HOUSE WORK . . . BLAUGH !

It is such a burden being a house wife. All we do is cook and clean. Oh Me - Oh My   life is tough.

HA HA HA   who am I kidding.  I just decided that I REALLY REALLY needed to clean the oven. I walked into the kitchen. Turned 2 dials and VOILA ! In 2 or 3 hours I will have a clean oven. Remember the "good" old days ladies? When you needed an entire afternoon to attack the oven. Don't forget to put on the extra thick rubber gloves so that when you sprayed, (spray was a great improvement over the jar of gunk that you  "painted" on the oven surfaces.)  the toxic cleaner into the oven you wouldn't burn off the first 2 layers of skin.  And then there was the 2 hour wait for the gunk to eat through the mess inside the oven, all the while making your eyes and nose burn from the stink. This was a job preferably done in the summer when you could open all the windows and turn on fans so you didn't drop dead from the fumes. I know there are women out there who actually clean the oven after each use . . .  but they are not friends of mine and so are not reading this blog. My idea of cleaning the oven is when the oven shelves won't slide out because they are "glued" to the brackets on the side of the oven. The bottom of the oven usually looks like the city dump with piles of ash and goo all stuck together. It isn't until I am cooking for guests that I even think to look at the inside of my oven. There comes a point where anything I bake comes out with a smoky flavor thanks to the constant burning of residue on the floor of the oven.
So today was the day. It is chilly and breezy out so the doors can be opened to remove the smell of burning whatever.  The vent fan is on full blast to suck out all the smoke and the candles are burning to try to cover any remaining stink.  Back in the day I had a little fan over the stove that couldn't remove anything but lint and grease from the kitchen. How that fan used to get so clogged with dirt was beyond me but I NEVER cleaned that thing.
Now my house is work free.  Spanish tile floors remove the need for floor washing, until the grand kids are here and their little socks or bare feet turn black within the first hour. So now the cleaning ladies wash all the floors every 2 weeks.  The dust is supposed to be removed by the air filter system but when the windows and doors are open the dust comes in. And so the cleaning ladies remove that every 2 weeks. Windows get cleaned when I can't see the house next door. Those we do ourselves, unless we have friends staying in our house and they clean all the windows for us. (That's the sort of house guests I LOVE! Thanks once again Sharon and Bob.)  The showers get sprayed daily by the little machine that hangs on the wall, the fridge is frost free so there are no day long ice chipping adventures like we used to have when the freezer door wouldn't close because of the ice build up, and who needs to vacuum? I just open the doors and windows and everything just blows out the door. Or the cleaning ladies get it on their next visit.
Yep . . . .  life is tough!  I have to go walk to the mail box to get today's mail. I haven't figured out how to get around that. Although I do all my banking on line so I don't have to stand in line at the bank or post office for stamps.  So how come I don't have more free time?