Just Thinking

It's dangerous when I think, no?

Not this time. Yesterday was Mom's birthday. I kept myself real busy, spent a lot of the day at the kennel playing with the 2 week old puppies and letting my beasts play. I always figure it's better to stay busy than sit around thinking. Didn't really work, tho.

So, today, I'm cleaning the house. As I'm vacuuming, I'm thinking, how did Mom do it? She was a stay-at-home mom, but let's be honest, taking care of me and Pa was no picnic. I now realize she is partly to blame for how spoiled Pa is now, but I also know he was no easier to take care of back then. He couldn't do anything without making a mess and he was never good at cleaning up the mess when he was done. (I still remember the time he was painting the outside of the windows, and got about as much paint inside as out...Ma was less than thrilled!)

The "routine" stuff was a lot to do. Monday was laundry. It wasn't as easy then as it is now. The family will recall that when I was a little brat, I stuck my arm in the washing machine ringer and tried to remove my arm at the elbow. After that, they got one of them fancy automatic washing machines. But it wasn't as big as the ones we have now, so it took longer to get it done. Even after we had a dryer, Mom would still hang clothes out to dry. I remember the clotheslines strung all around our back yard, from tree to tree. She would go out and wipe down the line to make sure it was clean before she put out her clean laundry. When one load was done, part of the previous load might be ready to take down. In and out, check the laundry. She didn't want to leave it out too long, the birds had a habit of christening it, and then she had more work. If she was lucky, she was done with the laundry in time to sit for a few minutes before it was time to cook supper.

Tuesday was ironing day. I KNOW! Ironing! Can you imagine? That routine actually began the night before. For those who don't remember, back in "the old days," we didn't have them fancy irons that had steam. The night before, you would get out the sprinkling bottle. Usually, an old Coke bottle with a top on it that had holes in it to "sprinkle." Lay the shirt or pants or whatever out on the kitchen table, sprinkle it, roll it up and stick it in a plastic bag. Repeat until all of the laundry was in the bag, ready for ironing. Sometimes, she would just sprinkle as she ironed. Ironing was hot and miserable. Thank God for permanent press!

I can't remember now if Wednesday or Thursday was cleaning the floor day. The floor in the kitchen, hall and bathroom was this nasty black tile, and she had the "scrubber" to clean it. Then you had to wait for it to dry. Then wax it, because it was really ugly without wax. The rest of the house was hard wood floors, so "all" she had to do was run the vacuum. Sometimes she would just use the dust mop. (Do they even still make dust mops?)

Friday was always grocery shopping day. Oh, what fun. Not. I think I inherited my dislike of grocery shopping from Mom. Even shopping was a lot different. There were no bar codes. Everything had a little price sticker on it. The "checker" actually had to punch in each individual price of each item. It's scary to think that back then, about $5 worth of groceries would fit into one of those paper grocery bags.

Cleaning the bathroom was different. We didn't have all of those miracle cleaning products. Mom had rags, Comet and elbow grease. She was forever washing rugs, drapes, windows. There was dusting and just plain picking up after Dad and me. She painted the walls and ceilings before they put in ceiling tile and paneling in some of the rooms. She made curtains for the kitchen windows, for the bathroom and for my room.

She made a lot of her clothes and my clothes. I would drive her nuts. She would take me to pick out a pattern for something and I always picked out stuff that either wasn't easy to make, or wasn't real practical.

If that wasn't enough, she loved to garden and for several years we had that for her to take care of, too. Personally, I hated picking strawberries and peas and beans. She liked flowers, too, but that was a losing battle with my father and his lawn mower.

All of that, and she always had dinner on the table at 4:30 p.m. for my father.

Then, when I was 8, her parents moved into a mobile home in our back yard. Gradma did the routine cooking and cleaning, but Mom did their laundry and the hard stuff that Grandma couldn't handle.

I wonder that she didn't lose her temper more often. Like the day Grandpa was going to walk the 5 miles in to town because she wouldn't drive him (he had Parkinson's and couldn't walk worth beans) and she tied him to his chair in the back yard because he refused to go back into the house. Or the time Pa bugged her once too often too early in the morning, and she smacked him on the head with frozen sausages. (God knows, I've been tempted more than once!) Or the time she shoved the Maypo (nasty cereal I screamed I had to have in the grocery store, and then refused to eat) down my throat.

I don't know how she did it. Guess I just miss her today.