Really Old School

Robert's Guide for Butlers and Other Household Staff

My loving niece gave me this wonderful book for the holidays.  It pleases me is so many different ways: it was originally published in 1827, they retained what appears to be the original typeface, the instructions and guides within offer a delightful insight into the duties of a domestic just before the turn of the century.  Many of the tasks have, of course, fallen into disuse and are only interesting from a historical perspective, but I am surprised at how many remain useful.  I suppose good housekeeping has not changed as much as I might have thought.

There are also included a number of interesting recipes that I am dying to try out - spruce beer, ginger beer, a most excellent sounding punch (with dark rum,) and several more.

This book is wonderful for curling up at the end of a long day and imagining, just for a while, that you are in charge of a manor house somewhere outside of New York, and well satisfied with the fruit of your labours.

Depression and housework

Depression makes everything harder.  Housekeeping is no different.

Depression makes you not look at the cup in the sink, even after it becomes two cups, a bowl, a colander, and several pieces of Tupperware.  Depression causes making the bed to seem pointless, laundry to sit in the dryer unfolded, and cat hair to clump on furniture.  Depression can make you wonder why you are putting in the effort at all.

However, even depression leaves a choice.  Even through the depression, I washed the dishes.  I vacuumed.  I am doing the laundry.  It's later than I would like, and it's going to have to be done again in the morning, but at least at some point today I will be able to look around and say, "it is finished."  Even if I had not finished, doing something, anything, is better than doing nothing.  And, since I have a schedule of what needs to be done each day, I'm not overwhelmed by everything.  For instance, today I don't have to think about the bathrooms, or the kitchen.  All I have to think about is laundry.  And if laundry takes five hours rather than two, then at least it is done and won't be hanging over my head tomorrow.  I am highly impressed by how much having a cleaning schedule helps me, and I highly recommend it.

I am so thankful for my friends.  If it were not for one contacting me today to go to lunch, I'm not sure if I would have been able to get up and do what I have today.  Everyone needs something to help them when they are down.

For tonight, it is almost done.  I can sleep tonight knowing that my house is once again clean.

Holidays

It's amazing what one day of neglect will do.  Or rather how much detail I notice now that I'm looking for it.  I can tell that I did not vacuum yesterday.  I don't have that feeling of satisfaction from finishing a day's housework.   With it being the holidays and all, probably I won't get a chance to do any housework until Monday.  Probably...it won't be too hard to get things back in order; really there isn't a whole lot that needs to be done.  It just feels like it.

Next week I need to get materials for hand sewing.  I've been avoiding it, but almost every casual skirt I own has a tear in it.

Happy holidays to those who celebrate it, and a restful weekend to all.

Linens and Lives Lived

If you wish to have superior results, you simply cannot work with inferior materials.  Today is washing and ironing, and although I am doing things by the book i simply cannot be happy with my results.  Part of it is my fault, I did not check the napkins for stains before I washed them, and I did not use distilled water in my iron.  So, my napkins have faint but noticeable (to me) grease stains that now will never come out, and my olive tablecloth has hard water marks.  Fortunately, I am not working with my good linens right now (and have no intent to until I get this right.)

The linens I have out now are inexpensive cotton ones from Target, which are fine for casual use.  That said, now that I am paying more attention to detail I am unhappy with the craftsmanship that went into making them.  The seams are not at all even - I think I could sew a better seam (an I am a lousy seamstress.)  Ironing them makes the distortion even more obvious (to me.)  Granted, once folded no one would ever know, and to be truthful even unfolded most people would neither notice nor care.

I talked more with my mother today, mostly about the comparative benefits of using fitted sheets or flat sheets on a mattress.  I think we both decided that flat sheets folded with a hospital corner look very smart on a bed, so I will put some energy into learning this technique.

I also found out that my mother learned domestic service from her grandmother, who ran a boarding house.  I'm going to ask her to email me with more information about that time in her life.  I never knew my great grandmother; she died the year I was born.  I knew only that she had ten children, and that she helped raise my eldest brother while my Father was in the service.

The day is almost half over, and I feel that I've accomplished a lot.  Dusting and vacuuming will finish my housework for the day, and I will have plenty of time before I have to start dinner.

Myrrhianna vs The Baseboards

Learned very valuable things today:

• Tasks left unfinished one day can make the next day backbreaking.
• Rags are much better for cleaning flat surfaces than sponges
• Tilting my head forward 90 degrees still gives me a splitting headache
• I cannot defeat the combination of the Arizona dust and the bathroom baseboards. No amount of scrubbing got them clean.  

Overall, day two of being domestic was not bad.  It was wonderful to wake up to a clean kitchen, and not really difficult to keep it that way all day.  Getting an earlier start would have been helpful, especially since I had not finished laundry on Monday, which means cleaning the bathrooms didn't get started until mid afternoon.  And since this was the first thorough cleaning of the bathroom, it took longer than it usually would. Hopefully subsequent weeks will be easier, and my chores should be done by noon, rather than 5:30.

Tomorrow I get to do more laundry (towels and linens) which should be a piece of cake, I hope.

Where I try to be Domestic

If I can find one, and the funds, I want to take courses in housekeeping, or maybe the art of being a Butler.  Though...most of the decent schools are in England.  I can keep things sort of together around the house, but I really lack the grace and organizational skills to run things smoothly.  Women have done this for centuries, and yet I find myself floundering.

Possibly it's because as an American I have given up the domestic skills in place of convenience.  Maybe that's why I flail when I have to do a casual place setting, or iron table linens properly, or fold napkins.  Or do daily cleaning so that the house stays in order.  I wish my mother were here to teach me - there are so many basics that I don't seem to have an handle on (how do I keep the baseboards from gathering dust!)

I just got a book on the art and science of keeping house.  I'm studying, but it seems like so much to take in.  I read the section on table settings today, and need to read it again tomorrow - there is so much I didn't retain.  And I'm going to have to do settings over and over, I guess, so that it becomes instinctive.  Then I'll go on to how to serve meals.  So much to learn....

Tonight was my first trial run serving a dinner properly, and while it didn't go poorly I made several glaring errors...so frustrating.  I really need more practice.  Maybe part of it is the layout of the common southwest house - the kitchen is open to the rest of the common area, so there is no place where I can do prep-work out of view.  That, however, has been a common complaint of mine.  The next house I live in will have both a full kitchen and a butler's kitchen, and a actual dining room.

I hope I can get better at this....

I will be clear

I am officially stating that Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted is the reason I cannot be a practicing catholic in Arizona. I cannot accept him as an authority on god's will. May god have mercy on him, for I cannot.

How to Start the Motor?

I can remember a time when writing was a compulsion.  I remember carrying paper and pen with me everywhere to be ready to record my thoughts or plot bunnies.  I have folders full of short stories, most in various draft forms, but back then it was hard to focus on one story when three others were knocking at the door of my imagination.

It's been months since I've even felt the urge to write, even just to blog.  It feels like all of my creativity has been sucked out of me.  Maybe I have it too easy right now - my days are so flat, so full of nothing that I cannot seem to muster then energy to put pen to paper.  I wonder, what do other people do when they situations like this?  I want to create again.  I feel so barren, so without purpose, when I'm not producing something.