Scrub a dub dub, one lady in an oven?

  Sorry that I didn't update after days 3 and 4. They were actually pretty boring so I didn't think y'all would mind. A dear friend, Mrs. Ray (Jaimie) and I had a yard sale Wednesday and Thursday so I didn't get too much done on my weekly chore list but I sure made up for it today! I'm not sure if yard sales were popular in the 50s but I figure it was okay for me to do it. One big thing housewives did was control spending and do what they could to cut expenses. They reused things, repurposed things, and mended items instead of tossing them. So I did my part in helping our budget by making money selling things we don't use/need. I'll confess here that I didn't wear the traditional dresses, hose, and heels but it was low 80s and sunny and we were outside all day solid.
  Today was catch up day for me. I've cleaned the kitchen, done laundry, ironed, and done my usual daily routines. I'm going to post a lot of pictures, some that might embarrass me but it's all in the name of experimenting, right?  These first two pictures are my oven, before and after.  I don't have the luxury of having a self-cleaning oven so I have just been too lazy decided to clean it but I was forced to chose to clean it today.

 

As you can see, it isn't perfect but it's a huge improvement and it sure took a lot of elbow grease! Matter-of-fact, I bent over so much that my knee has hurt all day. And I decided to use the cleaning agents a 50s housewife would: sea salt, vinegar, baking soda, and elbow grease. I think that after I can use the computer again, I'll look up different oven cleaning techniques to do and blog about. This next picture is the inside of my cleaned out fridge/freezer. And for the record, I do clean the fridge out regularly. Yes, I know it looks like there's not a lot of food in there... and you're right, there isn't!
This next picture is the piles of ironing that I did (this is before). One pile is clothing and one is all the table linens.

The last picture is a close up of a lovely vintage table linen set that belonged to my Grandma Bea.  It was still wrapped like it was when she bought it.  I'm sad that my table isn't long enough to use this fabulous set though.

Tomorrow is the day set aside for everything that didn't get done during the week or that needs to be done again. I shouldn't have too much to do and hopefully Jim will be home to mow. Then maybe I can convince him to take us out for a nice Mother's Day supper. I just hope him and the kids will be fine going out with me dressed to the 9's in my 50s attire. Tootles!