Karen Clare

 When I walked out my door to head to work on Friday morning, I felt it: a subtle but definite change in the weather. It was still warm, but not blazing hot, and less humid. And then yesterday morning when I woke up, it was a gorgeous 68 degrees. Of course it warmed up, but still... the weather seems to be paying attention to the calendar. We have also had a very quiet (thankfully) hurricane season, thanks to El Niño. Maybe God is making up for the devastation of Helene and Milton two years ago and giving us a break. I am all decorated for fall, including my fall tree, which is really just a Christmas tree decorated with autumn foliage and picks. I put them around early October and keep it until Friday after Thanksgiving, when I decorate the "public" part of the house for Christmas.  This year I had to get a new tree... the one I'd been using for the past three years broke. I got this new one from Costway, and I absolutely love it. It looks very natural. But I wanted to u...

 I recently decided to refresh my bedding. For several years (a decade, maybe) I've had Better Homes And Gardens cotton sheets that I got at Walmart. I still love them -- they're soft and the fitted sheet has rougher material at the head and foot so that you never have to guess when putting it on if you're putting in on the correct way, ha.  But I was inspired to pull the trigger on some linen bedding from Etsy that I came across while looking for a duvet cover. By the way, those of you have use duvets, are you Team Top Sheet or Team No Top Sheet? Let me know in the comments. I'm team top sheet because the top sheet is a barrier between your body and the duvet, and I don't want to have to wash and put on a duvet cover every week. Putting on a duvet cover is a pain , and I would prefer to only have to take it off and wash it about once a month. I got a new linen dust ruffle/bed skirt in the color "Wet Sand" (the color of pure cinnamon), and a pair of linen ...

Here in west central Florida, summer has announced itself with blistering heat. No frequent afternoon thunderstorms yet, though I'm sure they are coming eventually.  Sharing another favorite recipe that I've already made a couple of times and plan on making more; I call it Mediterranean chickpea salad. Amounts aren't given, as they depend on taste and the number of people you're feeding. I find that one can of chickpeas plus other ingredients makes about 4-5 servings.  Ingredients: Canned chickpeas, drained Diced red onion Diced cucumber Halved cherry or grape tomatoes Crumbled feta cheese Chopped flat-leaf parsley Salt  Black pepper Garlic powder Oil Vinegar or lemon juice Directions: Mix all ingredients in large serving bowl and chill until ready to serve. Keeps for 4-5 days, and the flavor intensifies with time.  Refreshing and quite filling, able to be a light lunch on its own. 

Summer is here, and I'm trying to enjoy it. It's not my favorite time of year, but making the most of it and trying to have a good attitude as I pray that El Niño means a quiet hurricane season. I got a cheap, very basic outdoor lounge chair from Amazon and have been spending, or trying to spend, every Saturday and Sunday afternoon laying out for twenty minutes (ten for the front, ten for the back). I was looking a bit pasty so wanted to get a little color without ending up resembling Magda from There's Something About Mary . Exposure to the sun in moderation is good for you, and sunscreen actually isn't.  I'm also enjoying the extra light and the lighter traffic on my work commute from school being out. But I digress.  So far this summer, I've made a couple of recipes that I just love and plan on making a lot throughout the season.  The first is something I just kind of made up and call shrimp, potato, and corn boil. It's actually steamed, but I think it st...

As someone who enjoys cooking and cooks frequently in a rather small kitchen, I keep my spices in a kitchen drawer -- the drawer is large and fairly deep -- about 14 inches wide x 19 inches deep x 4 inches high.  The jars I had been using were cylindrical and just short enough that they could fit in the drawer standing up. But the drawer because rather disorganized and messy. Sometimes the drawer would jam if a jar went askew. So I found some new spice jars on Amazon with pretty Acadia wood lids. I like the jars because they're square instead of round, and thus won't roll. I also got some  coordinating Acadia wood "tiers" for the spices to go on ( also on Amazon ). Before I ordered, I measured to make sure that the dimensions would fit my drawer.  The jars and tiered "shelves", for lack of a better word, arrived today. So I spent the late afternoon and early evening tackling the project of cleaning and reorganizing my spice drawer.  First, I removed everyth...

 I know I've been on a cleaning kick on this blog, but it's a goal of mine this month to declutter, organize, and simplify my home a bit. I don't think perfection should ever be the goal, because life isn't perfect, but there's always room for improvement.  I love to watch "clean with me" videos on YouTube (some channels more than others), and doing so, I notice that a lot of these content creators' homes are super messy at the beginning. Yes, I know that some of them probably stage the mess or purposely don't clean for a couple of weeks so they have something to film.  But, still, how do these homes get to be such a disaster? I don't remember, growing up, my parents' home (or anyone else's) ever looking like a cyclone hit it. The I realized that the answer is in the question: homes in the past actually could not get that messy. Why not? 1. Houses were smaller. The size of the average suburban home has more than doubled since 1950s, fro...

Mother's Day is coming up, and Thursday I had invited my best friend "D" over for Mother's Day weekend. We always get together on Saturdays, not Sundays, and we spend the whole day because we live an hour's drive away from each other. Well, imagine my surprise when I hear a "ping!" from my phone this past Saturday around 11 a.m. while I'm sitting on the couch watching TV with my dog. It was a text from "D": "On my way!" I called her immediately and told her that we were supposed to get together next weekend and she said she was already packed up and ready to leave. I said no worries, I didn't have plans anyway. And then I regretted calling her instead of just going with it.  Thankfully, the house was already pretty clean and presentable. I was dressed, and I had about an hour till her arrival.  But what if my place hadn't been ready? How do you prepare for last-minute visitors? This is how I do a typical "company cle...

Today is officially Easter -- Christ is risen! But my best friend came over yesterday, so we celebrated a day early. I love holidays, even if it means -- or perhaps  because  it means -- cleaning, cooking, and preparing for something special. I think there is something in us humans that needs celebrations and observances.  On Good Friday my workplace was closed, but I worked much harder at home than I would have at the office. I cooked -- the Easter menu this year was make-ahead for everything except for the ham -- did laundry, and cleaned. Didn't go to bed till after 10 p.m. and I had started around 10 a.m.  I set nibbles out on the credenza that used to be my coffee bar but now serves as a kitchen work table in a sort of charcuterie board set up; I used a cutting board, but would now like to get a proper charcuterie board. There was cold smoked kielbasa with horseradish beet relish, deviled eggs, mixed nuts, and ridged chips with French onion dip.  Dinner (I d...

 I thought I would do a few posts on cleaning -- what I use, schedule, tools, etc. This one will focus on products that I use. I'm not huge on my cleaning products being "natural" -- I hate vinegar and baking soda, for example. Vinegar stinks and the residue baking soda leaves seems impossible to get rid of. It's also terrible for your vacuum motor. I like to limit the number of products that I use. So my first go-to is my homemade all-purpose cleaner ("APC" for short), which is a mixture of 1/3 isopropyl alcohol, a few drops of dish soap, and the rest water -- shake it up and you're ready to go. I got this "recipe" from Mack of the Midwest Magic Cleaning YouTube channel . As the name implies, his channel is about cleaning,  usually hoarder houses but sometimes his own, and he gives great tips and advice. He's hilarious and his channel is worth subscribing to, in my opinion, if you're interested in that sort of thing. Anyway, I love thi...