I woke up this morning thinking about how my mother cleaned the house. I don't know why. (Well, I know why she cleaned but no why I thought of it!)
My mom was an excellent housekeeper. She was college educated but it turned out that she stayed home to be a housewife and take care of me.
When she married, someone gave her a very large carpet sweeper. It was something like the one shown here but much wider and bigger. I can remember riding on it when I was little. (That couldn't have been for long!)
My parent's house had hard wood floors and they had small rugs like the one shown here. It was a ranch house so it was all on one floor.
Every morning, she would start the day by running the mop. The mop was one of those huge mop heads. The mop itself had to be shaken outside to get rid of the "stuff" it picked up every day.
The mop head had to be washed. She put it in with the weekly wash and sent it with my father to the "plant". My grandparents owned a laundry and dry cleaning business. We didn't have a washer or dryer.
By the time I was in my early teens, mom decided that wall to wall carpeting was needed. My father, a tight Scotsman, agreed because he was always cold.
It is very hot inside a laundry and dry cleaning business so it was hard to transition to home. The car heater was always on full blast.
He always wiped his feet and headed to the coat closet to hang up his outercoat and his hat and looked at the thermostat. He bumped it up a bit each time he went by. My mother wondered how it got so hot in the house. I always turned the heat up in my own house before my parents came to visit.
These are the ordinary day family stories that I enjoy telling.
This is my new carpet sweeper and the "Swiffer" I bought for the new house. I was using the "Swiffer" that had belonged to my mother. She adored it. I left it in our old house when we moved.
They are not "high-tech", are they? The carpet sweeper does a great job on my rugs. It is amazing what dirt I pick up each day.
Mom would be proud.
No comments:
Post a Comment