Lady Naps

My Grandma Nan was an incredible Irish lady, 4'10" tall, who never reached 100 pounds in her 90 years of life.  She was lively, sweet and sassy and the best Grandma in the world.  While my Dad was in the Korean War, Mom had to work in the city and I was left in the care of my grandparents and Grammy Rose.  At that time I was still an only child and the first grandchild in the family and all the attention was mine!   

Grandma Nan and Grammy were clean ~~  no, they were CLEAN!  They were proud to have the house where "you could eat off the floors".  I used to wonder why anyone would want to eat off the floor.  The windows and screens were washed every week, the floors were mopped every day, there was never a dirty dish to be found and of course there was never any laundry in the hamper.  Both Grammy and Nan believed that cleanliness was next to Godliness and they practiced that mission with passion!  Everyone had chores to do and mine was to scrub the front porch and steps with a scrub brush and bucket of soapy water.  I got this job because I was closer to the floor than the grownups were!  I didn't mind because anything that involved water thrilled me and didn't feel like work.

In our house it was the goal to have all the housework, laundry and baking finished by noon.  At high noon we would eat a bite of lunch in the sun room, which we washed down with huge glasses of sweet iced tea.  Nan and Grammy put a lot of stock in young ladies having good manners and instilled in me the importance of chewing with my mouth closed, using a napkin rather than the back of my hand to wipe my mouth and not talking with my mouth full (this was a big one for me because I was a chatterbox).  After lunch we took a 'lady nap' for about an hour.  After our naps we would spend the rest of the afternoon sewing, reading, working on puzzles or just listening to the radio.  If I was extra good I might get a popsicle ~ which I had to eat outdoors so I wouldn't drip on the clean floors.   Life was good, so good!

This looking back makes me wonder why I let myself get so busy and stressed.  Tomorrow I think I'll stop working at noon, take myself a 'lady nap' and spend the rest of the afternoon in the sewing room. 

By the way, at our house clean enough is good enough!


Wishing you Peace & Plenty!