About Me

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Indiana, United States
I'm a mother of five of my own children, very blessed adoptive mommy to one, step mother to three! Married to a wonderful man who forgives ALOT! Grammy to 6!I also have the best "kids in law" that I could have! I am blessed to be able to baby sit for our grandchildren a few days a week. I am blessed to be able to NOW stay home full time to take care of our home, children, and grandchildren!!

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Sunday evening, I made some sweet biscuits and heated up some applesauce. To the applesauce, I added just a little bit of the cinnamon apple jelly and then piled it on top of the hot buttered biscuits. My husband has never had that before and he thought it was delicious! Kind of like a hot applesauce shortcake instead of a cold strawberry one!



My mother used to make that for us when we lived on our small farm. We had so much to choose from when it came to preserving our food. We had an overabundance of apple trees, a cherry tree and walnut trees at the back of our little farm. We had cows, a few pigs, and lots of chickens and a big rooster named Barney. (I think we named him after Barney Fife...??) We had a huge garden where we grew most of our vegetables. We had horses and ponies to ride. We had kittens in our barn and a few dogs to romp with and pet bunnies to hold.



We got our fresh milk from which we made butter from a little tiny old lady that lived close to us. It was amazing to go to her house...it was like stepping back in time. We would sit in her parlor while my mother was with her in the kitchen. I would just look around at what I considered treasures. I am sure that most of her things came from the early 1900's or late 1800's. My mother told us not to disturb anything...but we were allowed to play with a Chinese checkers game. She had an old porcelain doll that must have been hers as a little girl. I tried very hard not to touch it...sometimes I succeeded.



Her house was tiny...really nothing more than a two bedroom shack and she lived there with her son...who was himself fairly old. She had quilts and afghans and little tiny doilies all over her parlor. I know now that the doilies were to cover the holes in her furniture. The room wasn't very well lit... they may have had electricity but the house was so old that it probably had only one light in each room. The outside of her house was surrounded by flowers and garden fences laced with vines.

Her name was Mrs. Blacketter and she lived a very simple life. It seemed to a little six or seven year old girl like she was living in the pioneer days. I thought it was beautiful. I knew that house had a lot to be desired and was even falling apart in some places but she was such a different kind of person than I had ever met before. This was a time when the Vietnam war was going on and our pastor would preach against "hot pants", hippies, and women's lib. I didn't really know about those things personally but I knew that this little old lady was different and it fascinated me. I think she was happy with what she had and satisfied with the money she made from selling milk.



I guess it comes back to contentment again. I remember that her house was stiflingly hot at times because of course, she had no air conditioner. We didn't either, come to think about it...we had "cross ventilation" also known as open windows! But how wonderful it was when fresh air was blowing in the house allowing the scent of honeysuckle and lilacs drift into our bedrooms. This of course was when the wind was NOT blowing from the south...there was a large pig farm about half a mile up the road...But we didn't know that we were missing out on anything. When we finally get a window air conditioner, we didn't know how we ever did without it!



I heard a missionary who was in the states on deputation talk one time. He said that he was taken to a "Super Wal-Mart." He and the pastoral staff took a few steps into the store and then he asked if he could leave. The pastors questioned him about it and he said that he and his family lived under such meager conditions on the mission field that for him to "window shop" in a place like Wal-Mart could only lead to discontentment in his life. It would do him no good and only do him harm to spend time wishing for things that he would never have.



I had the same kind of experience last night. My husband and I had joined a big retail discount club when we were adding on to our house. Now they send us these exclusive members only catalogs. On the front of that booklet there is a beautiful sectional sofa. I picked the catalog up and immediately said, "Oooohhh, I'd love to have that!" Then I flipped through a few pages and repeated that phrase a time or two every time something caught my fancy. Then I stopped and put down the catalog. I remembered that wise missionary. I don't need anything...nothing. If I continue to look at those "wish books" I can't imagine that it would lead to anything but discontentment.



Yes, there are a few things in our home that are tattered...but they still work. We don't HAVE to replace them! Our refrigerator is becoming a topic of a joke in our house. Sometimes when we open it, one of the shelves in the door flies off dumping whatever may have been stored there. Sometimes our ice maker doesn't work correctly and leaves a big clump of ice in the container. Sometimes it works too well and we have ice stuffed into almost every nook and cranny in the little freezer. Sometimes it just decides to deposit water all over our kitchen floor. SOMETIME it will need to be replaced but not today. Our joke is about contentment. Every time one of us complains, we laugh and remind each other that there are so many people in this world, in this country, in this state....(I'd include our town but I'm pretty sure that we have the worst refrigerator in our town...you'd just have to know our town to understand....) that would love to have a refrigerator that works fairly well most of the time. Sometimes we say, "OK, can we just take it to them when we get our new one?" Then we laugh. We are trying to learn contentment and let it be that things aren't exactly the way we want them to be all the time. It doesn't seem like a joke but we always end up laughing when we're done complaining. Then I feel bad that I complained.



It might take me some time Lord, but I will learn. Thank you for making me a more grateful person.

2 comments:

  1. Duct tape.

    Doesn't that fix everything?

    :-D

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yeah, we tried that...we just need to get some more on there...or Gorilla Glue!! It's awesome!!!!!!!! :)

    ReplyDelete