Sunrise over the bouncy house

This morning I detailed the kitchen. Scrubbed the sink drains, washed the stove top, bleached the countertops, and cleaned the microwave.

My microwave sits atop the fridge, due to space issues. I can reach inside to place an item to be heated, but I can't see into it. It is above my head. It's very heavy to bring down off the fridge to clean is so that means I don't clean it as often as I should. Ugh, dried food.

I used this Life Hack and it worked great.

Use a Lemon to Make Cleaning the Microwave Easy

The process here just requires a lemon, a microwave-safe bowl, and a dry towel:

Pour water in the bowl: Measure about a half cup of water into the bowl.

Squeeze the lemon: Slice the lemon in half and squeeze the juice into the water. Drop the lemon halves into the bowl.

Microwave for 3 minutes: Place the bowl in the microwave. Microwave on high power for 3 minutes so the liquid comes to a boil.

Let stand for 5 minutes: Do not open the microwave door. The steam trapped inside will help loosen food gunk. Let stand for 5 minutes.

Wipe the microwave clean: Open the door and carefully remove the bowl with the lemons. If your microwave has a turntable, lift it out and wipe it clean. Wipe the inside of the microwave clean starting with the ceiling and the sides. Finish with the floor, sweeping any crumbs into your hand. Don't forget the door!

Cleaning stubborn spots: If you come across stubborn spots that won't easily wipe away, dip the corner of your dishtowel in the lemon-water and scrub until the spot comes away.

It wasn't quite that easy, but it was almost. My microwave was pretty dirty so if you clean yours regularly, using this recipe will be a breeze.

Then I prepared a cantaloupe, strawberries and three grapefruits.

A friend told me you can freeze cantaloupe. This was good news to me because I can't eat an entire cantaloupe before it goes bad, unless I obsessively make smoothies. It was on sale for $1 though so I bought it. After learning that freezing does the cantaloupe no harm (except a slight mushiness when thawing) I froze half of it after cutting into cubes. The frozen ones will go in future smoothies. The fresh I'll just eat raw.

The 3 grapefruits were on sale for $1 so I bought them and cut them up. The same with the strawberries, they were on sale too. Yum, cantaloupe-strawberry smoothies for dessert tonight after dinner.

Tomorrow I'll make broccoli-cheese quiche, potato mushroom soup, and pineapple sour cream muffins to go along with the fruit, to complete the week's ready-made food for dinners and lunches.

The wind is whipping, presaging a weather change. It has been a warm week here, and the birds are back. I love their dawn chorus. However we are now enduring plummeting temps and some snow apparently, is coming for Monday. And sleet. Maybe no school? We'll see.

This time of year is prime time for sunrises. It's fantastic to see the sun peeking over the horizon at the end of my driveway, it pops above the horizon a few miles later at the canola field at Gholston Stand, and turns red stripes the rest of the way to school. It takes me 12 minutes to get there and it's a great drive when I'm treated to sunrises like this every day:

Sunrise at school. EPrata photo

All is well at Casa Prata. The boy next door is having a birthday party and a bouncy house in the yard is home to joyous kids flinging themselves all over the interior. The sheep in the pasture are staring through the fence, perplexed. My cats are snoozing on the couch across from the gas fire, which is ticking and burbling to keep the apartment warm as the cooler air streams in and curls around the house. And I'm headed to the bed for an afternoon nap.