Cleaning Iron Skillet With Salt

I love using my Iron Skillets. I have a slew of them, including multiple skillets, a pot, griddles… When seasoned right, they are just as good as the pricey non-stick skillets (better, I would argue). The one I used in the pictures below was the first pan I purchased when Frank and I moved into our apartment; it is about 19 years old, seasoned the old-fashioned way. It is by far my favorite pan.

You are not supposed to wash your iron skillets with soap, though, just hot water and towel or stove-heat dry. So for those times where you want to make something messy (like my extra cheesy scrambled eggs), and forget to wash the pan until the next day, you need a little more than water and a scrub. You know what you use?

Salt.

Yes, salt. Simple table salt seems to work best, although I’ve used my kosher and rock salt, too.

(Click any for larger view)

The offending skillet.

Salt. Look ma – no chemicals!!!

I generally use about a tablespoon or less.

Less than a minute of elbow grease…

A little rinse with some hot water.

Good as new!!

Overeating Related to Fatigue

I’ve read in numerous places that not getting enough sleep can lead to overeating and obesity. Though I understood the thought behind that theory, I couldn’t pull up a tangible firsthand experience of fatigue-eating.

Until today.

And now that it happened, there behind me lay a memory trail of same-day experiences from years past.

I got to bed late last night, for starters. Two hours before my alarm went off, I woke twice because Franny’s splint had come clean off of his leg. The body and brain has an amazing way of waking itself up as best it can, but me trying to wrap and replace while ripping imaginary cobwebs from my brain was not optimum circumstances for mommy-nurse.

The alarm jolted me from my cozy slumber, but I got up to make sure the kids were up, dressed and fed, then I plopped on the couch, dozing on and off. My hope was to get them off to school, Franny situated, and take a light hour nap. But as I asked Franny for the umpteenth time, Do you need ANYTHING? Food? Bathroom? Anything? – he finally agreed that yes, he was ready for breakfast, bathroom and basically keeping me on my toes all day.

Forget the nap!! Ha.

So I made us eggs, waffles and blueberries and decided to get on with my day. I scrubbed the bathroom floor and toilet, threw a load of laundry in, changed his wrappings and fixed his splint, answered emails, did some work from home… all the while with a nagging urge to munch, munch. Two cups of coffee down the hatch I went into work for an hour while my mom watched Franny. Munched trail mix on the way.

Ate dinner tonight even though I had been grazing all day and really didn’t need the calories. And half-way through my second small helping of noodles, my mind flashed back to the articles I’d read about overeating and its relation to not getting enough sleep.

Bingo.

My appetite was insatiable, all day long, even with a happily fed tummy. I’ll have to remember that as I tuck myself in later than I should each night.

Broken Leg – Week 3

It is the third week of The Broken Leg.

Franny is doing… OK. He had a 2-week check-up and things went fine. Though not a huge amount of healing had taken place, as expected, his bones were still aligned and had not shifted, which is good. The fibula, the smaller of the two shin bones, was still very visibly broken, but the nurse said she saw “bridging” which was good. They did not set the fibula. The tibia, the larger bone, has all the rods in it and I could not see where it had broken with my unskilled eye.

Besides checking alignment, he was also scheduled to have his stitches removed. I couldn’t tell you how many he had, but they went from the outside of his left heel to the inside ankle bone – about 75% of the circumference of his foot. The others were on his shin where the bones had broken. I, personally, do not think the lady was as gentle or meticulous as she should have been, and it was painful for Franny. I regret not speaking up a bit more than I did. She put the steri-strips on his ankle while it was out of the splint, and once the foot was placed back into the splint, the strips had large gaps in them and they weren’t doing any good. Thankfully she had sent us home with more strips, which I put on at home, and they have stayed on since that time.

I have been working at about 50% time, unable to get into the office very much. Mom was going to stop by tomorrow so I could go in for a couple hours. But mainly I’ve been playing full-time nurse to Franny – which I’m not complaining about at all. There are times when I’m up, down, up, down, up and I feel like collapsing, but I still feel for the most part blessed to be able to take care of him and to see him making progress.

Since being home, I’ve been able to actually clean the toilet and bathroom floor almost every day. Seems silly, but I’m really glad about that. I like having a clean bathroom.

Opening Word Documents in the Same Window

With the out-of-the-box trial version of Word that came on my laptop, I’ve been frustrated that every time I wanted to start a new document, it would open up in a separate window. I like how my older XP-friendly version would open right in front of the already open document. If you’re struggling with this same issue and don’t know how to fix it – here you go:

In Word go to:

Word Options> Advanced> Display> Show all windows in the Taskbar (untick this checkbox)

Voila!! Your documents will now layer on top of each other. Of coarse, if you’re trying to do the opposite of what I favor, you would instead tick off the checkbox.

Posted in WWW

Broken Leg… The Short Story

The short story is that my ten-year-old son was hit by a car last week after getting off the bus. His leg was broken and his foot and ankle were severely lacerated. He had surgery done and was in the hospital for a few days. He is home now and wearing an external fixator (his does not have the “halo” around it – he has 4 rods and a bar that holds them in place). He will move to a cast in a few weeks.

I’ve typed out the longer version, but I’m not quite ready to do anything with it. We are blessed indeed, as nothing else was injured.

I feel a bit stir-crazy and still like we are in chaos-mode (a few more purchased dinners than usual the past week), but it has also been nice to be home and able to take care of Franny and just be with the family.

Today he had his first shower at home. We purchased a cheap plastic chair and a non-slip floor mat for the tub. We put a garbage bag around his leg and he actually had a very nice shower, holding the removable head, enjoying the warm water. I also did pin care for the first time today, too. You have to clean the pins as directed by the physician. Because he still has stitches, I also needed to put a special gauze on those two areas, too. I was nervous about doing it, but it actually went pretty well.