Dear Christmas Mothers,
Last night on the response group, we were writing about being frugal in our housekeeping.
When Jim first became a Christian, and then we had added three more children to our first three, I was to do a lot of praying about being frugal. I felt I was on a mission. To me, the Lord had called me to a high calling of motherhood and I just wanted to be able to make it without going to work.
About the first thing I did was look at my hair. Here it was, all layered up, and needed to be trimmed all the time to have just the right look. I said to heck with that. I tied a bandanna around my head and forgot about the fancy hairdo. I just decided to let my hair grow long and Jim liked it that way, anyway. Your hair can drive ya nuts sometimes and then ya want to go sink money into hair cuts, perms, etc. But I just put a scarf on my hair and that was it -- I let it grow. Most men love long hair, anyway. So.
Jim got saved and, in the next 5 years we had three more children. I did a lot of praying about how I was gonna keep food on the table. And the Lord just told me to think of the Depression era Mothers and what they would have bought to keep their families going. So I let my imagination go and I just thought about these mothers.
Of course, they had big gardens and canned and dried their foods in the summer and fall. They had root cellars and stored a lot of root vegetables that they didn't have to can or dry. Potatoes were a staple, and apples. In the fall, they would fill up their root cellars with squash and pumpkins. And these mothers had to be very watchful over their produce. If something started to rot, they used it up for that night's supper. Some squash will last a year, but sometimes it won't and needs to be used up pretty quick. But I would just try to think about getting staples and making meals from scratch. About once a month, I would buy a big box of instant milk.
Well, I will have to finish this later as its gettin' busy. Wild Man is off work today.
