Saturday, September 19, 2009

About Twenty Five Years Ago. . .

. . . I lived on a small Texas "farm" and raised a few dairy goats. My girls were five and seven at the time and both had responsibilities to carry their little milk pails out to the barn, coax the doe onto the milk stand, put some sweet grain in the feeder and then milk them.

When I think back to that time I remember it being hard - but good. I thought nothing of it to send them to the barn to take care of their "morning chores." It was a natural part of life that I think today, is often missed.

Character was developed. Thanks was instilled. There was no sense of entitlement, but instead acceptance and appreciation. It was a hard but good time in my life and I know that partly they're the women they are today, because of those hard but good times. My little girls (now thirty-four and thirty-two) learned the value of hard work and they learned to conquer their fears. If you know them, you'll have to ask them about the "pecking chicken."

Perhaps because I know that these sorts of things are important in life - it's one of the reasons why I so love living together with our daughter(s) and their husbands and all the grandchildren (at one point we all lived together and at another time the other daughter and her family lived with us). I get to re-instill and model (along with my husband) those principles of working hard and not complaining while doing it.

I want them to know that eggs come from chickens and that carrots grow in dirt and that you can eat pansies. I want them to learn to be thankful. As a matter of fact, every time we bring in the daily ration of eggs, I exclaim with utter joy, "Look what God gave us today! Who wants to thank Him?" And they both, usually, chime in, "I do."

What are you doing to instill life skills and principles into the little lives around you?



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Friday, September 18, 2009

House of Turquoise - Meet Erin

My creative juices get stirred up every time I take my red coffee cup over to Erin's blog - House of Turquoise. I just want to redo, paint, recover everything -all because of Erin.


Today, she add splashes of pink to the home ideas she displayed. Please - go check her out, take your coffee or tea and then dream!

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Tuesday, September 15, 2009

A Little Something I'd Like For My Garden

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COTE DE TEXAS: Southern Accents’ Loss: Caplan Miller Events

You just gotta check out all the eye candy on this post!

COTE DE TEXAS: Southern Accents’ Loss: Caplan Miller Events

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Monday, September 14, 2009

LA MAISON ET LA JARDIN: Life and Gardens

LA MAISON ET LA JARDIN: Life and Gardens

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Her Legacy Continues

One of the very beautiful blogs worth visiting is Prairie Flower Cottage. Today, I read her post and am reposting it here with her link back. A lovely story - indeed - about the value and worth of a woman in her home and the legacy we all need to consider and evaluate if we're leaving or not . . .
Gayla writes:
Many years ago while spending time with my husband's family, I learned about my father in law's mother, Fern. She has such an incredible legacy that it is as if I knew her personally. I have spent many hours listening to stories about this woman, all from admiring children and grandchildren. She was a descendant of people from the Isle of Mann,which is a little island in the Irish Sea, between GreatBritain and Ireland. My husband and I took an ancestral trip a few years back and we were blessed to visit there.

We were able to see the actual place where the ancestor was martyred and we stood on the land that belonged to him. It was an amazing trip... but that is another story. My husband's grandmother loved to grow flowers and garden. She raised six kids, east of Windsor, Mo.

In her young years, she was a one room school teacher. She was also a writer, and wrote for the magazine Kitchen Klatter. We have a few of those articles, but not many. Sunday a lady at my church came up to me and told me that she had several magazines that I could look at. I took them and found five articles written by Fern. What a treat! It is wonderful to sit and read to your children words written by their great grandmother about things she remembers from childhood.

Tonight we read an article she wrote talking about an era that I only wish I could be experiencing. It was titled I Remember Grandma's Kitchen. In it she talks about when her grandmother would bake pies from the berries in season. She described what her grandmother's house looked like on the inside. She talks about family gatherings at the house... it was just a wonderful walk down a lane of family history for my children.

How many people can say they can read about what their great -great grandmother did or how her kitchen looked? It was a time of hard work and a wonderful sense of accomplishment. There was one thing she did say that I found to be profound. She closed her article saying, " Yes, I remember Grandma's kitchen. It was important in my learning, for Grandma loved being a woman and making a home just as I do. When I read articles on women's liberation, I feel slightly ill. Perhaps women's place is in the home; otherwise, what is going to become of homes?"

I want to raise my daughter with the same beliefs that her great grandmother had. As a strong woman who is very resourceful, yet gentle and motherly. I want her to see the importance of being a mother and wife. She needs to learn that she will have to go against the grain of society, because society will tell her that she has no credibility as a mother, and be a woman of virtue. I want her children to rise up and call her blessed. I pray the Lord will continue to show me how to do this. I have wonderful stories about my own grandmothers but I will write about them at a later date.

Until next time...


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