Housekeeping

I mentioned before that I'd far rather have a robot to do what I
command in housecleaning than have to do it myself. Short of that, there's another solution. Do what needs to be done by letting the spirit move me. Since a schedule seems arbitrary I don't have one. I have a tendency to let housework go and only keep things visually tolerable instead of pleasingly perfect. I like the adage someone quoted to me that says the way to be enlightened is to "eat when you're hungry, drink when you're thirsty, sleep when you're sleepy and work when you feel like it." Surprisingly, I do feel like cleaning house once in a while, and when I do, it gives me such a feeling of pleasure afterwards that I wonder why I don't feel like it more often. I suspect that my habit of keeping up in little ways lets me avoid deep down work.

An added perk in responding to the impulse to clean house is when I pick up the phone and hear that company is coming and I don't have to do a thing to get ready for them. It makes me believe that the angels who try to guide me must be happy too. But, better yet is the feeling I get when I've been out somewhere and come home. I open the front door and at first glance get a jolt of pleasure. Oh, my! Robatta has been here! No, she's waiting in the wings of the future. I did it myself!

My mother was talented in many ways but she always gave her house first priority. She lived in those days when marriage meant staying at home, keeping house, taking care of the children and cooking a tasty dinner for her husband to enjoy after coming home from work. Her personal pleasures such as taking a hike through the woods in back of our country home, playing the piano, reading and sewing, were given priority only when housekeeping was done. She'd come back from her hikes with a small bouquet of wildflowers for an added touch. I wouldn't have been surprised if she even stopped to swing on that swing Daddy hung for us on the old oak tree down there. Of course, she never left us alone, so if we weren't in school we went along. But these things came after the housework had left our home immaculate. They were her way of placing highest priority things last.

I have picked up just a smidgen of her delight in maintaining an orderly house, but I am not the perfectionist she was. I dust with a feather duster. She polished. Still, she didn't work slavishly. She worked as if to show she had authority over the house. She gave certain chores to me and expected  me do them well, rewarding me with a happy look on her face when inspecting my work. I could take a rug beater out to the clothes line and beat the dust out of a rug with a vengeance. That was even fun. And washing dishes and drying them to see them sparkle brought hugs of appreciation. Now-a-days I even frown when I find clean dishes in the dishwasher. It means I can't put dirty ones in until the clean ones are put away. And there's not much to be proud of there.

Working when I feel like it makes me feel like it more often. But here I am at 9:30 a.m. and still in my robe! I don't feel like it yet, but after I get dressed I think I'll get to work on the house. Just enough to put Mother's smile on my face!