THERESA BYRNE writes at Finer Femininity:
When I grew up our life was very simple. We lived in a one bedroom home with seven children. In our tiny kitchen you could see the dirt ground under the linoleum. We had to pump the septic out all the time and the highlight of our week was hoping to see “Uncle Mark” on Sunday evening.
And yet our fondest memories are of those times. We grew a huge garden out back and it was not unusual to see my dad lying in the sunshine, in-between rows of tomatoes, taking a cat nap.
When autumn came, dressed in her gowns of orange and yellow, we would rake piles of leaves and play long into the evening, only coming in when it was time to say night prayers and go to bed.
We lived our days down by the creek skipping rocks, up in the mulberry tree picking berries and in the back yard, playing on our old, rickety jungle gym.
Snack time consisted of celery and peanut butter, date balls or nuts and raisins. We lived simply and happily..
Now don’t get me wrong, I am grateful for electricity and don’t want to go back to days without air conditioning, but to slow down a bit, relearn to “stop and smell the roses”, I think that would be lovely!