Long ago

Tonight I worked cleaning in one terribly filthy apartment. My 26 yr old daughter was there helping. As she scrubbed the oven and stove I didnt hear the "oh Gross! Oh ewww how am I supposed to clean this?" coming from her. I remember not too long ago when the kids were very young, and came with my husband and I when we worked on the apts. Most often they did not enjoy the dirty work. My youngest loved to scrub floors but that is because he wanted to play in the water bucket. Or when he got to use power tools, no bribing was required. The girls seemed to enjoy painting cause they made designs on the walls--goofy girls. At their very youngest, each had their own mower or would take turns and every week we all piled into the front of the brown 'crappy' truck as they called it. Austin had to sit on my lap, the girls squeezed in between Creig and I. They would get paid at the end of the evening with their choice of ice cream cone at the 4
Queens Dairy. Bubble gum swirl if I remember correctly was usually the choice.
Sigh...now they are grown and dont work with us as much. In fact, my husband and I dont even work together much. Tonight I was at one apartment cleaning and across the parking lot at another one of our complexes, he was by himself working on the plumbing in the bathroom. I stopped over on my way home and sat there on a five gallon bucket as he took apart a medicine cabinet for the parts so he could fix the one already hanging. That's my man, practical and making use of what he has.
This used to be such a passion of ours. The excitement of fixing a unit up, what we could all do with it, were always at the top of our conversations. We have slowed down, and struggle now just to muster up the energy to do it over and over with each apartment as it empties.

I miss the whining of the kids, the teaching them, the fire in my husband as he comes up with great ideas to redo a unit- Friday date nights at the lumberyard or the drive around the neighborhoods looking for our next conquest.
Seems so long ago....