A Weekly Schedule

While I was growing up, Mondays were for washing clothes. Spring, summer and fall, Mom would wash clothes in the basement using a wringer washer. Then she'd carry baskets of wet clothes up the steps to hang on outside clotheslines. In winter or on rainy Mondays in warmer months, the clothes were hung in the basement. If it started to rain before the clothes were dry outside, she'd have to take them off the line and carry them back down to the basement and rehang them there to finish drying.

Tuesdays and probably stretching into Wednesdays she ironed. She'd sprinkle the clothes with water then rolled them up until they were evenly damp before ironing. I still remember the smell of warm freshly ironed clothes.

Friday evenings Dad, Mom, my brother, Jerry, and I went out to eat and then did the weekly grocery shopping before going home. When my parents had more kids, Dad did the grocery shopping on his way home since Mom didn't drive. Eating out became very rare then. Fridays always meant either fish or macaroni and cheese for supper.

On Saturdays my dad and one of my uncles took turns taking my brother, two cousins and me to catechism classes at St. Cyril and Methodius in town. If it was my dad's turn to pick us up, we often stopped at the library, too.
      

Sometimes on a Saturday evening, we'd visit Aunt Margaret and her family. It was the day she baked for the coming week. I remember the many loaves of fresh baked bread lining the kitchen counter. What  we enjoyed most - in addition to playing with our cousins - were deep, fat, fried prune rolls sprinkled with powdered sugar served with a glass of cold milk. Nothing tasted better.    

Sundays were for Mass and almost always in the spring, summer and fall, for picnics afterwards.  We went with my mother's sister, Aunt Millie, her husband and their four kids. What fun those picnics were. We traveled anywhere we could go in two hours or less and rarely visited the same place more than once in a summer. This was before innerstate highways and roads with more than two lanes. Family reunions were on Sunday's, too.

Now most of my days don't follow a set schedule. I get groceries when I need them, wash clothes when I have enough light or dark clothes to make up a load. I still hang clothes outside if the weather permits. Ironing? I seldom do any ironing. Thank goodness for wash and wear clothes. Sunday morning I still go to Mass, and twice a month on Thursdays I deliver Mobile Meals and/or attend one of my two book clubs.

Because for the most part I don't have a set schedule, I rely on my calendar and my weekly list of things to do. I've always kept a "To Do" list. Once my youngest sister looked at it and said it made her so tired reading it that she had to lie down and take a nap. My lengthy list is never finished at the end of the week. Some things have been rolled over to the following week for quite a few months now. This week I'm going to write a long overdue letter to a friend of mine and also send congratulations to a former student for setting a world record in a running event. Yes I am. I really am going to do those two things this week. That is I will after I finish planting the squash . . . or maybe after the beans are planted.