making the best of things...

Well. On the bright side, I figured out how to bluetooth important (music) files from my computer to my new cell phone. Also on the bright side, I am alive, still lovin' the color purple AND the beautiful flow of watery Aunties around me...

I have four beautiful grand-daughters, offspring of three of my amazing children, I have one gifted son who although he hasn't gotten around to the children yet never fails to make me smile when I talk to him on the phone...

Life is good.

I thought about these things over the weekend, having spent a great deal of time with one of my darlings and hearing nothing but wailing and gnashing of teeth regarding financial woes...I realized that perhaps in my youth, when these beautiful babies were babies, I worked too hard at making the best of things, because apparently they don't seem to know we were dirt poor at the time...

My family spent the better part of 1981 eating macaroni...macaroni salad (a dab of mayonnaise and a LOT of wild greens from bountiful Montana meadows), macaroni and ham (diced to the TINIEST portions imaginable two slices given to me by loving friends), plain macaroni, macaroni and milk (pretend mac and cheese)...you get the drift? We lived in my brother-in-law's tool shed which happily was near the creek...where winter AND summer, in Northern Montana, I bathed...

My husband couldn't find work so we happened upon the great "post logging" system, I didn't know it but I was pregnant with our first child. My husband would stay "up top" cutting down post sized trees and I would lash four or five of them together and drag them down the hillside to our pickup where I would also load them one at a time on the truck...we would take our "big truckfull" to the post mill for what? Maybe about $20 if we had a good haul. I didn't care, that was laundry, a hot bath, some butter or milk (for the macaroni).

As we grew and had more children, things didn't seem to change, my beautiful artistic and loving husband was a dreamer...this being so, we hardly ever had a steady income...as a child I had determined that should I ever be in a position to make such decisions, I would not force my children to wear "sturdy" or "functional" clothes...if they so desired and when appropriate I would provide them to the best of my ability with the latest and greatest fashions of the day...

Long story short, and fast forward to over the weekend, I found myself not being too sympathetic to said weepings, wailings and gnashing of teeth...I realized that all of those "hardships" had made me strong and had served to teach me creativity...sewing hoods from freebag sweatshirts onto flannel shirts picked up at GW...sewing bows from old dresses on to stockings to be hung for Christmas; wake up one morning and hate my  clothes? One day I made a delightful floral skirt from what I think was an old quilt back I found upstairs...no one knew, in fact I have a  picture of that skirt and I STILL love it:-)

I think a little hardship is good for today's youth and although I worked hard at making the best of things I wouldn't change it for all the money in the world.

Making the best of things is character building:-)