Women, mothers, and tea towels

I think I've talked about this before, but here we go again. 

Yesterday I whitened some of my new tea towels.  I had been planning it since the last time I washed them and realized it needed doing.  I used Oxyclean rather than bleach, because of the coloured stripes. The process requires a lengthy soak in very hot water and chemicals, followed by a good wash in super hot water and an extra rinse.  Now they are dry, so today, I will iron , and carefully fold them before putting them in the special drawer in the kitchen, that is used only for tea towels.

Mom got this obsessiveness from Grannie who always said she could judge how good a housekeeper a woman was by her tea towels.  They were linen in those days, and much more difficult to care for than the cotton we use now.  However, I still look for linen first when I buy new ones, but now just can't afford the much, much more expensive linen. I don't remember where Mom kept her tea towels, the drawer idea came from David's mother, who also ironed her tea towels until she moved to the lake.  So we have three generations of woman who are obsessive about tea towels--for fear of being judged.  I know it's crazy, but I experience a feeling of satisfaction when I look at a pile of newly ironed tea towels.

In today's Free Press there was an editorial about the evolution of newspapers, and the move away from print.  Evidently, there is now a way to get the whole Free Press on line, with a 6 day subscription, and I believe I can access it automatically with my print subscription.  I follow the news feed on the internet daily, but see almost nothing in the way of local news.  David has been objecting to our receiving a newspaper every day, of which certain sections will sometimes go directly from the front door to the recycling.  I think I'm going to look into this further.

So I've managed to write a lot of stuff without saying anything about life at my house.  What can I say?  We watch old movies on tv, and read library books.  Everything is ready for the craft sale next week.  

I am just starting a new series about a young girl who solves mysteries.  I takes place shortly after the second world war in England.  This is not really a young people's series, as the events etc are much more adult in nature. I read one several years ago and loved it, then found another in the new releases at the library.  When I looked closer, I realized there is a whole series, so have elected to start at the beginning.  The Flavia de Luce series by Alan Bradley.

And today I do house work--ye-e-e-ch!