Is to get the dead tomato plants down. I am truly ashamed of how I've let the yard go to crap since Mike got sick. Today the first order of business is to get a couple of things tossed into the yard refuse container because I think there are about 2 million fruit flies in it from tossing apples and pumpkins in. Then I'm cooking down the pumpkins from Halloween to put the meat in the freezer.
I'm feeling the need to purge again. In 2008 when we lost the house in Redmond (had a painful flashback to that this week. I miss that house. I don't miss Redmond, but I miss that house. Mike picked out such a lovely little place.) and I spent a lot of time purging and cleaning out closets and things we didn't need to haul through life with us. I know we have plenty again to give to Goodwill. It's very freeing, not going through life with so much baggage.
At a friend's suggestion I bought Disney's Little House DVD. It was WONDERFUL. Kind of choppy in the story telling and Alison and I kept asking each other, "Wasn't Carrie born in the big woods of Wisconsin?" There was no baby Carrie. But for all of those people who are anti-homeschooling ("Socialization! What about socialization?"), here goes: This was back in the day when family was EVERYTHING. The turn of the century was about the same time the progressive push was starting. One of the first points of Socialism, Marxisim, Progressivism is to destroy the family. Get inside the family, get them OUT of the house and start taking down the fathers so the family needs government assistance for all their needs. Before that, family helped family and once the family was stable, then they reached out to the community. People helped take care of themselves and each other. There were no "government programs".
The kids were taught manners. They were taught to work hard. No one jumped in the wagon and bounced over the prairie to Kohls to buy a dress. Even when we read Farmer Boy Mrs. Wilder had a weaving loom up in her sewing room and she MADE the material from wool shorn from the family sheep. She made the material and then made the clothes. Shoes? You were lucky to a pair a year, and if money was tight, you got the hand-me-downs and the largest feet got the new shoes. I have LOVED reading through this series with Alison at bedtime, and watching this DVD because you see kids getting EXCITED over a stick of sugar candy in their stockings. There were no X-Box's or Easy Bake Ovens under the tree. And actually, Christmas trees were few and far between. A stocking hanging from the mantle, maybe, but those stockings were filled with shiny coins and candy sticks. One of my favorite things to do at Christmas is to take a fresh orange and adorn it with clove spears. The FRAGRANCE! And that was a treasured gift. A pomander for the dresser or closet.
I think this series of books and the movie should be required reading for every single person in this country. You would discover true appreciation, generosity, and joy. Children would once again be introduced to manners. They would find the fun of being outdoors and building forts and work hard to help the family bring in the harvest from the garden.
THOSE were the good old days.
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