Kathy Zengolewicz

Here in Philly we got 23.2 inches. Looks like we’ll have a white Christmas after all. All of this snow is not going to melt in the next couple of days, so let’s deal with it. The first thing to keep in mind is, if you are not in the best of health, do not take a shovel in hand. Find, and pay, a neighborhood kid to clean off your sidewalk and front steps.

Even if you are in good shape, and can do the shoveling yourself, pace yourself. Shoveling snow is a strenuous activity, so take it slow. If you have a snow blower, you are the lucky one. We don’t own one and I can’t see buying one now. We may not get any more snow the rest of the year, and anyway our property isn’t very big.

Try to shovel as little as possible, maybe just a two foot walkway. Getting to the pavement under all of that snow is a big job, so do a little bit of shoveling and take a break, even if you are not tired. Once you have created a pathway, throw some salt on the area and let that do the rest of the work.

You need to make your property safe for pedestrians, but follow common sense rules and keep safe yourself.

Take care. I’ll talk to you soon!

Post from: Keeping the Castle

Food, Cooking, and Holidays:
Cooking with a Little This and That
10 Ways to Eat More Fruits and Vegetables
Your Last Minute Stop for Halloween Ideas
17 Halloween Cupcake Ideas
20 Pumpkin Inspired Recipes
Tips for Hosting Thanksgiving Dinner
30 Fall Inspired Desserts and Treats

Organization and Declutering:
Do You Have an All or Nothing Attitude
Tips to Get Your Organization Started
Simplify Your Life:  Do Not Call Registry

Homemaking and Housekeeping:
Ideas for Repurposing Old Dresser Drawers
Tips for Completing Dreaded Chores
10 Ways to Save on Your Winter Energy Bill
How to Keep Your Carpet Smelling Fresh
Recycling Containers for Your Home
10 Easy Ways to Save Water
What’s in Your Washing Machine?
An Exploration of Laundry Myths
Lenox Bloom Dinnerware Review

Other:
A Farewell
Wordy Wednesday: My Trip to New York
Links I’m Enjoying
5 Tips for Grocery Store Baggers
 I’m Headed to New York City!

As I mentioned earlier, this will be my last post at Keeping the Castle. It’s been a pleasure.  You can continue to find me at Thrifty Mommy and on Twitter. 

image used with permission of Linette G

Post from: Keeping the Castle

I have been writing for Keeping the Castle since December 2008. During this time, I have had a great time sharing recipes, homemaking and housekeeping tips, organization troubles and solutions, holiday ideas, ways to save money, and so much more. This blog has allowed me to dig deep to remember homemaking tips that were taught and modeled to me by my mother. Sometimes we just find ourselves going through the motions and not realizing or remembering why we do the things that we do. Many posts at Keeping the Castle were inspired by fond memories and several times I was able to call my mom and say, “You remember when . . . ” or “I’m writing about . . .”.

It’s sad to tell you all “goodbye” but it does come easier knowing that I can still be reached. You can still find me at another b5 site, Thrifty Mommy.  I’ve been writing money saving tips there for over three years.  You can also find me on twitter; I’m @thriftymommy.  I hope to find more time now to spend on my preschool/kindergarten site, Little Fun; Little Learning (which desperately needs a makeover).

Stay tuned.  I still have two posts left before the end of the month!

image from clix at sxc.hu

Post from: Keeping the Castle

Flying is a big deal for me. Last year was the first time I had flown in 17 years. Changing elevations makes me queasy. Thankfully, this year I knew more what to expect at the airport so I was a little more relaxed.

Wisk sent a car to my house to take me to the airport. Then when I got to the airport, a driver came to take me to the hotel. I stayed at the Marcel Hotel in New York City. This was my first time in New York.

The driver that picked me up at the airport was crazy. It was 12:30 pm in NYC and he was in a hurry.  The previous nausea from the flight, the lack of food, his aggressive driving, and his overbearing cologne were almost more than I could handle.

My hotel room was very sheek . . . and small.  I have never seen a hotel room this small.  I figured this was probably normal for NYC.  It was just me staying in the room anyway, so it didn’t matter.  The blinds and the hanging light fixture also matched the bedding.  I wish I could have slept in this comfy bed for more than four hours.  

 The hotel had a nice outdoor patio on the 10th floor.  Here’s one of the views.

 After getting settled, I set out to find some lunch.  I had no clue where I was going, but I managed to find a funny Chinese Mexican fast food restaurant.  It was odd to me because the restaurant had been a Chinese restaurant.  The images on the walls were ones that you would normally see in a Chinese restaurant.  Even the menus looked that way.  The folks working there were Asian.  There were even the lit up menu picture items on the wall.  Everything looked like Chinese restaurant, except they served Mexican food.  I found the place interesting, so I ate there.  And here is a picture I took while walking through the city.  I am so sure that I looked like a tourist.  haha

I’ve already written about the Wisk Bubbles & Bubbly event, but I thought I’d show you a picture of some of the food we had at the party.  Doesn’t the image of cotton candy just make you happy? 

I had a great time in NYC.  I really regret that I didn’t have more time to stay and explore the city, but I had three kids waiting at home for me.  It was a treat to see some of the ladies that I met last year at the Pampers Mommy Blogger Event.  I also made some great new contacts for future projects and met some bloggers in person.

Well, that’s my overly wordy Wednesday.  How are things your way?

images (c) Karen Weideman

Post from: Keeping the Castle

Myth #1 – More suds mean cleaner clothes.

Fact – More suds do not mean cleaner clothes. In fact, using too much soap can cause keep your clothes from getting clean and it can leave an oily residue on them.

Myth #2 – It’s ok to use regular detergent in an HE (high efficiency) machine.

Fact – You should always use an HE detegent in an HE machine.   Oops. I thought you could just use less until I saw this.

At the Wisk Bubbles & Bubbly event, our scientist Kristin had us perform a little experiment. We put three drops of regular Wisk detergent in one cup of water and three drops of Wisk HE in another cup. We put the lids on a did some shaking. Each time, there were less suds with the HE detergent and the suds dissolved faster! There really is a difference in the two types of detergents. In case you’re wondering, you can use HE detergent in a regular washing machine.

Myth #3 – HE detegents don’t clean as well as other detergents.

Fact – HE detergents clean just as well.  The HE detergents are specially formulated to create less suds, but they have the same cleaning power.

Kristin gave us a grass stain and had us “paint” something on our grass stain using the regular Wisk and the Wisk HE detergents. Then we swished the detergent around in the bucket of water. Taa-daaa. Which is the regular Wisk and which is the Wisk HE? I can’t tell!

Those are the three laundry myths today. And I almost forgot . . . I’m in a Youtube video. Please don’t make fun of my hick sweet country accent.

Did you learn anything new from our laundry myth exploration?

images (c) Karen Weideman

Post from: Keeping the Castle

I’ve checked out the list of who will be attending and I’m excited to finally meet in person some other bloggers that I’ve met online, mostly from Twitter.  I’ve never been been to New York and the closest thing I’ve seen to a big city is Atlanta, Georgia and Cincinnati, Ohio. 

I wish I had more time to tour New York.  I’d love to see the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, and other sites, but I have return home because my husband will also be going out of town.  Travel arrangements are a bit tougher when you have three kids.

I’ll be flying into New York one day and leaving the next, so I’m not sure how much time I’ll have online.  You can follow updates online from the attendees on Twitter.  Simply use the hashtag #WiskNYC. 

I’m sure I’ll have more information after I return.  Thanks to Wisk for this opportunity. 

image from laundryhe.com

Post from: Keeping the Castle

Switching Over to Cloth Napkins

Finding a Closet Organization System

10 Ways to Decorate with Gourds & Pumpkins

30 Creative Cake and Cupcake Ideas

5 Tips for Organizing Your Kitchen

My Ongoing Yard Sale Pile

Recipes from Quaker Maid

Crock Pot Shredded Mexican Beef Recipe

Fantastic Cleaning with Fantastik Cleaner

Cars Movie Cake

Our Two New Cats

Links I’m Enjoying

How to Clean a Clogged Shower Head

Fire Pit Safety for Children

Fall Blooming Flowers for Your Garden

Choosing an Outdoor Firepit or Fireplace

It’s Time to Buy Plants and Patio Furniture

Finally Moved In!

Storage Basket for Cooking Utensils

August Highlights at Keeping the Castle – Scroll through to see if there’s anything that might interest you.

Reasons I Like Fall

Links I’m Enjoying

Which articles did you enjoy?

image sxc.hu

Post from: Keeping the Castle

Chili’s is proud to support St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital through a 10-year commitment to donate $50 million to help fight childhood cancer.  Chili’s has a care center at St. Jude’s.  It is a seven-story, 340,000 square-foot facility that houses major treatment and research programs for catastrophic childhood diseases.

If you would like to help Chili’s with this commitment to St. Jude’s, there are a few ways to get involved:

1)  Eat at a Chili’s restaurant today.

2)  Purchase a Create a Pepper t-shirt for only $12.  Thirty percent of the sales is contributed to St. Jude’s.

3)  Purchase a Klinky Key for only $5.  The key can be customized by a key cutter, or you could use it as a charm on a backpack or necklace.

4)  Donate online. 

Will you eat at Chili’s today?

image from chilis

Post from: Keeping the Castle

My husband and I had the home purchase planned out. We started looking at houses in the spring. We made our final decision in the summer months, made our offer, and were under contract. We were going to close on the house some time between July 31 and August 15. That would give us plenty of time to move into the house, get settled, get the kids enrolled in school, and get fairly unpacked before school started.

Unfortunately, sometimes things don’t go as planned. Due to the recent enormous amount of foreclosures there are new rules in place in the home buying process. It is now taking 60-90 days to close on a house. We were told August 15, then August 21, and then August 25. We closed on the house after school started. This put a major wrench into our plans.  We had to cancel our weekend moving volunteers that we had in place.  Although we had several volunteers, it was a major pain to move after school started.  We had to keep with the weekly homework and bedtime routine and I had to be home each day when the kids got off the bus.

We’re in our home now and loving it.  My garage is filled with boxes, but I’m thankful that I have a garage for the boxes rather than them being all over the house.  My time online has been very sporatic but now I’m catching up and trying to get back on schedule and back to writing.

How are things your way? 

image (c) Karen Weideman

Post from: Keeping the Castle

What a tedious process purchasing a home has been.  Due to all of the recent foreclosures, the banks and the lending rules have become very strict. My husband and I qualified for a loan and met the criteria, but many times it looked like getting the house might not happen. 

Due to all of the changes with the laws, realtors are now letting their clients know that closings are taking 45-90 days.  That’s useful information if you’re in the market to buy.  We began looking in the spring and early summer for a house.  We made an offer the first week of July.  According to our calculations, we would purchase the house and be moved in before school started.  School has already started and we just closed on the house today.  Thankfully, the school let us enroll using our contract for the home.

Anyway, we made it through and we’re super excited!  We can use the bigger space for our growing family.  There are many home projects that we will be tackling over the next few years.  I’ll try to keep you informed of our DIY projects.

Happy Wednesday!

image (c) Karen Weideman

Post from: Keeping the Castle