Thanksgiving and Cars

Happy November!! I hope everyone is having a good November so far. We are enjoying the slightly warmer weather, and I am hoping the snow stays away a little bit longer.

Last week, I mentioned I was going to take a little vacation from blogging during the holidays, it is still planned, but I think I might have a couple of posts here and there.

This week, look for posts about cars. The car maintenance series is getting finished this week! (No rain forecasted!!) Here is what you will have to look forward to with those:

Tuesday: Fluid Check
Wednesday: Jump Starting
Thursday: Lights
Friday: Emergency Kits

Because, it is November, and we all tend to think about things we are thankful for this month. There is a new tab at the top call the Thankful Tree. For the months of November and December, I will be adding to the tree things I am thankful for. It will get updated about once a week, and will stay all year round.

Finished Friday: Baby Sweater

It is Friday again, and I am so grateful! It has been a busy week.

Today, I want to show you another baby item. I will try to finish something this week that isn't baby related...

Baby's First Sweater

Notes on the Project:
I reclaimed some yarn for this project from a sweater my mom made. I made the newborn size sweater and hat. This was super fast to knit, and I hope our little one enjoys wearing it.

How to Clean an Oven Part III: The Finished Product

Oops! I forgot to publish this on Thursday!

It is finished! I have finally cleaned an oven. And it wasn't too hard. It did take me a couple of days, but that is because kneeling, leaning, and scrubbing was doing a number to my already sore lower back. Then I would get some Braxton Hicks contractions... But it was worth it!

So continuing for Tuesday with Step 5.

Step Five: Scrub Away!

I got a bucket and put some hot water in it to rinse my scrubbie out with. Please do not us steel wool, it will scratch the oven's coating. Use a nylon scrubbie. You can scrub in any order that you would like, I did door, side, top, back, side, bottom. It worked nicely for me.

Scrubbing away

Before Rinsing

Step Six: Rinse

Spray some vinegar water around the oven, to get all the cleaner out. I sprayed until there wasn't any bubbling around the bolts and things that are hard to get clean. Wipe down the oven and leave open for a couple hours to air dry.

Step Seven: Burn it!

Well, not really. Set you oven to the highest temp setting to burn off any cleaner residue, let it go for an hour or so.

Step Eight: Polish it

 After you let the oven cool, wipe it out again with a damp cloth and replace the racks. Now you are done and should back something wonderful in it!

Before and After

So it isn't perfect, but it is way cleaner!

Bottom of oven, before on left, after on right

Oven door, before on left, after on right

One side, before on left, after on right.

Happy Halloween

Image Source

Have a safe a happy Halloween everyone! 

How to Clean an Oven: Part II

I found my camera, Wonderful Man brought it in before he left, He is Wonderful!

As I was looking thought the pictures I realized I had way more than I thought. So this two part oven cleaning tutorial, is going to me more like a three part.

So I added a few pictures to part one for your enjoyment, and here is Part Two:

Remember the recipe I made, if not here it is again:

1 cup Baking Soda

3 TBSP Borax

1/8 cup Liquid Castile Soap

1/4 cup distilled vinegar

extra Water (if needed)

Now that we have a recipe we need a process. (I think it is pregnancy brain, which is why I left this out earlier, but now you get two posts in one day!)

Step one: Scrape out the oven.

Before scraping

Get all that nasty charred on stuff out of there, it will only cause more of a mess while cleaning.

Nasty charred stuff

Looks, just a little better.

Step Two: Make the paste.

Mix the borax and Baking Soda. Add the liquid Castile Soap (you can use liquid dish washing soap, like Dawn instead.) Mix as well as you can. SLOWLY add the vinegar (I added an eighth at a time). If needed to make the paste, add a little HOT water.

Step Three: Paint the Oven.

I tried at first to use a pastry brush... I just gave up and used my hands. Be sure to coat the entire oven, sides, door and top too! I left a heavier coat on the bottom since there is more gunk burnt on there.

Step Four: Relax.

You are half way done! Let the oven sit open over night. I closed mine slightly, so that our cat wouldn't investigate.

Step Five: Look for Thursday's Post for the results and final cleaning tips!

How to Clean an Oven: Part One

*Sorry, No pictures at 9 am! Wonderful Man took the car, with the camera in it... :(
**11 am, Found it! He brought it in for me! Pictures added.

Have you ever cleaned an oven before?

Honestly, I haven't... Yet...

We have lived in our apartment/house for over 3 years now, and I have never cleaned our oven. Even if a pie spills over or something gets charred to the bottom.  I don't think it was cleaned before we moved in...

But, I have had this nagging in the back of my mind about how, I should probably learn how to clean an oven, before we move out. Mainly, because the longer I wait the worse it will get.

My never before cleaned oven

My oven has a self cleaning cycle, but that scares me a little. I am afraid of something catching on fire and burning our place down. I know some people, have no problem with this cycle, more power to you!

Being pregnant, I am a little more cautious about what products I am using. Honestly, if I wasn't expecting I might have gone to the store and just purchased some chemical based oven cleaner.

Monday morning, I went looking for an oven cleaner. I found five different 'recipes' that were similar.

They all say to make a paste, coat the oven, and let it sit over night.

All five of them say to use vinegar and liquid soap, either dish soap or castile soap.

Two say to use borax and the other three say to use baking soda.

So, what really is the best?

Well, I wasn't about to divided my oven into 5 sections to test, so why not try a recipe with all four ingredients.

Looking at the recipes I thought I would try my own recipe of:

1 cup Baking Soda

3 TBSP Borax

1/8 cup Liquid Castile Soap

1/4 cup distilled vinegar

extra Water (if needed)

Thursday's post, did it work?

Sources:
Recipe One
Recipe Two
Recipe Three
Recipe Four
Recipe Five

November is right around the corner.

I am sitting trying to type with a cat, who is trying to sit on my slowly shrinking lap. Why do cat's always want attention when you are trying to do something?

Anyway, I hope everyone had good a weekend. Our started with a wonderful date to a restaurant in town we haven't been to, which you need reservations for... Turns out being pregnant can get you into places, although we had to wait half an hour. The food was great, and the highlight of my evening was getting ID'd. The waitress heard my drink order wrong. Ha! That made me feel good.

Saturday, was a nice lazy day where we didn't get out of bed until 11, had cinnamon rolls for breakfast and a church activity was dinner. No clean up and no cooking!!

Lastly, the weekend ended with a birthday party for Wonderful Man's youngest brother.

It was a great weekend, and we hope you had great weekends too!

This week, I am going to clean my oven, and so you will get to hear all about it.

Next month is November, and we will have a focus on Giving Thanks. Also, I had this brilliant idea for a new Thanksgiving Day treat/snack. I am calling it Turkey Poop! It is great you will love it! So look for that in the coming weeks.

Also, as a heads up, Engineering Homemaking will be taking a little vacation for Thanksgiving and Christmas. So no posts from the 19th of November to the First of the year. We will also be taking another vacation in February and March to welcome the newest addition to the Engineering Family.