"I Learned from My Mother"
"I learned from my mother . . . that everything at home can be made more beautiful with some thought, a little care, and extra attention."
--Alexandra Stoddard, Daring to Be Yourself
Monday, August 05, 2013
--Alexandra Stoddard, Daring to Be Yourself
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9 comments:
You excel at this Anna.
So very true. I find it helps to rearrange things on those days when our home just feels 'off', and I am not feeling the love towards it.
blessings, jill
I agree. We were driving through an unfamiliar area in another state recently and we could tell the difference between the nicer areas and the not-so-nice neighborhoods just by the conditions of the front yards. The "nice" areas all had mowed lawns and flowers planted in the yards. The "not-so-nice" areas had tall grass, trash strewn about the yard and looked pretty unkempt. Imagine, less than an hour a week of maintenance made all of the difference.
Well, Farrah, I learned from my mother!
And with it comes the much sought after blessed contentment.
Alexandra Stoddard has some lovely words of wisdom, and I particularly like these.
I learned many good things from my sweet mother, but not so much about making things beautiful. (She was more into spontaneous fun--we ate out a lot, or popcorn for dinner!)
So here's something that piques my interest and curiosity: how did your mother do this, in the midst of raising a family that is undoubtedly much larger than most modern families? In a culture where fewer children are the norm and families seem so busy, I feel that there's something bygone and lost that some of us, who weren't raised with a model of domestic skill, would love to recapture and pass along to our children. But lo, when you learn from scratch, it's a hard business....
Polly, it's true that she did carry a very large domestic load--the food shopping, cooking, and laundry would have slain a less-energetic woman! On the other hand, she always had two days a week of cleaning help, so didn't spend time doing the hands-on cleaning. She also really likes things to look good, so was always puttering, arranging furniture, creating tablescapes, and sewing little things for the house.
Thank you SO much for your blog...http://adrienneand.blogspot.com/2013/08/pleasant-view-schoolhouse.html
Two days a week of help cleaning--now *that* is smart living! I find that I am constantly trying to strike a balance on this. And I've only got the two! I enjoy laundry and don't much mind the cooking, but sometimes I feel that's all I've got time for in the midst of doing the other things--you know, swimming in the pool or splashing in the mud puddles.
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