IN THE LAND THAT MADE ME....ME!

My kids have no idea what it is like to have to go outdoors every time you had to go too the bathroom????  This picture brought back many memories of my days on the ranch.....rain or shine, hot or cold....when you had to go......you ran outside to the 'Out House'.   Ours was a two holer.....so my little sisters and I could go at the same time......my grandparents was also a two holer.  Toilet paper, as my kids know it, was expensive so much of the time you took the old Montgomery Wards or Sears Roebuck catalogues.....using up the soft pages first.....but also gave you something to do while you were  out there.  They would dig a deep hole and when it filled up.......they dig another hole and move the toilet itself to the hole and cover up the old hole.......but it was better than hiding behind a bush I guess.  Interesting....we never had any plumbing problems in those days!  This is where Wabi-Sabi comes in hand.....you can always find something good in every situation......

It sometimes takes a while to learn that whatever path you choose will have consequences.......The higher the path, the greater the pain; but the more satisfying the reward.  You alone can decide what will be written on your tombstone.  No one can walk your path.......Only you can create it one step at a time....More or less we are like the caterpillar who has chosen to become what they were always meant to be......a beautiful butterfly in flight.....BUT there are many who chose to stay a caterpillar and never reach up..........When I look at a picture of these "Saddle Shoes"........what do I think of?  Well, they helped me grow up.  Everyone wore them, but mostly mine were Brown and White ones.   We got one new pair of shoes every six months.  You changed out of the new ones to the old ones when you got home from school.......unless you had outgrown them, then they were passed down to the little sister.......always happy I was the oldest of four girls......and this saved the new ones longer for school and church.  We had a bottle of white shoe polish we cleaned them up with regularly......Oh yes, these shoes were made for walking.  Mother would put our foot on a piece of paper and draw around it and mail it to one of the catalogues and we counted the days till they arrived.....just like Christmas.

This little juke box in restaurants and drug stores were our source to the music of the day as these kids now days use their phones and IPADS we gathered around with our nickels to learn the latest songs.....Guess every generation has its hang ups......AND moving on to the 'wonderful plastic grapes' that every Mormon home in Utah had one.  Mine was a gold color my neighbor gave me for tending her baby once.  They seemed to be some kind of status symbol.  I was once asked if they had some significant to our Mormon Church by someone from out of town that said every home he was in had some.....kinda like the Book of Mormon I guess.  I loved mine and displayed them proudly when I was first married......did it make me feel connected and part of the group?  I wonder these many years later.  But I do know all these things were from the Land that made me...ME today.