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Friday, May 10, 2013

One thing and another



When I was a young our house was cleaned every stinking Saturday.  I remember every Saturday of my childhood and know I scrubbed the upstairs floors and cleaned the bathroom every stinking Saturday.

Of course I grew up and eventually appreciated the value of organization over chaos.  My daughters and I cleaned every Saturday morning.  We could be done by noon and free to enjoy anything else planned for the day. 

We may have finished so quickly because the girls’ rooms were bypassed, except for vacuuming.  One time, while we were on vacation, our house was robbed.  The girls’ piggy banks were smashed on their bedroom floors.  The police remarked on the ransacking of their rooms. Except for piggy bank shards on the floor, that’s how they left them.

Cleaning this house has never come to the top of any list.  No excuses, but as if Mom, Jan and I were cleaned out.  We had Mark in the beginning, and he is a neat freak, so we could rely on him to sweep any particle up from any floor, and find an inconspicuous place for things he didn’t like to see. But he went off into the world to become a citizen and left us to dust bunnies of several cats and dogs.

We engaged cleaning people.  Some good, some not.  My friend Carol told me one is always looking for the next cleaning person.  She does know; she has twice the house and so many collections her cleaning ladies spend a day. We had cleaning ladies, too, right up to the time we decided we needed kids
.
I call them Child Help, Grandma’s Sole Proprietorship. They do a fine job.  Their rooms are never included in the schedule and the grown-ups take care of their rooms, so the job can’t be that onerous. Some weeks we give it a lick and a promise and some weeks we do a real job.

But, one thing and another, we have done nothing except keep the kitchen clean for several weeks.  And tomorrow is the big family Memorial Day picnic, before Hazel and Tony go home.  As soon as my proprietary cleaners come home from school we will tuck in and get it done.  We could be done before supper. 

There may be pictures of grandchildren scrubbing floors on hands and knees.  Nothing makes my seventy year old knees feel better.




24 comments:

  1. Yep...every Saturday. My job was dusting.

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  2. Yea, we did the Saturday thing too which I thought was unfair as my mother never worked. When I could afford a cleaning person they were never allowed in the son's room, that was his to do. Scrubbing floors is the worst on old knees, as I am learning.

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  3. I had yard duty on Saturday.

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  4. Always on Saturday as kids we helped mom clean the house scrubbing the floor and polishing the furniture and doing the flowers everything was always kept lovely.
    The standards went out to door as I was raising my kids as I worked full time and the beer fairy was a truck driver and often away. The kids looked after their own rooms and learnt to shut the doors so I wouldn't see the mess and Saturdays were spent washing and shopping for the weeks supplies
    As the little fellows all left the nest it's all lovely again
    Merle......

    As my ki

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  5. They're growing cannabis in your garden and now they're hiding it around the house. Don't be fooled, Joanne.

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    1. Hold on a minute while I check the penalty for inciting riot...

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  6. Your own house elves! Do not, I repeat , do not give them any clothing or they will be set free!
    Jane x

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    1. Excepting the smashing neon red jeans Laura scored yesterday to go with her neon green tee. Eleven year old elves are exempt.

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  7. Since our kids have moved out, David and I share the house cleaning. Neither of us likes clutter, so that is a plus.

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  8. I somehow did not instill the cleaning gene into CC. She is a sloppy girl. But my sister was the same and now she is a wonderful homemaker so maybe there is hope. I have found no one cleans to my satisfaction any ways.

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  9. Can you believe I do not remember vacuuming or dusting more than a time or two? My jobs were ironing (including my brother's dress shirts - what the?), cleaning the bathroom, and drying the dishes. Was that a weird arrangement? Somehow I learned to do it all anyway.

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  10. No one in our family likes to clean. No one is upset about a little clutter. We're hopeless. Perhaps when the spouse retires I can rope him in to a cleaning routine.

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  11. Saturdays here too. Except that there have only been licks and some half-hearted promises for a while. Soon.

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  12. I am a terrible housecleaner. when we moved into the country house I vowed not to let it get away from me. oh well. I am who and what I am, good intentions aside. I can't remember the last time I dusted.

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  13. Lucky you to have these kids around and extend a helping hand whenever possible. And it sure does feel a lot cozier when the house is tidy :)

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  14. The cleaning routine on Saturday was continued to my generation.
    Each of us four kids had our specific jobs. I remember scrubbing the blue linoleum floors on my hands and knees. Maybe that's why I have bum knees now.

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  15. I have slaves ! Yes daughter's room looks like a crime scene. She will be away all summer so a big clean is due as my niece & child will be coming to stay.
    Housework is so tedious and takes so long but lasts only for a moment. I wish I had a dust fairy.

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  16. Ugh! Saturdays. Mom always told me I had won a trip around the house with the vacuum. It was funny the first time . . .

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  17. Happy Mother's Day, Joanne ... twice :)

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  18. It's good to get kids cleaning, but often rather hard work - easier almost to bring in professional cleaners but of course we don't :)

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  19. Your post did my heart good (Midwest saying) to see the kids busy doing the same things I did once for my mother. Now? I think I will pay someone--easier to find here than where you are.

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