Jon of All Trades
  • Home
  • What's up? (The Blog)
  • The "Trades"
    • The Green Scene >
      • Farmers Market
    • FUNctional Fitness DIY >
      • Life is a Circus
      • Running
      • Extreme Racing
    • Philosopher?
    • Heterodox economics
  • Other Stuff
    • Contact
    • About Jon
    • Links
    • Calendar

Home Economics

12/2/2011

0 Comments

 
Huck Finn's House Cleaning Tricks

I took a Home-Ec class when I was in 5th grade. I remember us boys snickering about it. How it was the girly class that we had to take. Truth be told, I enjoyed the sewing and cooking more than the woodshop and automotive stuff.

Today, Skye and I are doing a thorough cleaning of the condo. I am turning it into a Home Economics lesson. That’s one of the cool things about home-schooling, you can turn anything into a lesson; something that I used to my advantage when I taught an ecology class for a bunch of home-school kids back in Los Angeles. It’s amazing how excited kids will get about weeding when they get to feed the weeds to chickens.

I started by telling Skye about my little experience with Home Ec and then we did some research on the subject, which I found out is also known as family and consumer sciences. Over at that not-so-well --known or respected college, which one, of yeah, Cornell University, over there they take this field of knowledge quite seriously. Here are some of the highlights:

1907-Department of Home Economics established

1930-First Ph.D. in Home Economics at Cornell University awarded to Helen Canon

1964-Home Economics International Activities Office established

1969 -New York State College of Home Economics reorganized and renamed the New York State College of Human Ecology

They have a very informative digital exhibition “From Domesticity to Modernity: What Was Home Economics?”

We started in on the kitchen. A disclosure here, when I was going through my odd-job phase of my life in my late teens and early twenties, one of the jobs I had was at Custom Maids, basically a cleaning service. Within a week or two, they saw my talents and became they’re equivalent of “a cleaner”, like Harvey Keitel in Reservoir Dogs. I realize we were all cleaners, but I was sent in to deal with problem customers. If one of our crews didn’t do such a good job and there was a complaint, I was sent in.  That’s right everybody else worked in teams of two or three, I worked alone.

With that legacy to live up to, Skye knew she wouldn’t get a passing grade if she didn’t make sure to pay attention to details. All the surfaces were cleared.  She cleaned from top to bottom, making sure to get the top edges of cabinet and appliance doors, something even experts miss.  Everything got put back exactly where it came from. She did stunningly well. I was a little concerned of what a natural she was at it. I do have somewhat higher aspirations for her. And I don’t want to hear any comments of “if it makes her happy” or “as long she feels fulfilled”. No, as much of an oddball, radical, Tao-leaning freak that I am, my daughter will not end up as some scullery maid.

Picture
As I walked around the house, through the living room that was littered with juggling balls, Indian clubs, hula hoops, sand bags (to work out with) and the like, then wandered into the office, with stacks of paper, books, magazines, fliers, torn out articles, maps etc., boxes of stuff from LA that I had yet to organize, my work tools, and more, I realized there was no way we were going to finish our “Deep Clean” this afternoon. It was time to scale back and get realistic. This is a common theme for me. I usually frame goals in this manner; I have my ideal world where everything goes as planned without a wrinkle, I don’t think that’s ever happened but that’s what I’m aiming for, then I set my bare minimum for what needs to be accomplished. As the task evolves I continue to adjust, still aiming high but adapting as the situation evolves. If I’m lucky, I’ll end up somewhere in the middle.


Picture
At the end of the day, the kitchen was thoroughly cleaned (thanks, Skye). The living room, dining room, and entry hallway were all vacuumed. In order to do that properly, we moved every piece of furniture, including the couch, wiping and polishing all the furniture prior to vacuuming, dusted of all the baseboard and of course used that cool little edging device on the vacuum before hitting the main areas. Skye learned not to vacuum in a rush, pushing the vacuum around randomnly. She had to re-do those areas, using a correct overlap pattern.

                                                                      We were not able to get to the bedrooms or bathrooms. Guess what some of the lesson plans for next week will be?


0 Comments

    RSS Feed

    Please click RSS Feed to Subscribe
    Don't Forget to Click on Highlighted Text to find out more about what I'm rambling on about.
    Oh yeah, and if  you like something I've written, hit the "like" button at the bottom of the post and add a comment. I would love to get some input, so I don't feel like I'm talking to myself in a tunnel.

    Author

    Jon Danniells is an adventurer and traveler, a teacher and student, a husband and a father, a cook and a farmer, a "week-end warrior" (very amateur athlete) and has not earned any money on these labors of love.When I googled myself what showed up first was my IMDB listing, which is basically a resume for my 20 and then some year career in film, for which  I fortunately do get paid.

    Archives

    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011

    Categories

    All
    All About Me
    Arts
    Atlanta
    Beer
    Camping
    Circus
    Cooking
    Economics
    Extreme Races
    Farmer's Market
    Farmer's Markets
    Festivals
    Field Trip
    Field Trips
    Food
    Functional Fitness Diy
    Green
    High Points
    High-points
    Holidays
    Home School
    Homeschool7d176a7db6
    Hooping
    It Is A Blog
    It Is A Log
    Jiujitsu
    Living Local
    Local Living
    Los Angeles
    New Orleans
    Politics
    Reviews
    Road Trip
    Running
    Skye
    Sports
    Stuff For Sale
    Tough Mudder
    Traveling
    Weight Loss Challenge
    Wine And Spirits
    Work