My head is full of stuff this morning, none of it bloggable, not because of content but because of lack of it.  

When I was a child, one of the things I remember embroidering on tea towels was little ducks that were busy doing the days of the week tasks.  I think of those ducks every Monday now because Monday was washday according to the great scheme of things.  Washday needed to be designated because it meant big work.  You had to get your water from the well, heat it, wash several loads starting with whites, get more water, rinse, again several loads, hang to dry and start all over again.  If you were lucky, you had a mangle to get the job done faster.  By the time I came along, if you had a ringer washer, things were pretty golden but it still was pretty big work. I had a little washer spin dryer at the beginning of my marriage and a dryer that could keep up, so long as I dried a load on the line too.  And back then, before polyester and science had made life so very much easier, Tuesday was ironing day, another task that took all day. 

 When I got an automatic washing machine, things changed.  I washed as needed, when I had a load, when the house had a load, every day for long long stretches of time as the boys were growing.  Even then, I used to wonder if having a washday would be more efficient, that you could do all of the steps right down to putting away all the things.  I was working by then though so having a whole day just for laundry was not available.  What was once a big job completed in a day had become a forever job.

In retirement, I find myself doing laundry on Mondays, more often than not.  I don't do it on the weekends unless I really need to, so there is usually a small pile to greet me Monday morning.  The state of my sheer lack of pants usually means Thursday or Friday is also wash day, but I am working on that. I would really like to regain the feeling of finishing the task.

It is Monday and I think of ducks and embroidering and handwork and learning all sorts of interesting things.  

I think of the modern world and how machines have made things easier but also how even in the drudge work of life, they have sometimes complicated things in a way we couldn't have foreseen.   

I think why on earth are those little tasks in that towel set so freakishly happy? 

I think of all the ways that life has improved for so many women in my lifetime, and how far we still have to go to make life good for all women everywhere.

And that is the kind of thing my head is full of this morning. Stuff and nonsense and deeply fundamentally important.

Have a fruitful International Women's Day.