Never Enough Time

I was reading Ernestine's post this morning about ironing.http://myjourneytomindfulness.blogspot.com/ It brought back a memory of mine from the 1950's. It was Saturday, and I was sitting in the dentist's chair... having my teeth checked. Dr Blackman, came into the room and started to talk to me about what I liked to do on my free time. I had those cotton rolls in my mouth, so I was having trouble answering. He sat down and began to clean my teeth. "Do you like to iron?" he said nonchalantly . I nodded my head, yes. He said that he knew that we lived in the same neighborhood and told me about his new babies....twin girls. He went on to tell me that his wife was trying to get adjusted to having the two girls and keeping up her housework. They needed help. He asked if I would like to come over every other day, after school, and do their ironing? It would be such a help to them and he would pay me 35 cents an hour.I told him that I would do it, if I could have time off when school activities interfered.I took the job...my first paying job.  I remember the first time I ironed for them...a full basket that I got done in an hour. Everything from his underwear to sheets and dish towels...lots of baby clothes...my favorite things to iron. What I didn't realize was that along with the ironing they were grooming me for a babysitting job. I stayed beyond my hour many days to play with the babies. They grew used to me being there and would giggle and coo when I came around. I started helping out with their care...it was so much fun to help with these babies. I had a baby brother at  home...so I was used to doing things with new babies.People heard about my "job" and started asking me to babysit for them.  I was starting to have quite a lot of baby sitting jobs in the neighborhood. I could have baby sitting  jobs everyday, if I wanted. One day his wife said that she wanted to go to the store...would I watch the girls? I jumped at the chance. This turned out well, so I was starting to take care of them more and more. This ironing job went on for about a year and then she could take over. I was taking care of the girls almost every week. The only bad thing about the job was that he was a dentist and didn't have any candy or junk food for me. Only fruit in the refrigerator. Later on, I got busy in high school and stopped baby sitting for people. The Doctor's wife died a couple of years ago and I signed the guest book in the paper. One of the twins emailed me...and we wrote of old times. She remembered me. Now, years and years later...I think back to those days and find that I wasn't truthful when he said..."Do you like to iron?" I really didn't like it all that well. When my mom heard what I was going to do, she said, "It's like pulling teeth to get you to iron here at home...do you know what you have signed on to do?" Well, all I can say is the grass has always been greener on the other side. Through this ironing job...I learned to love ironing and became  quite proficient at it. Today we don't iron as much as years ago, but when I began quilting it all came back. There is a lot of ironing in quilting and I have to say that I loved that part of it. My question...do you still iron?
Balisha