the utility room is our large, walk-in pantry. In one corner of the pantry was an old gun closet. Since we don’t keep guns, my husband tore the closet out and with a bit of sawing and grunt work, installed the shelving unit in the place where the gun closet had been. He also moved the stuff back onto the shelves.

Now our utility area is largely empty and our trash cans are full. We’ll probably move the dryer to the other side of the room to make better use of the space. We also need a new utility sink as our old one has a big crack in it and water pours onto the floor when we use it. I want to take the vacuum hose attachment and give the unfinished walls and ceiling a good cleaning. The utility shelf above the washer needs a good sorting through as well. And I want to slap a simple coat of paint over the wall where the utility shelf had been. It’s in rough shape, but the paint job from years past shows the outlines of the wooden shelves that were there long before our shelving unit.

In short: once a space gets tidied up, I want to finish the cleaning and where needed, painting of it. It doesn’t make sense in my mind to get the job only half finished. What’s the utility of not finishing things entirely?

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We’re Jammin’ (Spiced Apricot Jam)

July 22nd, 2010

The box of apricots I’m working through is still ripening. I talked to my sister a couple of days ago, while she was making apricot jam with a bit of clove in it. And although my husband doesn’t care for apricot jam, I like it enough to make a batch of it. So that’s what I did this morning.

I also want to start making jam that doesn’t rely on pectin for thickening, but uses the natural pectin in the fruit, plus the combination of heat and sugar. I based my recipe on the one in this month’s (August) Whole Living magazine. I found my jam didn’t quite turn out in the time and quantity that their recipe suggested (it took longer to cook and I ended up with more jam). I also added some variations, similar to plum jam I made a few years ago by adding some spices. Here’s what I made today. Tomorrow a make a batch without the spices.

Spiced Apricot Jam

3 pounds apricots pitted and quartered (other stone fruits would work as well)
3 cups sugar
1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
¼ tsp. salt
2 cinnamon sticks
10 cloves
5 allspice berries

1. Wash and prepare the jars and lids, putting the jars and lids into simmering water.

2. Combine apricots, sugar, lemon juice, and salt in a large pot over high heat. Bring to a boil, mashing the fruit with a potato masher. Skim off the foam as it rises to the surface.

3. Boil, continuing to skim the surface, as needed. The boiling process will become slower and the jam will darken a bit as the sugar reaches a higher temperature and begins to caramelize. Draw the spoon from the jam mixture. The jam should start to come off the spoon in clumps rather than run from the surface. This could take 30-40 minutes to achieve. You can also test the jam by drawing out a bit of jam on a clean spoon, leaving it to cool for a few minutes and testing the texture. Remove the cinnamon sticks, cloves, and allspice berries.

4. Lift the jars out of the hot water, draining water. Ladle the hot jam into the jars, using a funnel to avoid spills. Fill to within ½ from the rim of the jar.

5. Wipe the rim and threads of the jar, top with a hot lid, then screw and band on the top to fingertip tightness.

6. Process in a hot water canning bath for 10 minutes.

7. Once processed, check to see that lids have sealed. Wipe down the jars and label.

Makes 6 ½ pint jars of jam.

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Bounty Hunter

July 21st, 2010

Last week my friend Stephanie emailed that the apricots on her tree were nearly ripe. I spent part of Saturday morning at her house while she generously picked a box of them for me. One box was enough—but there are boxes yet to be had. I was grateful to get them. Last year they were tough to come by and I had to chase them down at a farmer’s market, then lug then three boxes to my car.

Before I picked them up, I calculated how many I needed. Last year I canned 15 pints of them but had only used 10 bottles. So I needed enough to replace the 10 bottles, perhaps make a little fruit leather, and some apricot salsa. Yesterday I spoke with my sister on the phone while she was making apricot jam. Maybe I ought to make just a few jars of it because I like it, I thought. I also bottled my 10 jars of apricots yesterday with the fruit that was ripe.

I also got a literal green thumb over the weekend shelling peas. I ended up with enough to blanch and pack into four bags which headed into the freezer. And I found a good sale on blueberries and raspberries that I washed them, placed in single layers on a cookies sheet, then packed the frozen fruit into bags. I’ve replaced the blueberries we used over the year, but still need a few more bags of raspberries.

Summer can dictate my life, which is fine. On hot days I choose to be a little less active. When the fruit or vegetables are ripe, I carve out a few hours to capture the freshness through canning or freezing. And in the evenings, when the nights are a bit longer and cooler, I find myself outside watching the light change from gold to orange against the leaves as the sun goes down. The bounty of summer is fleeting and I’ll chase it as long as it’s there.

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Clutter with a History

July 19th, 2010

I’m still plugging away at my resolution to minimize the possessions I have in my house. I’ve also been reading Don Aslett’s books about the subject. He’s a professional cleaner and declutterer. I just finished his “Clutter Free” and started his classic “Clutter’s Last Stand.” These books have motivated me to keep moving through the Stuff in my house.

While my clutter removal has slowed down with increased professional responsibilities and a thriving growing season, I’m still getting rid of things. For example, I just received a copy of the latest, really fat, art history text. A neighbor had commented that she always loved the subject, and although the books had wonderful pictures, they were too expensive. I kept the book I recently received but gave her a 3-inch, roughly $100 textbook that was a couple of years old and hadn’t really been used.

I’m trying to get rid of the knickknacks in my house, but some of them are family heirlooms. (I have no direct descendants to give them to). I asked my sister what she wanted and she’s going to take the dish that was hand-painted by my great-grandmother. The tea cups that my mother collected in 1950s Europe for my grandmother are going to go to my nieces, although I’m going to keep just one of them. I’ve had the teacups for 20 years, moving them multiple times; now a couple now have cracks from various moves. I think I used them once or twice. As for the hand-painted dish, it’s only been in a cupboard for 15 years and used once.

I put a piece of Lladro on a local classified list (I got it for a bargain at a yard sale). So far I’ve had only two emails about it, both from people who “am out of the countrie now and it will send me a Money Order and you will send it to me”. I’m still holding on to it and will lower the price to get someone in my area to pay cash.

The black leather motorcycle chaps (really nice quality) are going back to my neighbor who gave them to me two years ago. I haven’t worn them, we just sold the motorcycle, and she’s lost 30+ pounds and can wear them again.

Friday I went to an estate sale for my friend Roger. He has been a collector for years and it showed. His back yard was packed with collectibles and art that he had culled for at least 20 years. He knows the value of what he has and it was priced appropriately. (He and his wife and friends have been pricing items since May). While he had some wonderful items, I didn’t buy anything. I’ll see him later this week. I hope he was able to sell some of it.

Sometimes items can be given to others who will value and use them. That’s what I am trying to find—a happy, suitable home for my Stuff rather than simply tossing it or sending off to charity. While that’s fine for many items, sometimes finding the right place for it is more satisfying than simply getting it out the door.

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Reducing our Energy Consumption

July 17th, 2010

Last week, an over-sized plywood coffin shaped box arrived at our house. Solar panels! They were heavy as my husband and I unloaded them into the garage. We carefully shook the smaller boxes that were in the large container to listen for any shattered glass. So far they are safe, but there’s still installation on a steep-pitched roof to get them through.

My husband had also been searching for a smaller vehicle to use on some of his plumbing calls. Not every job requires a low-mileage truck. He settled on a 2007 Chevy Aveo. He removed the rear seat and put in a wood base over the carpet. His logo is on the back seat windows, and he recently installed a rack on the top to carry oversized items. He’s already logged in a lot of miles but is only into his second tank of gas.

While summer has been hot, it hasn’t been unbearable yet. We’ve turned on the air condition twice—mostly to take just a bit of heat out of the air for a few minutes. It’s amazing how much a ceiling fan in the bedroom keeps the air circulating at night. Next week it’s supposed to get into the triple digits and that most likely means turning on the AC to keep cool.

Sometimes I think we do what we do to save energy, or see how much we can take (in terms of internal house temperatures), or just experiment (like installing solar panels). It’s always interesting and generally successful.

I think I’ll open the freezer and grab a Popsicle.

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Mid Summer Garden Update

July 15th, 2010

It’s the middle of summer—at least according to the academic calendar. But a garden doesn’t necessarily follow such a schedule. Nevertheless, it is the time when some vegetations stops growing while others are just getting into their prime.

Earlier this week I pulled all the peas. We had a decent crop—roughly three pounds of shelled green orbs. We ate most of them but I did get a few small bags blanched and frozen. It helped that we also got some peas from our CSA share. In the next couple of days I’ll also pull the radishes and beets. I think I’ll have enough beets to make a small batch of pickled beets. The strawberries are just about finished producing and I get a few raspberries each day. I’ve also cut and used a few small zucchini.

The biggest harvest came from the garlic cloves that I planted last fall. I pulled nearly two dozen plump heads and brought them inside to wash of the last of the dirt in the kitchen sink. Garlic needs to cure for a few weeks to let the outside skin get dry and papery. After one day of curing, I had to put them on the back porch rather than the kitchen sink—the smell of garlic was overpowering the house. Once the garlic has cured I’ll braid the stems and create one long rope of the fragrant allium. I also plan to give some of the heads to my neighbors.

The tomato plants have bolted in size but I still haven’t harvested any fruit. I think they need a few more weeks. The basil is giving me more flowers than leaves, and it doesn’t seem to be thriving. I may have to buy the basil I need to make pesto.

And now that I have some space in my garden, in the next couple of weeks I’ll put in more peas, beans, broccoli, radishes, lettuces, and garlic to get ready for a fall crop. The garden cycle rolls on.

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