Seemingly I have a few times a year here where ants will cross that fine line and come through from the outside to the inside and decide to hang out. Having a mass of swarming ants on my kitchen counter just isn’t fun. While I am OK with letting spiders do what they have to do, the ants have to be dealt with. I tried a natural approach a year ago and was very pleased with the results. The sweetening agent I used this time was maple syrup that I neglected to refrigerate – ooops, and it grew something on it – disgusting I know. Good way to make use of it with this method  and natural pest control solution
 

cool ant portrait flickr image credit 

Karen Hanrahan ~ Wellness Educator/Nutritional Consultant/Blog Author
708.482.0678 ~ Websites: Nutrition Weight Loss, and Green Clean
 
How do you celebrate Earth Day?
If you’re not cleaning green – what’s stopping you?

I admit to doing alot of the same things as routine, to being a creature of habit and perhaps not as open to changing the way I choose to manage my time, my day, my life.

I might be Mother Earth, and I am human! Each of us has room for improvement. Would you agree?

By nature I am a night owl, I get a certain second wind around 10:30 PM that is positively dangerous, yet it’s often when I do my best work. I have never awakened all bright eyed and bushy tailed – and am prone to a more molassis like awakening. I have begun to enjoy writing in the am as long as it parallels a slow start, or the way I prefer to start my day. I prefer to drink a large glass of water, and have 2 cups of tea before I proceed into the gotta go go go work mode or other tasks of daily life. 

This morning I made soup, by 9 ish it was simmering on the stove and I thought to myself, how hard was that?? I can’t say the savory smell of onions and garlic is something I want up my nostrils in the am, yet when all was said and done – dinner is basically made.  Domestic Brilliance.

The bewitching hour or the time from 4-6 while preparing the evening meal and the time before the spouse got home always had this pressure cooker feeling to it - my kids knew that my attention was divided by the task of preparing dinner from scratch, the pending relief I could feel of someone else being the distraction machine. Meaning someone else got to manage the kids. Moms who do a zillion things at once are masters at multi-tasking – one of which is distracting the kids just a little longer before the dad came home from work!  The dad would come home and the kids would climb all over him and feel the relief of not having the mom monster breathing down their neck. I am sure you have all been in this situation at one time or another

I use to cleverly make more than one meal at a time, prepare extra to freeze and all the things one can do to make this time of day easier – the fact is you would find me and often still find me every day around 4:30 or so making dinner.  For the most part I like the creating of dinner as the transition from work to evening, and I actually find making dinner really relaxing.  

Yet today I knew I wasn’t going to he home, so having something homemade for my Kate seemed like a good idea, and the only time today to make that happen was in the am. Somehow it was a breeze getting it done and better yet having it done so that dinner tonight is convenient for her.

Who ever said you have to make dinner in the late afternoon??

The recipe from this morning I have made once before here on this blog Chicken Tortilla Soup - I completely forgot to add the serrano though, and for some reason I have to now split the green beans into slivers ( like french style green beans?)  Why these details become important to me I have no idea – it’s similar to sectioning grapefruit segments. I would never have done that 10 years ago!! I must be getting old.

Do you ever have moments of Domestic Brilliance? I’d love to hear about them.

almost 4:30, dinner making time flickr image credit

^{Karen Hanrahan ~ Wellness Educator/Nutritional Consultant/Blog Author
708.482.0678 ~ Websites: Nutrition, Weight Loss, and Green Clean as seen on Oprah}

^{Member of BNI – West Suburban BNI: “Chapter Mentor”
Member, Board Member and Programming Chair of West Suburban Women Entrepreneurs}