the january cure : assignment seven.

i'm a bit behind on posting this, but here goes!

assignment seven (for the weekend) was to buy flowers, clean the kitchen and make dinner - done and done! i did this on time too, just was late to the posting game.

i bought the flowers at the atwater village farmers market, which is walking distance from the house and takes place on sundays. such a great little market. plus, they have several prepared food stands as well, so i also ate lunch there (a delmy chicharon con queso pupusa from and some bling bling dumplings; YUM.)

i went through and cleaned the whole kitchen. reorganizing drawers and cabinets, throwing away old, unused food items (both pantry and refridgerator), cleaned all the surfaces, found homes for various items still hanging out unnecessarily on the countertops and even oiled the butcher block island top. definitely feels nice to have a clean kitchen!

as for the cooking dinner part - well, i already cook dinner at home most nights, but i did decide to go a bit outside my usual box and made a leek and bell pepper quinoa, topped with a steamed and buttered lobster tail (this was supposed to be special, right?!) and some garlic sauteed baby bok choy (okay, not so much outside the box). it was deeeeeeeelicious. i should make quinoa, and lobster tails, more often!

the january cure : assignment two.

the weekend consisted of three assignments, to be done whenever over the friday through sunday period: buy flowers, clean all the floors and rugs, and stock up on green cleaners.

and we did it! the cleaning took place all sunday afternoon, but all the floors have been vacuumed and swiffered. as for stocking up on green cleaners, i already use method for most of the house cleaning, but i did pick up murchison-hume's stainless steel cleaner and the laundress's bleach alternative while at the container store yesterday. i have to say, i've tried several stainless steel cleaners, most recently a 409 "stone and steel" cleaner (since we have marble countertops and stainless appliances), and none of them helped. if anything, they just sort of moved any grease around and left behind more streaks, but the murchison-hume stuff is amazing and has left my kitchen looking like new. i'll definitely be looking more into their line of natural green cleaners.

and of course, i bought some flowers. nothing fancy, just some green and yellow mums. i put them into a vase and two mason jars. it's kind of nice to have some fresh flowers in the house.

and even though i wasn't assigned it, having made a list for the first assignment, we ended up knocking out a bunch of things (not many, 5-or-so) on our giant to-do list as well (like installing the security camera so it doesn't just sit on the mantle!), which feels pretty great.