What is housekeeping?  The literal definition would be ‘keeping house’.  According to the wonders of Google it is ‘the management of household affairs’.  This is a fairly broad definition but allows for everything from shopping, cooking, providing meals to cleaning, organisation, paying bills and filing.  Does this sound familiar?

I am not planning on getting into a debate over the merits of mothers who stay at home versus those who do paid work or male versus female workload within the home.

My interest is more about what you do, how to do it and where you learned the skills/methods that you use.  Today I was at home and it was a sunny winter day here.  I took the towels and bathmat from the bathroom and hung them on the line where they could air thoroughly and dry.

This got me thinking about how often I wash the towels and why.  We have one towel each and a bathmat and these are washed once a week.  I do this because this was the routine my mother used when I was growing up, and I suspect, her mother before that.  That is not to say that that I have religiously followed everything my mother did.  An example is the 3 pegs on the towel:  I do this because I can’t stand the way the towels go out of shape if you just peg them with a peg at each corner.

We have a climate where it is possible to line dry the washing virtually all the year round.  As you can see from the photo the line is undercover which gives protection from the rain and when it is cold we generally have the fire on at night so the washing is finished off indoors.

So, where did you learn your housekeeping routines and skills?  Have they changed and evolved over the years?  Do you ever discuss things of this nature with others – friends or family?  Have you intentionally taught your children or do you just expect that they will work it out for themselves.