Grandmas legacy to mine

  When the days of busy-ness and stress get to me, I often think back to how my grandmothers both handled things and what I remember the most is the way one of them learned to bide her time well in the garden- planting and weeding, pruning then picking it all just to spend hours in the hot kitchen with the windows open to water bath can or freeze it all for the future. Knowing her efforts then would yield saved hours and money later. 

Or the way my other grandmother spent hours in the kitchen cooking and baking everyone's favorite cookies or fried catfish because she knew we would come over soon and she wanted to have it ready for us. The way she was always sending my grandfather to the store for "just a few things" scribbled on a piece of paper for a recipe she needed to make for the women's group at church to serve at an upcoming funeral or fellowship meal. I remember going to her church and seeing leading the other ladies in the kitchen as they cooked and baked away- ready to serve everyone with a warm smile. 

Those memories keep pulling me back, away from the stress and technology of today and into what is now called "old fashioned" and seen as too much work. Like everyone expects that if we do those things we need to mentally keep track of how our hours spent so we know how much we could have been making and if its wasn't enough then that task wasn't worth it. 

I'd much rather take 10 extra minutes to hang laundry on the line, or can the extra tomatoes I froze from our CSA or the seconds apples I bought from the local market and we pulverized into applesauce with a hand crank then stare at a screen. I love that my daughter is learning to love baking and asks to bake cookies almost every day. I love that it doesn't give her second thought that we need to feed the chickens every day and collect the eggs, or that we need to make a meal for others. Those are the lessons I want her to learn and remember, just like I learned them from my grandmothers- and that's what this is about for me. Remembering the past and pulling it along with us.