Bits and Pieces

This post will be a smathering of this and that. I'm still cleaning the grout on the kitchen floor. I've the refrigerator to move and do under it and I'm done, yeah! I'll save that for tomorrow since I know better than to try to do a project like that after school. I'm just happy I got the bathroom floor done early this morning and later sanded a third of the wood floor in my bedroom while the youngest grand daughter slept. It's in preparation to put some new sealer on it. Yes, floor maintenance is on my mind.
And as I moved the back door's rug, I thought I should share what I've learned about rugs by the entrance doors. I must confess I was a doubter but I'm sold now. A good rug is worth the money. Instead of touting their virtues, I'll show you a picture. Look closely, this is what this rug collected in just one small little spot in twenty four hours. Yes, we haul in a great deal of dirt on our shoes but unless you are a concrete walker, you might be surprised just how much your family trucks in each day. The dirt this rug collects is dirt that won't be spread throughout our house saving on vacuuming, dusting, and best of all it would save on the carpets, if we had any.

Yes, dirt is death on carpets. It cuts the fibers, stains them, and buries deep down underneath where the vacuum can't go. Doubt this? Rip up carpet sometime and see just how much stuff is hidden below. After we ripped up our first room, the living room, and put in oak flooring, we went ahead and ripped up the whole house. To this day, we still haven't gotten flooring for all the rooms yet, choosing instead to just paint the floors and wait for available funds. Now, I know some of you love carpet and you should definitely have that choice. The removal of the carpet was hastened by my allergy to it. I still have one but since I'm not around it so much, I do pretty well for short periods of exposure.

Without carpet to disguise the amount of dirt on the floor, we really noticed walking on the dirt that was drug in by our feet. Oh, I don't mind walking on dirt barefoot as long as it is outdoors. I've been known to frequently walk in my garden without shoes so I can feel the good earth beneath my feet, but walking on dirt in the house is another matter. So in came the first rug with reservations as to just how right those experts were in all those organizational books I use to read.

Not only did it save me work but I'm not fighting those skimpy little cotton rugs that move all around and redeposit the dirt onto the floor. My plain rugs may not be so pretty as they were but I wouldn't go back for nothing now. I'm presently saving up to buy a chef's rug for my kitchen in front of the sink. The pretty rug I have now needs frequent washing and hence is often missing from it's place. I want a chef's rug though it may also be plain because I spend lots of time doing dishes, the rug has cushioning in it and can be cleaned with a swipe of a cloth. It's going to be even more expensive than the rugs at the front and back door that cost me around 90 bucks a piece with shipping but I'm sure it too will be worth it. So don't wait twenty some years like I did to figure out just how much a good rug will save you on carpet cleaning and vacuming time. Start putting those dollar bills in a jar.

The next thing I want to tell you about is that I made buttermilk with store milk the other day and it worked great. Lacked the rich flavor of my goat's milk buttermilk but one does what one must. So if you were waiting since you didn't have goat's milk, wait no longer. Yogurt, I haven't done yet with store milk. I'm wanting to order a new culture. The one I had was a bit tart for my taste. Since then I learned there are several different kinds. We'll talk about that later in a post devoted to the subject.
Now I know you have been wondering why the picture of home-made hamburger buns was at the top. Well, I knew I couldn't start with a picture of a dirty ole rug. That wouldn't entice anyone to read further so I began with the buns instead. To be fair, I will talk about them, kind of. When I made these, I was studying salt and it's role in baking. I found a little bleep about England and their efforts to eliminate or reduce salt in their breads. Blood pressure you know. Substitutes left a chemical tastes and reducing the salt moofed up the bread. Salt is essential to to regulating fermentation from the yeast. It also plays a big role in strengthening the gluten structure as I learned with the sweet potato waffles. And it enhances the sweetness of the sugars in the dough which means you can use less. Their conclusion was to leave the salt alone.