Tea at Trianon: Habits of a Clean House

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Habits of a Clean House

It can be done. To quote:

10 Habits of a Clean Home

1. Clean using a cleaning schedule.
Depending on your personality, a cleaning schedule can be as detailed or scaled down as you want it. (That’s the beauty of this cleaning schedule…you can customize it to work for your life and preferences.)

You may want to clean bathrooms on Monday, mop and vacuum floors on Tuesday, dust on Wednesday, cut the yard on Thursday, and something else on Friday.
Or you may prefer to do everything on the weekend.

In either situation, a plan will help you move through the list much more quickly. Just like other areas in life, a plan will encourage, motivate, and enable you to reach your goal for a clean home. (Read more.)