Wash Day Blues........

Another day of washing clothes done.  I usually do the laundry Monday mornings.  Any other day messes up my week.  We live in the country so water is not to be wasted, hence usually one day a week for this job, so the basket is filled to overflowing.  Except for going for groceries on Thursday mornings, that is about all I have on a schedule, unless you count having meals on time.  Free as a bird most days, making up own mind what has to be done or not....housework usually falls into the latter.
 
Was musing at lunchtime today while chomping on my salad that there must have been a lot of Wash Day Blues down through the ages.  It does seem even in this "enlightened" age that it is the female gender that's saddled with the responsibility of making sure everyone has clean attire & heaven help her if they don't.  Sometimes tho' it does become a wrestling match trying to snatch that article of clothing as in "good lord man!  Those socks are starting to walk away on their own!"  Or on the other end of the spectrum "What do you mean it has to be washed?!  You only tried that shirt on & decided not to wear it.  It is not dirty!"
 
One thing about living in this day & age, I don't have to cart the basket down to our creek & pound the clothes on the rocks there, or even as Mom did as generations before her, have to make the lye soap with which to clean the clothes.  Have watched her make the soap & my eyes still sting with the memory of the sharp smell of lye.  One thing I have used that I don't think too many of today even know about is the old "knuckle-buster", a scrub board.  That consisted of a ridged glass encased by a wooden frame that had a pair of legs so you could sit it in the soapy water while rubbing the shirt or cloth diapers up & down the ridges to remove the stains.  These ridges would sometimes come in contact with your knuckles as you were scrubbing as hard as you could.  Skinned knuckles in soapy water was always fun.
 
All in all, today is a good day......
 
Starfire