Water and food are the most important life sustaining needs we have yet it seems to me by my observation that many people give those needs the least attention as far as home management goes.
Many seem to have no food plan and rely on fast food, processed, and often purchase ready to eat at the drive through or go inside and eat something fast and easy not considering what was is in that food and what we put into our stomach.
In many homes it takes a holiday with platters and bowls of food that have taken days to prepare to get people to gather at the table. In the past it was simply normal to cook meals at home.
For some, grocery shopping is a mundane chore and I see people reach for bags and boxes of processed items and fill their buggies with canned and bottled soda, nothing that resembles real food such as a bag of carrots, onions, greens to indicate they will ever turn on a stove in the place they live.
Every meal does not have to be a big complicated meal and if it were we would be so burned out from cooking all day we would be sick of the kitchen. A simple salad, a baked potato with an easy topping, a sandwich, a bowl of soup.
Potato pancakes made with leftover potatoes.
For many years we think of a balanced meal as a meat, vegetable, starch and fruit. But we don't have to eat all of that together. We can get our fruit in as a snack, we can eat a simple meal of meat and vegetable or starch and vegetable. I enjoy meatless meals, rice and vegetables.
Simmering two cut up apples in a bit of water, syrup and cinnamon.
Many people today eat meat at every meal and when we look at the serving size of meat that is suggested as a healthy amount, we often find we are far over our suggested healthy amount. No wonder so many people have digestive problems after eating meat three times a day.
I am not suggesting what to eat, calorie intake, I am not a doctor and what I am considering here as far as home management is food and water are very important. Understand what we need verses what we want is a very practical thing to do.
Food, water, clothing and shelter are the 4 necessary things and today the last two of those 4 seem to be getting more consideration and in a fashionable sense giving the first two less thought.
When my husband joined the Air Force to serve during the Vietnam war we lived in a tiny apartment above a house until we could move closer to the base which was still not very close but we rented a small white house for $35.00 a month. That does not sound like much but it was back then living off a small military pay.
We had rent, food, automobile expense (that was our car in the background, why did we ever get rid of it?) and a small insurance expense. We did not have a telephone, I wrote letters to my family. We did not have television, we did not have the money to purchase one and we were happy. This was our little dog Shaky that I am holding.
We had the basics, it was a long hot summer that year as I was expecting my son and back in those days we did not know what sex our baby was going to be. There were no ultrasounds and you found out what you were having the moment your baby was born and not a moment sooner. I do wish I had smiled for this picture.
We did not have a washing machine or dryer, I hand washed our clothes and hung them on the line. In Oklahoma it did not take long for your clothes to dry.
We did have a small garden beside our house that helped our food budget.
This dress I am wearing I hand sewed as I did not have a sewing machine back then. What we did have was Food, water, clothing, shelter and fortunately transportation. Those were the things that were most important. We did not "need" a phone or "need" a television. I cannot think of a single moment in my life I have ever been bored. When you live with basics and do things by hand you work a good day and sleep well at night.
This was the pregnancy that went two weeks over due and I decided to walk a good distance from home by myself with the side seam of my blouse ripped because I had gotten so big. There was hardly any traffic on our road and I went into labor and stood there on the side of the road crying and with my belly sticking out flagging down the first truck that came by. The old farmer literally picked me up and put me in the cab of his old farm truck and carried me home. He was very concerned.
This was also the pregnancy that after 48 hours of labor when the doctor came in I grabbed him by the necktie and pulled him down to my face and in some kind of satanic voice I told him he will find a way to get this baby out! I had a c section which was not done very often then.
I think I got off track of what this page is about.
What I am saying is we can live and raise a family very well without all the unnecessary expenses if we work hard. We do not need, nor our children need all the accessories. They need love, they need fresh water, food, clothing and shelter. That shelter does not have to be large or elaborate to make a good home.
We ate simple meals back then, we did not have all the variety we have today. If we did eat back then the way many do today we would never have been able to afford our grocery bills and maybe why we cannot afford them now.
I am getting older now, I do have some medical issues that makes me have to rest more often and I cannot do all the things I once did physically but I still have my memories of living basic and that is what drew us back to our senses after we had veered off track making poor financial decisions along the way thinking we needed all the things that everyone else had.
We now know those things are not important, what is important is the same thing that was important back then. Water, Food, Clothing and shelter. They still sell paper, pens and stamps.
Grandma Donna
