Clean Sheets Ramblings.....

I can't believe it's Friday. It seems like I'm stuck in a time warp. Next week is the last week of March! How did that wiz by?

I did really well yesterday. Even made a simple dinner. If putting Marie Callendar pot pies in the oven is making dinner. But it was easy and soft for Christine's teeth. Folded laundry as Duff got it washed. We even worked together and got the sheets changed on our bed. I couldn't stand them anymore after laying in them for several days. There is nothing quite like a fresh, crisp set of clean sheets! In the olden days, when I was a youngin', before the days of clothes dryers, one of my favorite things was the clean sheets hanging on the clothes line in the backyard. I LOVED watching them flutter in the beach breezes. And the smell! Oh, the lovely smell of line dried sheets!

Thinking about that makes me realize how truly remarkable being a woman at that time was. There was no internet to keep up on the weather. Even if you watched the evening news for the weather report, it wasn't as 'true' and predictable as it is now. My mom would make sure she timed the laundry just 'so'. Getting it washed and out on that 'line' so it would be dry and could be brought in before evening when the marine layer and moisture came in and then they would be wet all over again. Never did the laundry get left out over night. And she juggled that with meals--minus a microwave (can you even imagine? But I did it until I had my 4th child!) Oh, the planning! No dishwasher. No blow dryers for hair. No automatically timed sprinklers to water the yards. No gardeners. One car to be shared with my dad, who worked every day. And she did that all with being a room mother/PTA parent for all her children, sold Avon, sewed, crafted, and served in the church. Phew! It makes me wonder--what do I do with my time? Cuz I'm pretty busy!

When Duff and I bought the duplex in Santa Ana with the Allen's and each of our little families lived in one side of it, we were so poor. And at that time interest rates were 18%! Yes, that is not a typo, and we refinanced several times as it went down, but it got each of us a 'start'. Interesting times, kind of like now. I babysat my brains out. I cried every morning when I woke up knowing all those kids were coming when all I wanted to do was be at home with my own. But you do what you have to do, right? And it got us through. We didn't have a clothes dryer for 2 years until my parents found a used one for us. So we rigged up a clothes line on that little patio. I made a bag for the clothespins that scooted along with me as I hung up diapers, towels, sheets, and the rest of it. Every door jam inside was packed with shirts and unmentionables and the boys rode their big wheels up and down through the fluttering laundry outside and loved it!