Tips For Homemakers

My brother-in-law, James is amazing. He can do anything. My sister is probably the brains behind his creativity. She isn’t one to brag so I may never know for sure. This idea they saw somewhere and duplicated so I am now trying it myself.

They took some old wooden chairs, took the seats off and spray painted the chairs (optional) yellow. Then James made a wire basket that is attached inside the chair. It is about six inches deep. Then Sandy took some moss-type bedding and lined the basket before adding topsoil and various plants.

You need to make sure you add various heights to the planter. She has a tall plant (about l2 inches) with four smaller plants (about 8 inches) and then a few small plants with at least one that hangs over the edge of the planter.

Sandy has the chairs sitting on her large covered front porch. It is such a bright spot with the yellow chairs and the colorful plants springing up from the seat of the chairs. I love it.

Our family always winds up on Sandy’s front porch whenever visiting in Newport, NC. Her husband also made chairs and they have a swing and an abundance of plants. It is so comfy with cushions on the seats and the flowers and plants make you feel like you are in a beautiful garden.

My find at the Goodwill this week is three chairs to make into planters. I paid $5.99 each. They are in such good condition that I may not paint them. They make great gifts or you could even sell the planters at the flea market or a yard sale. I am excited about building my planters.

I will need to get more details on how to build that wire basket. I am thinking you measure the inside of the chair (say it is l5 inches x l5 inches) and add 6 inches for each side for the depth of the planter. That would mean you need a piece of wire fencing that is 27×27 inches. Still need to figure out how to cut it and fold it so I will be calling my brother-in-law. More details later.

We had six kids at home when I was growing up. Dad was a Marine and mom stayed home with the kids. She kept a meticulous home and still does at 82 years old.

We weren’t allowed to just go into the refrigerator and get something to eat. Do you remember that? Or was it just our family? It was hard to feed and clothe a family of six kids.

Mom fixed a full course breafast every morning before we headed out for school. We had eggs, grits, bacon (or sausage) and homemade biscuits and milk.

Mom fixed lunch for Dad and he came home to a hot cooked meal every day. Sometimes, it would be beans and cornbread. I remember walking home for lunch when we lived close to the school, too. It was great seeing Mom in the middle of the day.

For supper, we had a full course dinner, too. If we were really lucky, on Friday night we could either have hamburgers, hot dogs or sandwiches with a soda.

I see now why Mom doesn’t really like to cook anymore. I figure she must have cooked close to 76,000 meals in her lifetime.

How many meals a week do you cook? Most people eat cereal or something quick and easy for breakfast and grab a burger or salad for lunch. Then if you are too tired, you grab something to take home for dinner or order a pizza. Life has really changed in so many ways.

Someone asked me “With all the traveling you have done, where would you most like to live?” I thought for a moment and then said “at my Mom’s home.” I am very blessed to have a mother who is the closest thing there is to a “saint”. I have no doubt in my mind that she is the best mother in the whole-wide world.

My daughter, Amber told me one day that she was becoming more and more like me. She was talking about cleaning her house, I believe. I told her to look to Grandma because that is your final goal.

My Dad will be 93 in November. He is still a strong, independent marine in my mind and heart. A man who can do anything. But reality is that Mom works very hard to care for him. He has COPD from all the years of smoking. He smoked until 1968. He quit cold turkey. That had to be hard. I never smoked and that is probably why. I was graduating from high school when the doctor told him to quit or he would have emphysema so badly that he wouldn’t be able to walk across the street. That is a reality now. He uses oxygen every night and sometimes during the day. When I see someone smoke, I wish I could find a way to convince them to quit.

Mom and Dad live with my youngest sister now and my oldest sister lives two doors down. I wish I could be there to help out with the numerous doctor appointments and running errands for them. My other sister lives in a nearby town and she is there for them, too. Mom realizes how blessed she is to have children who love her so much and would do anything for her and Dad. What she doesn’t realize is because of her love and devotion to us, she taught us compassion and love and respect.

Someday, my Mom will go to be with the Lord and I will lose my very best friend. But I believe we will all meet again someday.

My daughter is dealing with making a decision that is not necessarily going to get a blessing from everyone in our immediate family. So, do you do what everyone else thinks is good for you or do you go out on a limb and do what you think is best?

I have made a lot of decisions in my life trying to do “what is expected” of me. Now, I wonder how many things in my life would be different had I chosen to do what I wanted to do. I can think of one decision I made thinking “God” wanted me to do a certain thing. Oh my gosh, was I ever wrong. Sometimes we need to pray (if you are real religious, you will think you need to pray about everything), sometimes you need to go with your heart, and sometimes you just need to use common sense.

So to my daughter I would say, pray about your upcoming decision, know in your heart why you are choicing the route you want to take, and it if it makes good sense……do it.

The great part about family is they will always love you. You may hear an “I told you so” if it doesn’t turn out to be a good decision but you will only hear it once……… or twice.

I have been up since about 1:30am so I have been doing a lot of thinking and working already. My husband and I had an exhausting week and went to bed shortly after dinner. So, we both woke up and decided to get out of bed since we were wide awake. I made a pot of coffee.

At 3am this morning, I was making breakfast steaks (thin sliced t-bones) and scrambled eggs and toast with OJ and coffee. I know what you are thinking…why would you be doing that? We ate dinner at 5pm so we were hungry for one thing. Second, I saw it as an opportunity to “make memories”.

My husband is great about remembering little things I have done in the past that make him think I am an incredible woman who loves him. That is exactly my intention.

Have you ever heard anyone say, “I wish I knew then, what I know now”????? This “thought for today” deals with that phrase. You need to “make memories” as often as you can because it enhances your relationship. You would be surprized how easy it is once you start thinking about the other person.

For instance, we were burning a pine tree that was destroyed by lightning. We were out there watching the fire to make sure it stayed contained. We got our chairs and sat far enough away to not feel the heat yet close enough to keep an eye on it. I went inside to get us a bottle of water and came back with a clothes hanger and a bag of large marshmellows, too. Calvin chuckled when he saw what I was carrying. He looked like a happy kid. I will remember his face for a very long time with that silly smile as we roasted marshmellows. I am sure he will have a good memory of the day, too.

It has taken me a long time to get this idea in my head but honestly, if you do special things to make your spouse happy, you won’t regret it. You will be amazed how he/she will start doing the same thing for you. So, “make special memories”.

One year, my husband gave me one carat diamond earrings and I gave him socks. I will always remember that. LONG STORY that I won’t go into now.

I always clean the floor on my hands and knees because I just think I get it cleaner that way. One weekend I asked my daughter to clean the bathroom floor. She said, “I hate to get on my hands and knees and clean the floor.” I said, “use the mop.” She said, “we have a mop?” Makes me wonder what other things I have taught my kids to do the hard way.

It reminds me of the story of the lady cooking a ham for Thanksgiving and cutting the ends off. When her daughter asked why she cut the ends off, she said her mom always did it. When the lady asked her mom why she did it, the mom said because my pan wasn’t big enough for the ham.

Seriously, what HAVE we taught our children?