I dedicate this to all the women out there – wives, moms, grandmas, the ones taking care of aging parents and the ones who will be, the young women who are working away at jobs or studying day and night. I dedicate it to those who barely have enough domestic skills to make their own beds – those who’d stare at a steam iron or a potato peeler with their heads at a tilt before texting out photos to multiple people asking for help with identification. I can see their internet search box now – “antique hand-held sharp spinning thing” or “not quite triangular metal plate attached to handle with electrical cord”.

Let’s talk about guilt.  I hate the stuff.  I refuse to believe that I’m created to wallow in such muck.  No one can thrive while in that pit.  Guilt messes with my mind, making it more of an obstacle course than it already is.

The fact is, ladies – we’ve got it pretty cushy and we still need a break!  And we feel guilty for it.  I can’t tell you how that simple truth makes my head spin.  I fight guilt when I take a break.  I’m getting better, though.  Several years back, I began asking myself, “If I were my own employee, what kind of breaks would I think I deserved?”  Also, “If I were hiring someone to do what I do, what kind of schedule would I consider reasonable for her?”

I thought it would do me good to pretend I’d hired me, then fire myself for not taking the allotted time off, nodding off while on duty and rarely getting things done on time. Then, since no one else would likely apply for the job, I could re-hire myself, issue myself a new list of reasonable expectations and treat myself as I would any other woman I truly respected.

Hearken back to Mother’s Day. If you’re a mom, did you get a break? If you have a mom, did you give her a break? My daughter did. We were long overdue for a trip to the city to eat, shop and piddle. It was great. I was pooped! (I can’t say enough good things about the brunch at Lidia’s! Let’s just say that I skipped in and waddled out. Delightful!)

Then, things returned to “normal”. But, normal makes me tired. I get so behind at normal.

Someone once said, “Nobody fills out your calendar but you,” in an attempt to drive home the point that we all need to say “no” to some things and plan some margins into our lives.

I don’t know about you, but other people seem to be shoving the pen into my hand and making me write stuff all over my calendar pages.

Still, the modern woman, if she’s honest, must admit she has it pretty cushy. It helps to look at things from a different perspective. Over the course of human history, we have less work to do and a more comfortable environment in which to accomplish it than ever before.

Almost all of us now have a dishwasher. Even though we may opt to do the dishes by hand and say we don’t mind it a bit, most of us have lost contact with the idea of cooking three meals a day from scratch for a house full of people and then doing all those dishes by hand after each and every meal. I can still see Smuffy’s mom standing where she spent most of her time after feeding the husband and five growing boys.

I’ve had a copy of an old newspaper clipping for years and years. A Kansas pioneer mother had given written instructions to her daughter when she began running her own household. The family hung on to it. The El Dorado Times printed it in 1968 during their centennial to remind folks what life had been like one hundred years before. (Notes in parentheses are mine.)

How to Wash Clothes

Build a fire in the back yard to set kettle of rain water. (So, did you have to wait for a good rain before you could have laundry day? ‘Cause, I don’t think she means kettle – I think she means cauldron.)

Set tubs so smoke won’t blow in eyes if wind is pert. (Gee, thanks, Ma! You could have told me that before I filled them full of water! And…if the wind changes? How many of us have even considered smoke being a problem in getting the laundry done?)

Shave 1 hole cake lie sope in biling water. (So, I take a knife, stand over a giant “biling” cauldron and try not to cut my hand off as the cake of “sope” gets smaller and smaller and slicker and slicker? Sounds like a job for Smuffy. Oh, wait! He’s probably out somewhere behind the plow.)

Sort things.  Make 3 piles.  1 pile white, 1 pile cullord, 1 pile britches and rags.  (Britches=diapers?  Guess so.  What else would go in with the rags?  Which reminds me – we’re doing up a whole batch of bad cloth diapers and other disgusting stuff here.  I can smell this biling pot already.  There are bound to be lots of rags while I’m waiting for paper towels and tissues to be invented.)

Stir flour in cold water to smooth, then thin down with biling water.  (Flour?  Huh?  Oh, right!  Almost forgot – if we don’t starch ourselves stiff, our Sunday-go-to-meetin’ clothes will be all limp and we’ll look bedraggled on the one day this week we get to see another living soul.  Um…how much flour…water?)

Rub dirty spots on bord, then bile.  Rub cullord, but don’t bile, Just rench and starch.  (So much to remember?  I guess this requires another, smaller tub, another cake of soap and the wash bord so I can sit down on a stump and pre-treat.  I have a feeling that the ‘dirty spots” acquired out here on the prairie are more than just a few.  My poor knuckles!  Hope the fire doesn’t go out before I get all this done. Come to think of it, I don’t even know how to build a fire!  Should have had Smuffy do that before he hitched Old Ruth to the plow and headed for the south forty.)

Take white things out with broom handle, then rench, blew and starch. (Now I’m losing track of the quantity of tubs. I hope we had a dandy rain! One for biling that I can allow to cool down before I drop in the cullords, one for rinse water, one with bluing added and one with starch added? There’s got to be a system for this to keep me from starching Smuffy’s union suit! Ma!”)

Spread tee towels on grass. (Now I’ve got to catch the cow and tie her up.)

Hang old rags on fense. (Easiest part of the whole day so far. Wait! Is there a clothesline in this picture at all?)

Pour rench water in flower bed. (When did I have time to plant all these flowers?)

Scrub porch with soapy water. (I knew I should have put those tubs closer to the house. I’m not saying the porch doesn’t need it, but is there any way this could wait till tomorrow?)

Turn tubs upside down. (If I must, I must. I’m tempted to take a refreshing dip in that rench water first. What time is it anyway? There seem to have been endless delays – milking the cow, stopping to catch lunch, cook lunch, nurse the baby and so on…)

Go put on a clean dress. Smooth hair with side combs. Brew cup of tea, set and rest and count your blessins. (That is, if those little blessins behave themselves.)

I read this and my heart goes out to all the women in history who had to do this (and so much more) the hard way. Even my own mom and Smuffy’s spent years doing their laundry with a wringer washing machine and large tubs. All the wringer machines really did was eliminate the washboard and some of the cramps in your arms.

That’s my Grandpa Albert helping my dad fix the washer. I wonder what Mom’s laundry pile looked like by the time they got it running again. If it broke down somewhere between the biling and the renching…Oh, dear! We really can count our blessings each time we walk up to that washer or dryer, plop the clothes in, push a few buttons and walk away.

Yet, the stress in our lives continues to grow. We get anxious and frustrated after we’ve driven to three or four stores that are miles apart, trying to find the bulb that fits in the refrigerator. We have this anxiety only because we’re blessed with a refrigerator and a car!

I will never cease to wonder how my mom did it! Yet, she did it – the house, the meals, the garden and all the canning that went with it, the chickens, the cows to milk and, oh, yes – the blessins! Take a look at her first three little helpers. With these underfoot, not to mention the other four that followed, you might think she couldn’t have done it with a sweet nature and a sense of humor, but she did – while making all their clothes and those cute little bonnets from scratch!

I suppose she lined them (and the puppies) up under a shade tree and hoped for the best while she turned her back on them long enough to hang the wash on the line.

So, how do we step back from our modern-day stress and at the same time ease the guilt?

I suggest you consider all your failures and fire yourself. Then, since the applicant pool is likely nil, re-hire yourself. Call yourself into your office and give yourself a realistic job description because, yes, ladies, our lives are cushy-er than ever but we still need realistic expectations of ourselves. It’s the first step in a guilt-free life!

I’m issuing a challenge. This week, each time you feel frustrated because you are “so far behind”, grab the timer. Actually time yourself completing a task from start to finish. Begin a realistic list of how long it really takes to clean the kitchen, prepare a meal, fold the laundry and put it away or make a “quick trip” to the store. If you feel the same level of stress at work, you can try this there also, but generally, I feel that though we may feel pressure at work, we feel less guilt when we are on someone else’s clock. Once you’ve accumulated a list of timed tasks, you may be able to lower your expectations of getting them all finished in half the time it really takes! There are, after all, only so many hours in a day and days in the 1800’s had the same number of hours as they do today, although sometimes I find myself questioning whether that can possible be true.

Here’s Smuffy’s great-grandma Margaret, after she’d put on a clean dress and smoothed her hair with side combs.  She probably sat down in that chair and counted her blessins because at least she had the well and could draw her wash water up out of it in buckets instead of lugging it from the creek or waiting for it to rain.  If she took a little rest, I doubt she felt an ounce of guilt.

Next up? A job description you can live with! Don’t forget to “like”, pin and “share” with all the women in your life who need a new perspective so they can join me here for Part 2 of “I Surrender All – Guilt”!

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And, if you’ve never attempted to “blew” your whites and wouldn’t know quite where to start, you might want to click here. My aunt Gladys Pearl will show you the ropes and put a smile on your face.