Laundry Could Be Worse

A couple months ago we were going to drop off a load of items at Goodwill and my in-laws gave me 2 books to donate with our stuff.  Really?  Just 2 books?  Silly people.  On the way to the store I started flipping through these books that were published in the 70's and I was quite interested in the contents.  The are called The Foxfire Books and cover the simple traditional life skills and culture in early Appalachia.   Things like Beekeeping; Making an Ox Yoke; How to Wash Clothes in an Iron Pot; Midwives, and Granny Women; Old-time Burials; Boogers, Witches, and Haints; etc.  This is some good stuff!

I decided not to donate them.  While we were snowed in I pulled them out of my crafting cabinet (it's kinda my catch all for random stuff) and came across "How to Wash Clothes in an Iron Pot".  

1.  Cut down a tree and to make a stand for your iron pot so you can light a fire underneath it. Huh? 

 2.  Make a paddle from the tree you just cut down to beat your clothes with.  What!!!

3.  Rinse and hang from a barbed wire fence to dry? Rip....S*#? !!!

Go ahead and read this out loud and see how you sound.

I felt I needed a little reminder of how things could be.  Something to look at on the days that I don't want to deal with the the measly little bit of laundry that we have.  Things could be very different.  I often think of how we take for granted running water, a home to shelter us from the elements and wild animals, washing machines, and all the other things that have been invented and that some of us are lucky enough to experience in life.  Not everyone in the world has the luxuries that we do.  I can't tell you how much I hate to let the water run for.ev.er. in the kitchen before it gets hot.  Like, I want to save all that water from going down the drain to nowhere.  Heh, I am a little radical with my thoughts sometimes.

  So I ripped out the pages, cut out some of the quotes and Modge Podge'd them to a cereal box I painted.  I hung that puppy up in my laundry room so it is in may face screaming "Look at what you DON'T have to do you lazy lady!" 

I am sure that in another hundred years my great great grandchildren will look back our way of life and think the same thing.  Hopefully they will be grateful of the things they have too.