Above the counter that was between the kitchen and dining room of the red brick house were several shelves. The shelves were divided vertically in sections, about 5 or 6 sections per shelf. My mother called these shelves shadow boxes. The sections of the shadow boxes is where my mother kept her collection of tea cups, a couple of model cars that my brothers had made, and various knick knacks. There wasn't any empty shadow box. Some had more than one knick knack in it. They were all great dust collectors.
One of my chores as a girl was dusting the shadow boxes. My mother kept a very clean home and she wasn't too pleased if I tried to hurry through this dusting project. She insisted that a good job meant picking up each item, dusting that item, then dusting the shelf before replacing the item. She seemed to always know when I just moved things around in hopes of getting the job done quicker. And, of course, care had to be taken in the dusting process. She didn't want anything broken either.
That's the way my mother was. A thorough job was the only acceptable job. She had her own little motto: "Your house is as clean as your corners.". Which meant that even if the surfaces were clean, the house wasn't really clean if there were bits of dust and debris lurking in the corners of the room. I can remember rolling my eyes more than once and complaining that the chore that I had just finished was "good enough". But it wasn't good enough for my mother. Sometimes, I'd have to do it over. I soon learned that it was much easier to do a job right the first time.
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