Housekeeping Olympian

Well don't look at me! I mean my mother.

It's now midnight. My sister and husband are in the kitchen cooking up a storm for Saturday's big feast. We are having a work party tomorrow, where friends and family show up to help us put the porches on the house we are building and we feed them lots of (hopefully) good food. Selena and Clancy are laughing their heads off while they perfect the oven-load of meatballs and the sink-sized crock of potato salad. They are night owls and rarely get this cook into the night and have a blast treat in my company. (I might add that the entire meal, right down to the apple pie bars, is gluten free. We girls and all of our children have Celiac disease.)

I made my contribution earlier in the day...I did my best to keep up with my mother. My house needed cleaning in a bad way. And Mother is the most extraordinary house cleaner person I know. She showed up at 11am and I had to send her home around 10pm. She was on her way out to clean the yard with my youngest when I intercepted her with heartfelt cautions about how uneven the footing would be in the dark.

I figure the least I can do while my mother is on her hands and knee-pads vacuuming my floor (yes, she shows up with professional grade knee-pads) is to remain standing and try my best to do useful jobs. Honestly, I can't keep up with her. If I hadn't convinced her to go home I would have fallen over. In the end, she took pity on me and agreed to let me get some rest.

When she showed up this morning, Mom started in the far corner of the house and worked her way slowly and deliberately toward the front door. She made a detour up the stairs with the promise that she was only going to vacuum the hallway. I came back from moving Anna Belle to find that Mom had cleaned the bathroom, cleaned the three boys rooms and vacuumed all. Good Heavens!

I got a double batch of really good hummus made this afternoon. And I cleaned off my desk which will no doubt serve as an eating table tomorrow. I did lots of other jobs too, but I'm too bleary-eyed to remember them. (Selena and Clancy are now comparing notes on what they ate today. Cooks are strange). Oh yeah...I baked a chicken and made a heavy stew/wet casserole thing for the boys and Mom. The boys dubbed it the Big Disaster but it tasted good. Can I go to bed now?

P.S. The Wenk's Yellow Hots are turning red! They are on the menu for tomorrow. Hope they are yummy. And I promise to be more coherent the next time I post.