Thursday, the saga continues.......

     I am still trying to edit my current debts but it won't take my changes.  Anyone had that problem or have any answers?  Frustrating.

     I was very busy yesterday in the shop, daughter who is sick with bronchitis could not believe how many people were in and out.  I need to call several for pick-up today.  I also have several things to get done today.

     Did my roots this morning as I was starting to look like a Halloween character and now I am sitting here with a wet head, looking oh so ravishing.



Continued from yesterday:

     By the time I reached High School I became very busy.  Busy was a way of avoiding home.  Busy was a way of escaping the turmoil of the messy house and the constant fighting.  My parents were not getting along, but how could they?  The mills were down sizing this was the beginning of the Carter years.  Layoffs were prominent in our town.  Then the mills started closing.  Many workers went on strike.  The strikes were very upsetting to family life.  We were a strike home three years in a row.  I think mom in order to survive went back to school full time.

     Because I wanted  to be able to get out of the Saturday cleaning both my sister and I discovered we could work for money.  If we were working we did not have to clean.  If we helped with expenses, ours and the younger kids it made mom happy.  We knew how to work, we just would not do it at home.  Now Mom discovered that I was really fast and good at cleaning the entire house if my brothers and sisters were out of the way.  But if anyone was sitting around or watching TV I would grow resentful a balk.  It did not take her long to make sure everyone else was gone but her and I.  Actually I really enjoyed the time alone with my mom.  We would go from room to room and talk and clean and organize.  We would sit down every hour and have a soda.  Mom would say it was time for a break.  She was happy.  She would set a timer and see how much we could get done.  We would each take a bedroom and see who could clean it first.  Throwing things out the doors into baskets.  Or we would each have to pick up 10 things in a room and put them away.  But if you went to a different room you had to stop and put ten things away in that room.  Soon we were both running around that huge house and we would get mixed up and lost, but we had some good laughs.  I think this period lasted until I was 16 and could actually work full time.

     Then I started missing school.  School was always boring and easy.  I could get A's with very little effort.  So I started to stay home on Thursdays.  Every Thursday I was ill, and as soon as everyone was out of the house, I would start to clean.  I would start at the top floor and work down.  The laundry was in the basement, so every so often I would run clear down stairs and swap the laundry over.  I would carry the warm dryer laundry up and throw it on the back kitchen table.  It would take me all day to get the house ship shape.  The kitchen was last and it was always such a mess.  When it was clean  I would fold about 8 loads of laundry and separate it into baskets.  Mom was always happy Thursday nights and the house would usually stay pretty nice through Saturday.  But she had to have  known what was going on. I just remember how hot and sweaty I would get in my nightgown and how dirty I would be by the end of the day.  I did this every Thursday through the rest of High School.  The School did not like it they could see the pattern and even threatened to flunk me if I missed another Thursday, but my dad went down and some how worked it out.

     Weekends were for working for wages and even though I was in every play, music group and recital in town I managed to teach dance about 10 hours a week and work two 8 hour shifts at a restaurant.  Even if it was an all night shift.  I just worked.  I was a valued employee.  I was fast I knew how to stream line and save steps.  If something was in need of being done I did not say that it wasn't my job, I just did it.  Much like my housekeeping days I would ask myself,  Is any one else going to do this?  If the answer was no I did it myself.  I just thought every one did this.  My mom would always say never leave a room until you have looked around for something to put away.  I could do this at work, but alas not at my home on a daily basis.  I have to also say that my sisters and I were all like this.  Very fast, hard a thorough workers.  Employers loved us.  I liked being praised and I enjoyed the attention I got from my superiors for my work ethic.  But why oh whycould I not keep my apartment clean?

     To be continued.....

     Out My Window:  Beautiful, blue skies.

I need to go dry my hair and get to work.  Today is my long teaching day and I have a so much sewing to do.  But it looks like I have almost $300.00 for the house payment.  Yippee!

Have a great and productive day.

Kim