And the afternoon

Cleaned house.

That made it some better. I always forget that dust on the floor and piles of un-dealt-with paperwork on flat surfaces bugs me. I will clean the house and then let it go to entropy (either because I was busy - in the before-times - or because I don't feel like it) and then it gets bad and I feel bad

Though in the before-times, part of that bad feeling was "what if someone came over and saw what a slob I am?" and that's unlikely now except with a real emergency like if I fell and broke a bone or something.

But the place smells better (I use a Mrs. Meyers' cleaner on most things - Rosemary scent) and the tub seems less grotty (it was never THAT bad but I could see the bits of shave cream when I did my legs that didn't get washed down the drain, stuff like that)

Heh, and I guess I kept up with tradition; there used to be day-of-the-week chores years ago - you could even embroider towels for each day:

• Monday - Washing
• Tuesday - Ironing
• Wednesday - Mending
• Thursday - Marketing
• Friday - Baking
• Saturday - Cleaning
• Sunday - Day of Rest 

Note that three days are devoted to clothing maintenance. I am glad I have an automatic washing machine and most of my clothing doesn't require ironing (or if it does, I quick iron it - using an electric iron that heats up fast, not a sad-iron you have to heat on your woodstove - before I put it on). Mending is a more infrequent thing but not working on a farm and not having kids makes a difference there.

Usually Saturday is/was my marketing day, and I don't always bake though I admit I'm thinking of doing some tomorrow - if I still have a can of pumpkin on the shelf, I found a recipe for a pumpkin-chocolate chip snack cake I would like to try.

I think the "clean on Saturday" thing was partly to have a clean house in case people came to visit on Sunday - I have also seen Sunday referred to as "visiting day" though I guess if you are resting from chores (Sabbath, at least in Christian or nominally-Christian homes) it's a good day to visit.  Also if baking gets messy, maybe it's good to clean the kitchen the next day?

 My grandmother kind of followed this a little bit - she had a washing machine but it was a wringer washer, not an automatic. A big pink thing that lived in a corner of the kitchen and got pushed over to the sink because there was a hose that attached to the tap and another one that would drain the tank (I can't remember if that would pump/siphon into the sink, or if you had to drain it into a bucket you dumped, though). I was never allowed to "help" because she was afraid I'd hurt my hands in the wringer and also you had to be careful not to break buttons with the wringer. (The wringer took the place of the spin cycle on modern machines).

She didn't have a dryer; everything got hung outdoors. Environmentally friendly but not great for sheets if you have bad pollen allergies like I do - so I use an electric dryer that's part of my washer (a stacked set like some apartments have). You also had to be careful about rainy days or birds - and in the winter, she had a couple wooden racks she would hang some things on, or if she could plow out through the snow, she'd hang the sheets and let them freeze-dry, I guess. (Or maybe she had enough sheets and just washed them all in the autumn? And then changed them infrequently through the winter? That might have been a thing, too.)

I don't remember much of the other cleaning - I don't even know if she had a vacuum, though she must have had one, or at least a carpet sweeper, because the living room and her bedroom were carpeted. The rest of the rooms had linoleum and I guess they were swept and sometimes she scrubbed the kitchen and bathroom floors. And maybe wet-mopped the others? I infrequently wet-mop my wood floors with a mop wrung to be almost dry, and I scrub the kitchen and bathroom fairly regularly...I'm thinking maybe one of my aunts helped her a couple times a year, and it just never happened when we were up there - I'm pretty sure, for example, she washed the walls (I don't, but sometimes I take a dust mop to them or even a lightly damp one) and things like that. (I know she hand washed dishes, usually she and my mom would stand side by side and one person wash and one dry, because there was a bigger load of dishes with all of us there)