six in the morning

Well, lookee here! It's six o'clock in the morning and I'm all bright eyed and bushy tailed! Today appears that it will be more profitable than yesterday. Now don't anybody think I'm gonna move mountains or shake the world. My busy days usually consist in letting the dogs in and out, having Bible study and posting on the devotional and study groups where I'm a member, washing a few (a very few) dishes. If Rachael brings me a basket-full of clothes, I'll fold them or do a little hand sewing, but it is never anything that requires standing or walking around for very long at all. I can walk to the kitchen, get Rachael's eggs set to boil, turn on the coffee pot and assemble the makings of Michael's lunch.

Then I have to sit down for a while and make the sandwich, etc. This isn't because I'm tired or breathless, but only because that is about as long as I can stand until my knees begin hurting badly enough that I have to allow them to rest.

I watch Rachael running around here after work, straightening and vacuuming, carrying laundry, getting supper started, shooing the dogs, doing all the myriad of things necessary to keep a good house, step, step, step, bend, stoop, stoop, bend, up and down, step, step, run. I can remember the days when I used to do that, but those days are past. We take the functioning of our bodies so much for granted when it all works right. I am a little in awe when I see people hustling around on knees that are working smoothly, it seems almost like a dream or imaginary story.

Michael has a pair of pants laying on my dresser that he wants me to put another button on. Only I don't have a button that is large enough or the right color. I have a night gown that needs the seam stitched back. Maybe I'll get to those today if I can track down a button. I keep thinking I'm going to ask Rachael to get me a couple extra spools of thread so I can match the material a little better. I have gray thread and white--I really can't fix black buttons on blaack pants with gray thread...hmm it will look a little strange. I don't care that much about the nightgown, if I watch what I'm doing I can conceal the gray thread among the gathers and lacy parts. And after all, the point for me is to keep the nightgown together, not to have any one admire the color match. lol

You know, hand sewing is almost a thing of the past--in fact mending is almost a thing of the past. People today don't fix things; they just throw them away and get something new. When I first moved down here with R & M within just a few days I had a pile of things that they asked if I could mend for them. Michael had saved his things because they were his favorites. (I think he was hoping that a clothes fairy would wave her magic wand and they would be miraculously whole again! He certainly had no idea of how to fix them!) Rachael had saved hers because she knew they were repairable but she was too clumsey with a needle and thread to do it.

When Mom came the problem was solved. I had seams on t-shirts and pretty blouses, snagged and torn sweaters, jackets with torn pockets and a pile of jeans that each needed a button on the waist. Rachael's sewing box consisted of her grandma's little antique compact with two needles and a half dozen straight pins and a couple spools of thread. Mine was packed away. But I made do. If you stitch carefully enough even mismatched thread can be hidden when you repair a seam. Of course, Rachael still doesn't sew very well because Mom's here to do it. Maybe she's hoping it will just ooze into her pores if she watches me.

Well, in a very few minutes I have to go and have a bite ready for Michael to eat so I'd better get off here for the time being. Don't get the idea this is a 'have to' kind of thing. I do it because I enjoy it and it's one of the few things I can do as far as housekeeping is concerned. When I say "have to" it is a time constraint kind of thing not a response to anyone's demands.