The way it used to be




In 21st century America, we do not know how to "wait".


We all know that we want faster food, faster internet, faster shipping, premade this and premade that, etc.


You have heard people drone on and on about it. "Sonny, you don't know how it used to be! Nowadays ya' got all these fandangled things like computers! Never touched one, meself! Kids these days!"


I like things faster, too, but think a bit about this...


Women used to beat carpets outside, heat water over a fire to bathe, hand wash ALL the laundry, hand wash diapers, hang clothes out to dry, home birth (cool!), sew clothes and linens, knit, bake everything, walk or take a wagon and rarely had any pain medication. Imagine your monthly cycle with no modern conveniences. Could you do all that in a corset and seven layers of clothing?



Men plowed fields with a horse or ox, hand harvested, build everything with hand tools, chopped wood for warmth and cooking, and did all business and math on paper with ink. In their spare time they fought off bad men, bad indians, wild animals and they hunted for food.


 


Makes me wonder what we do with all our extra time we now have. Everyone says how busy they are. (?)




 


4 comments:

  1. I often think about how a lot of our modern "conveniences" really cause us a lot of extra time and money. In some ways life gets simpler, but I think often it just gets more complicated. When I lived in India, waiting was a way of life, and you just get used to it. And living simply, too, is just the way things are, and I liked it. I got a blender for Christmas when I lived there, and it was so wonderful, but only when the power was on! The rest of the time I just got used to doing without, and it really was okay. I try to cling to that simple way of life here, but it's really, really hard to maintain a different mindset in this culture. As Christians, though, it's what we're all supposed to remember though.... this is not our home and all the little stresses really don't matter in the long run.

    Okay, that was a long comment!

    See you Friday, God willing!

    Rebeca

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  2. Good post -- americans are notorious for being demanding and wanting things right away! Delayed gratification is not even in the vocab of our culture! So sad -- I learned this first hand when we lived in guatemala for 9 mos.. I miss those people! They were a humble and very happy people.. content with the little they had.... and when we came back it was very hard to adjust to life in america again!


    Americans have had too much given to them..........


    Blessings~

    gloria

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  3. Thank you for the Groovy Post Award. I am flattered. Sorry for my incompetence on how to accept it. :>)

    Many Blessings,

    Holly

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  4. I'll bet you are as a fan of PBS's "Frontier House" as I am!! If you haven't seen it, then you WILL be once you see it. During the 2 weeks that they were being trained to spend their 5 months homesteading in the Montana wilderness, one of the things that had to "relearn" was how to care for themselves during thier monthlies. There are so many times that I idealize the frontier days, but then I see or think about things like that and I just praise the Lord that I live when I live! lol


    And as often as I cook from scratch and cook w/more whole foods and grains, I am still so thankful for that frozen pizza that's in my freezer for those days that are so busy, or a bunch of our teen girls' friends come over and want "something," or just b/c we want it!


    Blessings from Ohio, Kim Wolf<><

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