Tuesday 4~Housekeeping

 Housekeeping

Toni Taddeo's Tuesday 4 welcomes you and we are very happy to have you back.


Can we talk about housekeeping and chores today since January was usually the time for white sales and replacing linens and towels for the household.

1. My mother ironed sheets and pillowcases. I iron the cases but not the sheets. I feel that the cases feel better after ironing and I like the fancy ruffles etc to look better. What do you do? Is ironing a waste of time for you?

I do not iron anything if I can help it. I don't recall my mother ironing sheets and pillowcases, but she did hang them on the line to dry, and they came out a lot smoother and smelled so sweet that way.  

HERE is a link to a post I wrote a few years ago about hanging sheets on the line.

2. A few friends really enjoy ironing. Are there any articles of clothing you iron ? And do you send clothing to the dry cleaner?

I rarely ever iron anymore. If something has been hanging too long and has wrinkles, I may put it back through the dryer (after dampening it a bit), to get the wrinkles out.  I no longer have many things that need to go to the dry cleaner. When my hubby was still preaching, he had suits that needed to be dry-cleaned, but he doesn't wear suits anymore except for maybe a wedding or a funeral.

3. Home is enhanced by good cooking, clean rooms, freshly made beds, quilt and the lovely touches women bring to things. What special touches do you put on your home to make it special, cozy and warm?

Click HERE for a post about the quilts in our home.  I wish I could say that I made those quilts, but I've never learned to do that. I just enjoy the ones that I've accumulated through the years from family/friends/gifts.  As far as special touches go, I try to keep our home cozy and comfortable and not the kind of house where people are afraid to touch anything or sit on the furniture. Our home is meant to be lived in and love in.  

4. Do you recall Mom or Grandma sprinkling and ironing clothing? Was there a laundry day set aside and an ironing day? What is washday like at your house>

Yes, I do recall my mother sprinkling and ironing clothing. Thankfully I was the youngest child and I managed to escape most of that "chore". My sister did a lot of the ironing for one of her chores. (I cleaned the bathroom and dusted the house).  Then I recall for a while that my mother actually took our ironing to a lady in town who did it for us to earn some money. My mother was working full time and we kids were busy in school activities, etc., and it was a big help to have the ironing done for us. I don't think she charged much or we couldn't have done it.  And yes, Saturdays were laundry day. My mother would make us strip our beds and the sheets would get washed and hung on the line. Then all the other laundry would get washed and also hung on the line, until one fine day we were able to afford an electric dryer. But my mother still hung the sheets and most of the towels on the line. Of course in Florida, we would get a lot of pop up thunderstorms and we'd have to run out and get the clothes off the line right away! Those were exciting times! LOL.    Washday here now is most anytime I see we need to do a load of towels and underwear, and then a load of clothes.  They are washed and dryed and folded and put away as soon as possible so they don't lay there and get wrinkled!  By doing smaller loads more often it doesn't become a huge job all on one day. I prefer it that way since I'm retired.

However we choose to do our laundry or clean our homes, we are to be a sweet fragrance to Christ in all that we do...

2 Corinthians 2:14-16 says this:

"Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the FRAGRANCE of HIS knowledge in every place.

For we are to God the FRAGRANCE of Christ

among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.

To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death,

and to the other the aroma of life leading to life.

And who is sufficient for these things?"

I pray that my home and my life will be a sweet smelling fragrance of God to those who enter in.  Amen.

Now let's go see what others are sharing today on Tuesday 4! Have a blessed and clean and fresh day! Click HERE!

Some Things Are Simply Irresistible - Revisited and Updated

4/12/2018:  Spring is in the air!  Time to start hanging out those stale linens and freshen up the house...open the windows and let the fresh air inside!! At least that is how I was feeling a couple of years ago about this time....read on:

Original Post 4-11-2016

I honestly don't know why I am so entranced with the thoughts of having clean sheets hanging on the clothesline to dry....

But here they are...

And then there is the marvelous sensation of the smell and feel of those sun-kissed, air-dried sheets when you take them off of the clothesline and fold them and put them in the basket...I literally stood there breathing in the joy of it and almost passed out from breathing so deeply and for so long...It was simply irresistible.

 Apparently the scent of clean linen is such a wonderful fragrance that many air freshener manufacturers have tried to duplicate it in a spray or other types of deodorizers for the home.

 The canned artificial fragrances don't even come close in my opinion. There is nothing like the real thing.

I absolutely LOVE the delicate blue rose print on this old fashioned vintage cotton sheet. Actually...a friend of mine just gave me this sheet...she had purchased it at a church yard sale and decided she didn't need it after all, and I told her that if she truly did not want it I would LOVE to have it.

Why?  I'm not sure. It's a full size sheet and I don't even have a full-size bed!  Mine are all queen size!

UPDATE 2018:  I do have a full size bed now, and I am using this sheet on that bed! We got this antique bed from my mother-in-law's house when she went to the nursing home. It originally belonged to my husband's paternal grandparents, so it is pretty old and special...and this sheet fits perfectly!!

But something about this lovely little blue-flowered sheet was irresistible! It stirred up a nostalgic reaction in me that I cannot even begin to identify...and when she so sweetly gave it to me I almost broke out in tears.  (I must need a vacation or a shrink...not sure which...or both! Ha Ha!)




It's kind of like the GRACE of God...a gift that is simply irresistible...

Ephesians Chapter Two verses 1-10 describes this irresistible grace to us...I will just hit the highlights here:

1> "And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins...

4>"But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,

5>even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ 

(by grace you have been saved),

8>For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; 

it the the GIFT of GOD,

9>NOT OF WORKS, lest anyone should boast."

God's Grace: It is an irresistible gift from God to us...that we have never fully understood how or why He would give it to us when we didn't even deserve it..but yet it is something that we needed so desperately and it would be foolish for us to resist His marvelous gift of grace.

And then...listen to THIS...WE actually become that sweet fragrance of Christ to God and the world...

2 Corinthians 2:14-16 says this:

"Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the FRAGRANCE of HIS knowledge in every place.

For we are to God the FRAGRANCE of Christ 

among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.

To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, 

and to the other the aroma of life leading to life. 

And who is sufficient for these things?"

I'm not totally sure how I got from hanging sheets on the line to the gift of the Grace of God and becoming the Sweet Fragrance of Christ to the world...but perhaps that is why I couldn't resist that beautiful little blue flowered sheet.  It inspired a simply irresistible story that needed to be told.

Have a blessed day my friends...and perhaps today would be a good day to hang out some sheets on the line...and breathe in the real sweet fragrance...not something artificial from a can...and become a sweet fragrance of Christ (and again, not something canned and artificial)...to someone else along the way!


By the way: This isn't the first time I've talked about hanging clothes/sheets on the line here...check out these other posts written in the past few years: "What's My Line?", and "Fresh Southern-Country Living Scents and Scenes" ...and it also isn't the first time I've talked about being the Sweet Fragrance of Christ (click on links for these posts).  Some things really are "simply irresistible".