Clean as a Whistle

My house is clean as a whistle, Stanley Steemer came and cleaned all the carpets and area rugs. Oh, how I love clean and I know just where I inherited the gene! My Grandma Keeling's house literally sparkled, she knew all the secrets to keeping a house spic and span. In fact, Spic and Span WAS one of them! Armed with her arsenal of cleaning products, no dust speck or germ was allowed in the little rock house where she and Grandpa lived! Even though it set smack dab in the middle of no where, with pastures all around and dirt roads that lead to town, her house was spotless.

Summers when I would go for my two week vacation, she was busy as a bee from morning till night. The beds were made as soon as we slipped out of them, "Spread up the covers." she'd say. I was an obedient child and she molded me quickly to her ways! Next was breakfast, never cereal unless it was a bowl of oatmeal chocked with nuts and bananas, butter and brown sugar and a splash of cream. More often it was hot bread in the form of buttermilk biscuits, bacon/sausage/or ham, eggs fixed the way you wanted... just as if you were a paying customer in a diner!

After breakfast the table was cleared, all except the stash of sweets that set permanently in the middle of the table. Preserves, honey, sorghum, sugar bowl, salt and pepper, and pickled hot pepper vinegar that Grandma had canned to enjoy with brown beans and cornbread. I'd wipe the table clean with the dishrag, then help dry dishes. The kitchen smelled of Ivory Snow flakes and Clorox, she'd add just a small capful to her dishwater. When she drained the water, she'd sprinkle Comet in the two porcelain sinks and then use Jubilee on the Formica table and counter tops. That was just the first hour of her day...