Mondays & Memories of My Mom – Fall Cleaning

Thank God it’s Monday, again. I always look forward to Mondays, as they’re my 52 Chances a year, in which I get to share Memories of My Mom with you! Therefore, happy Monday.

#TheRecipeDetective

#AutumnalEquinox

As I wrote last week: Sunday [was] the official start of fall – the Autumnal Equinox. Thus, happy fall y’all. If you haven’t already, it’s time to begin tackling that fall cleaning list, assuming you have one. If not, HouseholdManagement101.com has a great, printable “Fall Cleaning List” that covers all the basics.

“Fall Cleaning As Important As Spring Cleaning”, by Dr. Sally Augustin, Ph.D. (PsychologyToday.com; Oct 09, 2013), is a great article to check out, which focuses on de-cluttering. I like how she wrote… “We continually accumulate stuff and dealing with it is part of fall cleaning.” I excitedly told my husband, “See – I’m not the only one who accumulates stuff!”

Every fall, I play the Tetris^TM shuffle game in my basement – digging out my fall and Halloween décor that gets buried behind my Christmas décor, which is further buried behind our camping gear; as well as some of the garage sale stuff I bought during the spring and summer months (and haven’t used, yet).

My OCD personality is yelling at me to “GET MORE ORGANIZED!” It’s a work in progress. One of these days, it’ll be better. I bought a bunch of shelving units at a garage sale last summer. They’ve helped a great deal but more de-cluttering is still needed. Dr. Augustin’s timeless article gives a lot of great advice (and inspiration) for purging.

I collect a lot of things for my many hobbies that I never have/make the time to do… quilting, glass etching/engraving, wood burning, repurposing old lamps and glassware into garden art, candle making, creating wreaths from vines and pine cones, etc.

I love to repurpose, reuse, and recycle things as much as possible. In doing so, I find it hard to get rid of anything broken, because I can usually “see” creative uses for its parts. Besides which, I also hate to contribute to our ever growing waste problems. However, as I purge, I think hosting a yard sale is in my near future.

I also love making lists for just about everything. I created the seasonal cleaning list pictured below (which I’ve shared in previous blog posts) based on several different lists I found online, and then combined those tasks that best fit my own home’s needs.

While I really enjoy the feeling of “accomplishment”, following a good and thorough cleaning job – by the way, there are many physical and mental health benefits in performing the process, as well as enjoying the final result – the organizing portion of it is more like a favorite hobby, to me.

I’ve been known to dump things out of closets and drawers just to re-organize them – like re-doing a puzzle over and over. I know – I’m weird but I’m not alone. One of Mom’s best friends, for many years before she passed away, was Linda Cobb, also known as the “Queen of Clean”. She gives a lot of great cleaning advice on her website and in her books.

#LearnSomethingNewEveryDay

In Mom’s office space, she preferred what she called an “organized mess”. She knew where everything was in each of her piles. After I unknowingly cleaned and organized her office and desk, once (while she and Dad were gone for the day); after which she bought a sign (as pictured above) that she kept on her desk, for many years.

She knew I was just trying to do a good deed for her. And while she appreciated my motives, I did mess up her system, which she had to take the time to put back to the way it was before I thought I’d “fix” it for her. That’s when I learned that everyone’s idea of organization is not the same.

FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…

As seen in…

As seen in… “No Laughing Matter”; a syndicated column by Gloria Pitzer

(date unknown; circ. 1970s)

GIVE ME LIBERTY OR…

WITH ALL DUE RESPECT to Women’s Lib, I don’t think they can help me. I think they’ve done enough for me already! Frankly, I think I was doing alright before they came along. At least I could get a seat on a bus. Now I’m lucky if a man will offer to hold my packages for me.

I can also remember when cutting the grass was considered “man’s work”. These days my husband flips me two-out-of-three to see which of us gets the lawn mower and who will fix the iced tea and sit on the patio chair to watch.

Last week, I was visited by a new militant group of women in our neighborhood who are protesting the proposed 4-day work week for MEN. They advocated a simple test.

If you cannot get through a two-week vacation and the Christmas holidays with a man who over-waters your house plants and alphabetizes your refrigerator then how can you get through a three-day weekend, 52 weeks out of the year?

For you must then decide if you have to run the sweeper [aka: vacuum] while he’s taking a nap, or does he have to take a nap while you’re running the sweeper. Arguing with a husband (especially when he’s your own), is like taking a shower/bath in a scuba outfit. But I have a theory!

There are some things in this liberated life, which a woman just cannot control. You have tasted instant failure when neither of you can agree on who gets custody of the only controls on the electric blanket; and if it’s fair that she who makes the garbage must also carry it out; and whose mother calls more – yours or his?

This is the same man who warned me not to go into labor on his bowling night and who, on Christmas, gave me a monogrammed tool box and a gift certificate from Sunoco for an oil change and lube job, and a can of Easy-Off in my stocking.

The liberating females of our society have missed the joy of knowing what it means to live with a man who claims he’s always out of socks, but YOU know there are two more pairs in the drawer and [of course] only YOU can find them!

Most husbands are generally quite liberal with their wives in spite of the ‘Lib Movement’… I’ll have you know that my husband has always allowed me to make all sorts of important decisions – like: ‘Does that child need a nap?’

[As well as] ‘Should that baby have her pants changed?’ ‘Do you really need another new pant suit?’ ‘Must your mother call here every day?’ ‘Should we recognize Red China?’ ‘Will they find Howard Hughes?’

The only liberation I want is to get away from the kids once in a while, without having the school counselor label me as a parent who doesn’t care. When you cannot free yourself from the oven encased in molten lasagna and apple pie fossils, you know that liberation is but a piper’s dream in your soap opera saga.

On the other hand, my husband takes a realistic approach to my emancipation. He claims women have never had it so good… (What does HE know?)

His trying to tell me about women’s rights is like trying to tell General Eisenhower about World War II. However, I look at it this way: ‘Either give me liberty… OR GIVE ME A CLEANING LADY!’

I read at NationalDayCalendar.com that the average American spends about six hours a week cleaning their home. By taking on one room of my house each day, as the website suggests, and cleaning it from top to bottom for one hour – although, I think it will take me longer than that, in most of my rooms – I can burn a lot of calories, which is a win-win.

HowStuffWorks.com has a great article, called “20 Everyday Activities and the Calories They Burn”, by the Editors of Publications International, Ltd. It lists the calorie-burning benefits of many daily chores and cleaning tasks.

Supposedly, 30 minutes dusting, burns 80 calories; 30 minutes mopping, burns 153 calories; 30 minutes folding clothes, burns 72 calories; and 30 minutes ironing, burns 76.5 calories. Yet, who really irons these days? I think I only iron “once in a blue moon”, like when I’m quilting.

Other household “activities” that burn calories, include moving furniture, for one hour, which burns 504 calories. Sweeping a broom back and forth, for 10 minutes, burns 28 calories. Vacuuming, for 20 minutes, burns 56 calories.

Additionally, preparing dinner, for 30 minutes, burns 74 calories. I wonder if Rachael Ray knows her 30-minute meals have that perk, too! By the way, Wednesday is also National Cooking Day.

Let’s not forget about fall cleaning outside, too. Gardening and pushing a lawn mower for 1 hour, burns about 324 calories, each; and 30 minutes of raking up the clippings, burns about 171 calories. Four hours spent cleaning the yard, burns about 1,800 calories, which is 450 calories per hour, depending on the specific activities.

LAST THOUGHTS…

#FallFoliageWeek

#SaveYourPhotosDay

#SaveYourPhotosMonth

Next week begins National Fall Foliage Week. I’ve been seeing trees change colors since mid-July. A little here, a little there. However, October has the biggest wave of picturesque color change – at least, where I’m at, in Southeastern Michigan.

By the way, Saturday (as September’s last, for 2024) is also… Save Your Photos Day (PLUS, it’s still Save Your Photos Month, too). The coming days are those that me and my husband enjoy the most, especially for our one day road trips.

Blue skies and sunshine are exquisite back drops to the blue water shoreline that surrounds most of Michigan and the blazing colors of the trees that fill our beautiful state. More on day trips next week.

Thanks for visiting! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my memories of my mom, her memories, and other related things. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me at [email protected]. You can also find me on Facebook: @TheRecipeDetective.

https://www.balboapress.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-001062253

IN CLOSING…

In honor of National Coffee Day, Sunday, here’s Mom’s copycat recipe for “Frankly Cafe Intersmashional Coffee Mix” (with 3 alternate flavor variations); as seen in… Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective (Balboa Press; Jan. 2018, p. 268). [A revised reprint of Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook (Secret Recipes^TM, St. Clair, MI; May 1983, 3^rd Edition)].

#NationalCoffeeDay