2013 - Week 46

Hello from Week 46 :)

Now that we are all moved in, it's time to unpack and do lots of work around the house. That was my exercise this week . . . raking leaves and hauling boxes. Thankfully, I think we have most of the boxes moved to where they need to go now, so we just have to unpack, sort, and put everything away.

I did manage to find a little time (mostly for a few minutes before bed) to do a little knitting this week, even though we were so busy. Sadly the scarf is not done yet, but it's close. One of these days I'm going to be done, but for now, we've been spending most of our time cleaning, unpacking and organizing.

Speaking of, my new thing for this week was deep cleaning the washing machine that we were so graciously given by a friend. It came with their house and they already had one so they gifted it to us. I think the previous owners didn't clean it very well, so it was kind of gross, but I followed the directions on page 14 of this cleaning guide (with the addition of a load with the bleach container filled with vinegar and a rinse load of just hot water at the end) plus scrubbing in every nook and cranny I could reach. I think it's much better now and if I just keep doing the cleaning cycle about once a month it should stay nice and clean :)

In other cleaning news, the lights above our sink in our bathroom were frosted glass . . . or so I thought. Upon closer inspection, it appears they needed some dish soap and elbow grease. Which one of these is not like the others?

So much better :) 

Now, lest you think it was all work and no play for me this week, I present you with Snickers Apple Salad :) I actually forgot to take a picture of it once it was done, but it was beautiful and tasty :) I couldn't really remember how I'd made this in the past, so after looking at various recipes, I decided to try a combination of Candy Bar Apple Salad from Taste of Home and Snickers Caramel Apple Salad from chef-in-training.com. My recipe (which is a double batch of those recipes, of course) was:

2 - 8 oz. containers of lite whipped topping
8 medium Granny Smith apples (I know there are 9 in the picture . . . I got hungry)
16 fun sized "snickers" bars
2 - 3.4 oz. packages of vanilla pudding mix
2 C skim milk

I combined the milk and the pudding mix while I chopped the apples and candy bars up. Then I added them in turns with the whipped topping, folded it all together, and served it with caramel ice cream topping drizzled over the top. Yummy, and I didn't even have to turn on my oven ;)

Anything that starts with these ingredients is bound to be tasty :)

Well, I think that's all I have for this week . . . let me know if you have any other cleaning or organizing/unpacking tips for me. See you then :)