They all understood it, so why don't we.
Especially them, they understood it.
Papa certainly had it.
I had enough exposure to it that I know the difference in how it was and how it is now.
So what did they have?
Patience
We are given this one life, we are not born perfect and what we do with our life is up to us.
I found myself this past week frustrated. I was letting things bother me that are out of my control. It was the news on the radio, a simple trip to the grocery store was unnerving because people were so impatient and some were dressed inappropriate to be in a store. Some were downright scary. Traffic was bad and people were honking and gesturing and it just seemed to be a mad world out there. I kept wondering what is happening to people?
People are not even looking where they are going because they are glued to their phones and tablets. Life feels off balance, it was not like this in the past even when people were in a hurry. There are too many things that cause distractions today and everything being faster is leading to the expectation to wanting it done fast.
I felt safe when we came home. I found I had to shake it off and do something to bring me back to the past. I went to my mending shelf and pulled out some work pants that I needed to mend for Charles. The hem had come out of one of the cuffs and another had a pocket with a hole. I had been putting it off so I sat down and started mending with a needle and thread.
After I finished mending the pants it felt good to have that done because it was something I needed to do for a long time. After I finished the mending I did another project. Last year I purchased a sun dress for $3.00 and even though I am too old to wear a sun dress I thought I could turn it into a skirt. I liked the fabric so I did that too. I cut the top off and put in an elastic waist and thus a new skirt shown above. Another project done.
I decided that I liked how the skirt fit so I laid it out and use it as a pattern to make another skirt to wear around the house. I gave it some extra seam allowance as I cut it out.
I started sewing and that gave me time to settle down all the stress and worry. I was finding my creativity again and not paying attention to anything else but what I was doing. I thought about what I was doing and realized each day I need to do what needs to be done in my home, help a friend or family if needed.
I took my time and pressed open the seams. I realized that when we get away from doing something for a good while it takes some effort to get back to doing it again but once we make the initial effort we become more motivated to keep going.
This is the skirt that was a sundress that has been rolled up on a shelf in the sewing room waiting to be made into a skirt. The only thing I need to do now is iron it.
This is the new skirt I designed from the other one. I like the way the fabric flows wider at the bottom.
I even put in a zipper in the back and hand sewed the hem and that is because I had gotten fully over worrying about all the things I could not control and doing the things I could control.
One quick tip I use elastic to hold my cords together. I like doing it this way because I can stretch it off and on.
Our generations before us had so much more patience than we have today because they did not expect things to happen quickly. It took longer to do things in the past and some people may think that was a bad thing but I think doing things quickly is not always a good thing because we lose the quality in what we do and feeling good about what we have done.
I feel most everything is being done too fast and possible causing health problems. Stress affects our health and it is not worth it to rush just because everyone else is rushing.
Many things were made by hand one stitch at a time, one loop at a time, one nail at a time.
My Great Aunt and Uncle owned a country store many years ago and when I was a child I loved to go in their store. I liked the creaky screen door and the sound of my shoes on the old wood floor. They had an old register and the groceries were on the wall and you could just tell them or point and they would get it for you.
Later on my husband and I owned a small grocery store. We too had a hand crank register where we punched the buttons then pulled the crank. We wrote paper tickets and delivered groceries to some and put them on the back porch or on the kitchen table wherever they wanted us to put them.
People most always purchased the same things each week. There was more routine back then. People did not carry phones in their hands because there were none. People most always greeted one another with a tip of the hat, a wave, a friendly "Good Morning," Thank you or excuse me.
We can make that happen again if we just do it. We can be the ones with the chivalry and bring back respect, kindness, courteous, manners but it won't happen if it does not show on our face, or the words come out of our mouth.
Charles always says when we are in a situation at a long red light or held up somewhere this is a patience thing. He feels that we have been delayed for a reason, possibly an accident up the road that could have been us if we had not been delayed.
Remember the small case (shown above) I made months ago? It holds my sewing measuring tapes. It holds two of them perfectly and now I always know where the measuring tapes are. It took me patience to make this small case for I am not used to making such a thing but I learned to do it.
I am going to keep reminding myself of generations before us and if they could do it we can do it.
We were having a once a week movie night but then it became a once a month movie night and now once every few months. When I say movie night, we pull out the one small tv we kept and hook up the dvd player to it and watch a movie.
I don't normally do this but I want to mention a movie we watched months back but when I was writing this post this movie just came to my mind. It is not an old movie it is a modern movie.
We watched the Movie "The Intern" with Robert De Niro and I feel it is a very good modern day movie because it shows the Chivalry I was speaking of. It does have a couple of brief scenes that are "slightly" R but not bad considering today's movies. It is a good movie because it gives a glimpse of how people were more respectful and proper. It is a very modern movie with fast moving young people with cell phones and living in today's world as it really is. Then there is the one person that resembles the good part of the past. Robert De Niro. If we could all play his part maybe we could make change.
Grandma Donna
