It's 5:06.

For all intents and purposes, it's 2 hours later. The floor is drying. In some areas, I cleaned a little deeper than I should have (like cleaning out the toaster and getting wax out of an old candle holder). In other areas, wanted to go deeper (move the oven and clean under there, wipe down fridge)), but didn't...yet. Once the floor dries, I'll have to 're-set' the kitchen. Then I'll share my progress.

An Experiment

My house is a mess, nothing unusual there. I really have been wanting to clean up, but I've been sick the past week, so I've mostly just been maintaining. My husband's bureau is sparkly clean, but he hasn't even noticed or just didn't bother saying anything. Thanks, honey. But I digress.

Today's project, thanks in part to Peter Walsh and him continuously referencing 18 minutes as a great time frame for decluttering in his book Does this Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat? (which I recently picked up at the library), involves me cleaning up my kitchen. I've been trying unsuccessfully to have it look presentable all week. I truly do believe I have some sort of mental block against getting organize. I look at a mess like this (found in virtually every room in my house) and it seems impossible. I don't know where to start, how to honestly get rid of the stuff and not just move it somewhere else. It's very daunting.

So here we are at 3:02 on Friday afternoon. Obviously, it will be a little later after I post this, but basically the drill involves me getting off the computer, setting the kitchen timer for 18 minutes and seeing if I can rid my kitchen of this mess.

Let's get started...

Heavenly Brownies

Instead of trying to make a dent in the clutter around my house while my son napped this afternoon, I decided to declutter my hotmail inbox. In so doing, I spent a little quality time in a newsletter from AllRecipes and discovered Mmm-Mmm Better Brownies. They seemed easy enough, so I decided to make them after dinner tonight.

Holy cow! I'm in the middle of my second square hot out of the oven and I can't get over how delicious (and easy to prepare) they are. After following the directions to the T (including walnuts), I added mini chocolate chips and drizzled with caramel per some reviewers' suggestions before cooking. I used an 8 x 8 pan and forgot other reviewers had said cooking time would be 30 minutes versus 20. So I wound up checking on them every 5 minutes after the initial timer went off at 20 minutes, and took them out at 32.

Thanks to the engineering geniuses at Kraft, I was able to squirt a generous amount of my beloved Cool Whip from a can onto this delectable treat. Fantastic! And they're easy enough you can justify doing more than just opening a box.

Pictures to come once I find my camera cord.