I've found myself thinking a lot this week about a simpler life. How much easier it might have been in the olden days. If each of us had say 2 sets of clothes that we washed once a week.... wash day would take maybe 4 hours instead of 20. What about food... say you only had a choice of the deer your husband shot to eat. Or the food you grew and canned. Or the bread you made. Instead of the options provided by the supermarket.... of which there are so many and the convenience foods really don't provide you with more convenience.. just more madness. And the bills we pay.. Online and by mail and robbing peter to pay paul. Ad nauseum. Maybe in the old days you just had cash or barter. And that was that. We seem to have more of everything... except peaceful moments. Which brings me to the entertaining stories of the week.
Monday was manic. I had worked all night and was dead dog tired. But.. I looked at the laundry and decided I had to do it all. Stef had stated she needed her jersey for practice and I was going to be a good mom and find it. So I carted all the laundry to the laundromat. (I spell checked that... I promise). On my way to get change and soap I opened my door onto a very nice white van... leaving a nice green mark. I should've known then to go to bed and give up.. but no. I kept right on plowing through the day. I also took Amanda to the dentist and tracked down her missing coat. After washing 7 loads simultaneously and then drying the same.. I noticed that a pen had exploded in the dryer. (Another sign to go to bed that I ignored).... I kept texting Stef to tell her that I hadn't found the jersey.. and did she have any ideas???? Drove home and unloaded all the laundry and looked in closets and behind couches... Picked up the kids and marched into the high school, very tired and very mad. My happy smiling teenager is waltzing towards me holding the said jersey. "I don't know but it just appeared in my car 5th period"... Apparently Kris had washed and dried the jersey early that morning and delivered it to her while I was madly washing the whole house...... SIGH. Would this have happened to a pioneer woman. I think not.
Of course.. Many a pioneer person died of cholera or snake bites (I did watch True Grit)... but I'm sure that they didn't linger in hospitals or try to figure out when to go to the doctor or how much their co-pay was? What is really worse?
Certainly... the transportation options were less than ideal.. But there is a certain romanticism in a horse and buggy ride that I'm sure held a little appeal. We definitely wouldn't be going all the way to Coos Bay this weekend to watch basketball playoff finals if we lived 100 years ago. It might take a full year to reach Coos Bay. It will only just seem to take a full year... although a full day will be more like it.
I don't think the pioneer women would do Zumba either. I did a little Zumba today with the group of ladies from my biggest loser group. I'm exercising and dieting with them for moral support. They all mock me because I don't need to lose too much weight. Apparently to win the prize ($900) our group needs to lose the biggest percentage of body weight and I am throwing off their odds....Did pioneer women even need to exercise? All that milking cows and running around the place kept the weight off... provided you survived childbirth.
I am going to keep my simple life fantasy going.... for a while.
3 comments:
I often tell Tom that I would like to move out to the country, buy a cow, and become Amish. Their way of life sounds so simple. Of course, I would go to the hospital for pain killers in time of need...I don't like pain.
P.S. Itsy Bitsy Tutus is your cousin, Jeni
Jeni.
I'm totally dying. I had no idea who it was. But I'm grateful to you for leaving comments on my blog. Bless you. I would love to move to the country and be Amish with you. But we would need a computer.
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