Window Washing Winners
Today's Snack: You're going to need protein for all this window
washing, so let's make Personal Pizzas!
First,
with adult help, brown ¼ pound of ground beef in a skillet. Drain the grease
into a disposable can or glass; don't ever let grease go down the kitchen sink
because it stuffs up the plumbing. Some people say you should put the browned
meat into a strainer and run cool water over it, to REALLY get the grease gone.
Anyway,
once it's browned, put it back into the skillet and add ¾ cup of tomato sauce,
½ teaspoon of oregano, and ¼ teaspoon of salt. Heat.
Meanwhile,
open a can of refrigerated biscuit dough. Put a little flour on your cutting
board or counter, and put a round section of biscuit dough on top of it.
Sprinkle a little more flour on top of the biscuit, and then roll the biscuit
out with a floured rolling pin, back and forth, side to side, until it is five
inches across.
Put
each flattened biscuit on a cookie sheet as you get them prepared.
Now
spread the ground beef mixture on each biscuit.
Sprinkle
with ¾ C. grated mozzarella cheese.
Bake
in a preheated oven at 450 degrees for 10 minutes.
Enjoy!
Now that your hunger's cleared up, you can . . . SEE YOUR WAY CLEAR to do some
window washing!
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Supplies for each
two-person team:
two empty spray bottles
water
white vinegar
baking soda
cleaning cloths
old newspapers
trash sacks
Washing windows is one of those
everyday jobs that goes so much better and so much faster when you can work in
pairs.
It's also an opportunity to practice
your nonverbal communication skills. Because you'll be standing apart with a
pane of relatively thick glass separating you, you won't be able to hear each
other. So you'll have to find nonverbal - non-talking - ways of communicating
with each other. Basically, it'll come down to gestures - one will point out
where the other might have missed a spot. The more "in tune" you are with each
other, even though you can't hear one another, the faster and better your
window-washing task will go.
Note that it's best to wash windows
on a day with mild temperatures that isn't too sunny, because sun shining on
glass will tend to dry it too fast and leave streaks where you've cleaned. Also
note the weather report, and if it's going to rain in the next day or so, don't
wash windows, because it'll make you sad if it rains and spots your
beautifully-polished windows hours after you've finished.
But when the time has come to wash windows:
Put ¼ of a cup of vinegar and one tablespoon of baking
soda into the spray bottle - it may fizz a little bit -- and then fill it to
the top with water. The vinegar is an acid, which will help dissolve dirt, and
the baking soda has mild astringent properties that help gently scrape dirt off
without scratching the glass.
These ingredients are very organic
and Earth-friendly, and do a fine job cleaning bathroom counters, kitchen
appliances and other things around the house, too.
But let's concentrate on windows.
You might need chairs, stools or a ladder if the windows go over your head. Be
careful not to fall!
One person on the team should go outside, and the
other remain inside. Each person should have a spray bottle, a cloth or two, a
pile of old newspapers and a trash sack. The outside person should perhaps set
a rock on top of the newspapers to hold them down if it's windy out. The trash
sack is for the old newspapers, when they're used!
Now start washing the glass! You can
use the cleaning cloth to get the "big" stuff off, and then give the glass one
more light spray, and polish the glass with crumpled-up newspaper.
Throw the newspaper "polisher" into
the trash sack when it gets wet and yucky, and tear off a new, dry page
whenever you need to.
Communicate with each other when you
see a spot missed or a streak still standing. You can joke about who did a
better job, the "inside" person or the "outside" person, but the point is,
glass has two sides, and it took a TEAM to get it looking this good!
