Streamlining Housework

If you haven't noticed me grumbling about cleaning my kitchen lately, it's because I haven't been. (Grumbling, that is!) When I decided a few weeks ago to split up the big jobs into alternate weeks, it made all the difference in the world. Cleaning the kitchen still means a good solid two hours of work once a week, but the work just seems a lot more manageable than it did before.

And there isn't anything I really enjoy about this particular chore. When the job is done, though, my kitchen looks so nice. I catch myself doing a double take or two just to see how lovely it looks with a shiny sink, clean countertops, and a stovetop that positively gleams! If I can find something interesting on the radio, it always makes the work go faster, and I take a few breaks to drink some water and to put on some hand lotion. The good stuff. If I going to baby my hands at some point during the week, this is definitely the time to do so. Working with all that soap and water can be super drying to the skin.

Speaking of cleansers, soap and water aren't the only things at work in my kitchen these days. I use baking soda when cleaning the interior of the refrigerator/freezer and Comet to scour the sink. Cellulose sponges and dishtowels are my tools of choice, with an occasional Brillo Pad on a stubborn drip pan and - once in a great while - a paper towel. It's funny. On the rare occasions that I'd do any kind of cleaning in my kitchen in the past, I would never have set foot in there without a roll of paper towels and a canister of disinfectant wipes. I guess I was just afraid of having to put any kind of elbow grease to work. I thought chemicals could do the work for me. These days, I can go a month before having to change the roll of paper towels in my kitchen. And that's one of the small rolls! Paper towels get used now only for spot cleaning.

As I get accustomed to the mechanics of cleaning the kitchen, I catch myself finding little ways to make the work go faster. Here's my latest discovery: If I remove the drip pans before scrubbing the stovetop down (Is that what those metal trays under the burners are called?), then pop the lid and clean out underneath the stovetop, then wash the drip pans in the sink --- the stovetop and the area underneath it will be practically air-dried by the time I'm ready to reassemble the whole affair. That means my dishtowel will get less wet on that particular job and I can use it longer before having to replace it with another. I love finding little techniques like this to streamline the work!

Sadly, I don't think there's a soul among the women I talk with on a regular basis who could understand my excitement over something like this. Shoes? They could understand. A decorating idea for a dinner party? They'd get it. We just don't talk about housework in this day and age. It's that hidden thing that must be done, but isn't very fashionable to discuss. How are girls supposed to learn how to maintain a home if it's no longer cool even to mention the process? If our mothers hardly have enough time to keep house themselves - never mind teaching their daughters how to do it - and it isn't fashionable to discuss it with your girlfriends, how are we supposed to learn or better our craft? Housework's become the great unmentionable among women, and yet it's getting done is indispensible.

One of the other things that gives this little housekeeper a thrill these days are the ads for Parkay Margarine and Kraft Dinner that have been preserved along with episodes of The Great Gildersleeve from 1941 and 1942. The ads reference a rhythm to housework that must have been completely familiar to listeners of the era... Kraft Dinner - which we now call plain ol' macaroni and cheese - was billed as a fabulous option for dinner on Monday nights. A night when Mother must have been worn to the bone by the wash... As the announcer describes all the perks of using a product like Parkay Margarine, he mentions the baking that would have been done in a Christian household on Saturdays. (The program was aired lived on Sunday evenings):

I wonder how many of you housewives baked a cake or some cookies yesterday for your Sunday dinner today. A lot of you did, I’m sure, because there’s nothing like that real home-baked flavor. Well, here’s a hint for the next time you bake. For luscious, extra flavor in cookies, cakes, and pastries, use delicious Parkay margarine for the shortening...

My own 1945 menu for dinner this evening features a wartime meatless dish:

Peanut Roast
Pennsylvania Cabbage Salad with Sour Cream Dressing

The dessert, Apricot Whip, is made with raw egg whites, so - rather than play around with salmonella - I may substitute a Dried Apricot Cake. Is there any Parkay in the house?

"A shining, crystal-clear window"

Every time I clean my bedroom, I've been adding one new task to my list of chores. Instead of jumping in feet first and failing miserably, I thought I'd start with the basics and work my way slowly to a picture perfect bedroom. And it's been working. I haven't even really noticed that tiny increase in work from week to week. This was a pretty intimidating mission at first, so I guess this might be a good way to approach each of the missions that intimidates me.

Last Thursday, my brand new task for the week was washing the bedroom windows. America's Housekeeping Book (1945) dedicates an entire chapter to "Windows and Window Fittings." And why shouldn't they? Windows were one way that even a stranger walking by on the street could form an impression of your skill at housekeeping. Take a look inside:

A shining, crystal-clear window is a real source of pride. How long it will stay clear and sparkling is a moot question. The answer depends on the weather, the amount of dust and soot in the air, the number of times sticky little fingers are pressed against it, and so on...

No matter what method and materials you choose, one word of caution is necessary. Don't ever sit on the window sill to wash the outside of the window panes, and do not allow a household employee to sit there either. With most windows it is possible to raise and lower the panes to get at the outside window without relinquishing a firm footing. If this isn't true of your windows, or if you live in an apartment building, then you must call in a professional window cleaner to wash the outside.

Schnikey! Should I be checking the Yellow Pages for a window cleaning service? I don't think my landlord has any plans to clean the outsides of these windows. They're pretty streaked. The manual immediately mentions the "liquid cleaners" that you could buy for windows, but here are a few alternatives. A word of caution: some of these are not for the faint of heart.

2 tablespoons household ammonia to 2 quarts warm water, or

2 tablespoons vinegar to 2 quarts warm water, or

1 tablespoon borax to 2 quarts warm water, or

1 tablespoon kerosene to 2 quarts warm water, or

1/2 cup denatured alcohol (POISON) to 2 quarts warm water

All these solutions are applied with a clean, soft lintless cloth or a cellulose or natural sponge. Wipe them off with a rubber squeegee, a clean damp chamois or soft dry cloth.

I made a solution of warm water and apple cider vinegar, and it did the job. A nice clean shine, though it didn't coax that delicious squeak from the glass that Windex makes. (How does it make that squeaky sound?) Windex has been around since 1933 and whoever owned it did a heck of a job with the marketing. Ads for Windex are everywhere in women's magazines of the '40s.

Here's one great tip from the manual: "Never work in direct sunlight - the window panes dry too quickly and are apt to look streaked."

Taking Stock

I’m working away at the week’s ironing this evening - but I’ve got a few moments while my iron heats up from the “Nylon” setting to the “Polyester” setting, so I thought I’d share a few tips from the manual on cleaning refrigerators.

The authors of America’s Housekeeping Book (1945) acknowledged that many American kitchens still contained "ice refrigerators" and wrote up lots of instructions - completely mysterious to me - for removing accumulated "slime" from the drain pipe and refreshening the ice supply with an occasional bath of baking soda. (Boy, am I glad not to have to worry about slime in my kitchen!) Here is some welcome advice on caring for "automatic" refrigerators:

Daily:
Wipe up any spilled food at once.

Wipe top of refrigerator with a cloth wrung out in soap water. Rinse with a cloth wrung out in clear water. Dry.

Remove any fingerprints around the handle of the door with mild soap and water. Rinse and dry as above.

Weekly:
(This cleaning is usually done after defrosting. Unless your refrigerator is equipped with an automatic defrosting device, it should be defrosted whenever the accumulation of frost is ¼-inch thick.)

Empty the pan under the freezing unit, wash in warm suds, rinse thoroughly and dry. Remove freezing trays, empty and wash in hot soapsuds. Rinse with scalding water and dry. Remove racks or shelves and wash in the same way.

Remove racks or shelves and wash them in hot soapsuds. Rinse with scalding water and dry thoroughly.

Wash interior with a cloth wrung out of cool water in which borax or baking soda has been dissolved. (1 tablespoon of borax or soda to 1 pint water.)

Wash exterior with mild soapsuds. Rinse with a cloth wrung out of clean water, dry thoroughly.

Follow the manufacturer's directions for oiling the motor at regular intervals. (With most new models no oiling is necessary.)

This last Saturday morning was the first time I'd cleaned my refrigerator since the middle of last summer --- and then only because I was expecting houseguests. Though cleaning it every week still sounds a bit excessive to me, it's definitely a little easier when you empty all the food at once as well as the racks and bins. Plus it's a great chance to face your scary leftovers and get rid of any expired foods you might have forgotten about. The fact that the manual suggests that the kitchen be cleaned the day before the housewife does the bulk of her marketing makes good sense, too. She'd be able to check on the freshness of whatever produce she might still have on hand. And if she's running low on something she keeps in the fridge, here's her chance to take stock and add it to the grocery list!

Have any of you ever cleaned with borax? I've never used it before. Is it safe? Is it useful in cleaning other items?

Too Tired for Titles

My, oh-me, oh-my... What a day! I spent in total about three hours working on my kitchen. Most of it this morning - then I cut out at noon as I had some place to be - then I was back to work this evening to finish the job. Thus far, cleaning the kitchen has easily been the most physically demanding chore. I took a couple breaks to drink some water and, once, to lay down on my bed and close my eyes for a few minutes.

The basic layout of the routine is organized around the three major appliances. First, the refrigerator. Second, the range. Third, the sink. Which makes sense - as you use the sink so much in cleaning things - from the crisper bins and racks in the refrigerator to the drip trays on the range. By the time you're finished cleaning everything else, the sink gets a final scrub and polish and you're finished. I'm actually not quite finished. My garbage can is airing dry outdoors on my landing. I'll bring it in in a few hours and throw a clean bag inside.

What was interesting was how few cleansers I needed in a room that gets as dirty as the kitchen. Per the manual, I used baking soda dissolved in cool water to clean out the inside of the refrigerator. Scouring powder to clean the drip trays. And lots of hot water, scalding water, and soapsuds. The only tools I needed: a sponge, a few clean dish towels (I put these in the wash as they got soiled), and a nylon scrubby thing. Some steel wool would have done a better job on the drip trays, though, so I picked up a box of those at the grocery store for next week. You really can do an amazing job with just a very few simple tools and cleansers. The disinfectant habit is so ingrained in me that it was tough not to use some of the stronger cleansers I had on hand. For a finishing touch, I guess. We've been so bombarded with ads promoting antibacterial cleansers and disinfectant wipes that it's tough to figure out whether these things are truly important in housekeeping or not. The only time the manual recommends using a disinfectant is occasionally in cleaning the garbage can.

Although I didn't even notice when I typed up the list of chores for the kitchen, there are several major items missing! The floor, for one. Which is strange, as the manual mentions floor care for every other room in the house. They do mention in a chapter on "Floors" that the "kitchen floors may need to be damp-mopped every day" and "may require washing once a week or oftener." They just leave this item out of the daily and weekly routine entirely. The authors of the manual never mention cleaning up smaller appliances. And they neglect entirely any care needed to a breakfast nook or dining alcove in the kitchen. These kinds of things are certainly covered in other chapters, it's just odd that they are aren't mentioned specifically in daily or weekly chores for the kitchen. The authors are usually so detailed!

I'm so tired I can't even think in a straight line, so I'll leave you with my 1945 dinner menu for tomorrow evening and call it a night:

Whipped Potatoes
Buttered Beets
Tossed Greens Salad
Chocolate Pudding