Martha Stewart and Nate Berkus
Without Prejudice
We have been Spring Cleaning for weeks, now. I defy any man to get the same pleasure from a good Spring Clean that a Woman does. There is almost something sacred to the feeling, a Cleanliness is next to Godliness overwhelming emotion. I think of my ancestors with the shiny red steps of their dwellings in Edinburgh. My Mother told me the fifties housewife was judged on the shininess of her front step.
Or way way back when the ladies of the family were not running down the hills of Scotland with their men, they were sweeping the dirt floor of the cave, tending the iron ware kettle of broth over the peat Fire. Spring Cleaning is as inherent in me and as keenly felt as it was to my ancestors in their kilts and shawls. Ah, the promise of warmer weather tingles at the base of my spine, spurring me on until exhausted.
I feel like I could grab up the house and shake it into the street, bleach, paint,scour it and restock it with clean linen, dried in the Sun, and furniture waxed and shining. The changing light shows up every mark and smudge on the walls, windows caked in dust. Where has all this filfth been hiding ? " Am I blind in Winter ?" I ask myself as I attack the cobwebs and gangly daddy long legs that rush to get away from my feather duster. Sneezing is de Riguer.
I have Martha Stewart in mind as I clean. I never knew that much about her until I read a little about her and watched her shows. Now I am an adoring acolyte, a devotee of all things Martha, though baulk at changing the sheets, Daily ! Martha likes the feeling of luxury.
I become the fifties house wife I was destined to be, wearing a " pinny " and waisted dress with pure white ankle socks as I see some Indian women wearing inside their homes. I find them very practical, the socks, as I can't feel the grit underfoot between vacuums. And I can feel a grain of sand under my feet when bare. I have gone from Cinderella on her knees to The Princess And The Pea. I shudder at dirt on my feet.
Martha Stewart can border on the obsessive, I read the other day that she makes a grape pie that requires every grape to be hand peeled. Now that is a tad O.C.D. for me but I find I am right on trend as most of the rest of the world is the same, apparently we are all " nesting " . I have so many major projects on the go ir's scary. The garden, Halloween, Christmas, November's plethora of birthdays. I look up on Martha's web site how to carve a grinning demon face into a pumpkin and light from the inside.
I make soda bread and ham, tomato and cheese pin wheels, my own pizzas. Quiches with bacon and egg, Yorkshire puddings with a thin gravy and H.P. Sauce. I toy with the idea of making Key Lime Pie after watching Death In Paradise and Big salads of egg, cress, lettuce, croutons, tomatoes, cucumber and home made dressing.
I hand stitch and tack materials from the seventies and make a waterproof tablecloth from some old kitchen dresser curtains my Mother In Law made in the forties or fifties. I pot geraniums red and showy into very old terracotta pots with white crusty stuff sticking to their sides and don't scrub at them but prefer the patina of age.
And at the end of the day I put my feet up and look at my work. Nate Berkus recommends this. That anyone feeling proud of who they are and what they have become should place their feet up on their coffee table. We have earned the right. The placing of the feet on top of a coffee table a sign of power, a certain derrung do, a defiance of convention.
Now where did I put those clean white socks ?
We have been Spring Cleaning for weeks, now. I defy any man to get the same pleasure from a good Spring Clean that a Woman does. There is almost something sacred to the feeling, a Cleanliness is next to Godliness overwhelming emotion. I think of my ancestors with the shiny red steps of their dwellings in Edinburgh. My Mother told me the fifties housewife was judged on the shininess of her front step.
Or way way back when the ladies of the family were not running down the hills of Scotland with their men, they were sweeping the dirt floor of the cave, tending the iron ware kettle of broth over the peat Fire. Spring Cleaning is as inherent in me and as keenly felt as it was to my ancestors in their kilts and shawls. Ah, the promise of warmer weather tingles at the base of my spine, spurring me on until exhausted.
I feel like I could grab up the house and shake it into the street, bleach, paint,scour it and restock it with clean linen, dried in the Sun, and furniture waxed and shining. The changing light shows up every mark and smudge on the walls, windows caked in dust. Where has all this filfth been hiding ? " Am I blind in Winter ?" I ask myself as I attack the cobwebs and gangly daddy long legs that rush to get away from my feather duster. Sneezing is de Riguer.
I have Martha Stewart in mind as I clean. I never knew that much about her until I read a little about her and watched her shows. Now I am an adoring acolyte, a devotee of all things Martha, though baulk at changing the sheets, Daily ! Martha likes the feeling of luxury.
I become the fifties house wife I was destined to be, wearing a " pinny " and waisted dress with pure white ankle socks as I see some Indian women wearing inside their homes. I find them very practical, the socks, as I can't feel the grit underfoot between vacuums. And I can feel a grain of sand under my feet when bare. I have gone from Cinderella on her knees to The Princess And The Pea. I shudder at dirt on my feet.
Martha Stewart can border on the obsessive, I read the other day that she makes a grape pie that requires every grape to be hand peeled. Now that is a tad O.C.D. for me but I find I am right on trend as most of the rest of the world is the same, apparently we are all " nesting " . I have so many major projects on the go ir's scary. The garden, Halloween, Christmas, November's plethora of birthdays. I look up on Martha's web site how to carve a grinning demon face into a pumpkin and light from the inside.
I make soda bread and ham, tomato and cheese pin wheels, my own pizzas. Quiches with bacon and egg, Yorkshire puddings with a thin gravy and H.P. Sauce. I toy with the idea of making Key Lime Pie after watching Death In Paradise and Big salads of egg, cress, lettuce, croutons, tomatoes, cucumber and home made dressing.
I hand stitch and tack materials from the seventies and make a waterproof tablecloth from some old kitchen dresser curtains my Mother In Law made in the forties or fifties. I pot geraniums red and showy into very old terracotta pots with white crusty stuff sticking to their sides and don't scrub at them but prefer the patina of age.
And at the end of the day I put my feet up and look at my work. Nate Berkus recommends this. That anyone feeling proud of who they are and what they have become should place their feet up on their coffee table. We have earned the right. The placing of the feet on top of a coffee table a sign of power, a certain derrung do, a defiance of convention.
Now where did I put those clean white socks ?
