Future Plans

I have so many creative goodies around me today...I'm prepping to decorate our fundraiser for the Carrollton Wind Ensemble, where I'm boxing up half my house to try and gussy up some tables, all fancy-like. I've hauled a mess of stuff into the dining room, some from our barn and some borrowed. Then I started pulling things off my furniture. Hey, if it looks good here, maybe it'll look good there. As I sat down to hem some fabric for part of the project, I looked around at all the yumminess that I love when I get to decorate something. Then I thought about the women in my life who taught me early-on how to be resourceful.  

No shrinking violets here... my MawMaw (Daddy's Mama) was dirt poor but could put a stick in the ground and it would grow. She was known to knock walls down in her house and re-sheet-rock and make a new closet or bathroom. One day I was at a cousin's house and there was a large cartoon mural on the wall, and to my surprise, our MawMaw had done it. She had some secret sauce going on in there. Grandma Betty (Mama's Mama) had an iron will and worked hard all her life. She started the housepainting legacy that I inherited. She could take literally anything and make it elegant. She had that flair.  Then there's my own Mama, who was a whirling dervish when we were young. She not only painted; she rolled up her sleeves and dove right into any project that Daddy or her had going. Once, they bought an old pop-up camper that didn't have the canvas on top. She painted the thing, then got a ladder and measured it all around and proceeded to sew a huge new canopy, then doused it with Scotchguard. As I recall, it never leaked. Of course, they sold it at a good profit, which is what they generally did with all their fix-up campers. 

I loved both my siblings immediately upon their arrival. My sister came out of the womb strong-willed. I was carefree and butterflying around when she arrived. God sent this firebrand of a girl, who has a very tender heart underneath all the bravado (don't tell anybody), and I had to step up my game. She's the most resourceful human that I know, with 11 kids and who knows how many grandkids now. She could run New York City. As for my other sibling, his wife is busy producing geniuses with their six children. When I read their writing, I am astonished at the depth of their thinking and intelligence.  

It would take a book for me to mention all the women who have influenced and taught me with their examples of what it means to be a woman. Now, with three daughter-in-laws and a daughter, I feel that I am paddling behind them in their wake. I should just tether my boat to theirs. All four of them are stay-at-home Mamas, leading resourceful, interesting and intentional lives with their husbands and children. It's no simple feat to raise up children right these days -- there's a whole lot of things clamoring for their attention, much of it not good. I pray regularly for our grandchildren and other peoples' grandchildren, that they will have gumption, grit and faith in the God of the universe. They are the future. I gotta say it again: "The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world."