Things My Mother Taught Me

I’m self taught on many things. Like baking bread. Once upon a time, many years ago, I found a complete set of instructions for baking bread in a McCall’s magazine article. My little boys were asleep, I was slightly bored and I decided to tackle bread making. Mom played a small part in that she raved about homemade bread that she learned to make in 4H back in the 1930’s. So I did have her in mind that first time I made bread and last week, too, when I made it for the umpteenth time.

But Mom taught me many useful, frugal and stuck-in-my brain things. Like what, you ask?

Make your bed every day. No matter how rushed I am, I do. The Only time I don’t is if I’m sick, down for the count, and laying in it. There’s no excuse otherwise. Besides, who wants to face a bunch of wrinkled sheets and un-plumped pillows at bedtime? Seriously.

Perfume. A dab on the wrists, a touch behind the ears. “Someone should have to be very close to you to smell your perfume.” Um, in other words, Don’t take a bath in the stuff. Mom used Avon’s To A Wild Rose sachet a dab on her wrists at a time. I swear, if I got a whiff of it right now, she’d appear before me.

“Nice girls don’t kiss boys,” was the sum total of the advise I was given to deal with the onslaught of suitors soon to fall prey to my teenage charms. Funny how the suitors disliked that advise. Sex ed has come a long, long way in the past fifty years. Don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing. Let me consult with my granddaughters and get back to you.

Never use a paper towel if an old rag will do. If Mom could have, she would have, hung used paper towels out to dry. They were a luxury item around our house and maybe even there on the counter just for show. Kind of like the “guest towels” in the bathroom. On the other hand an old cloth diaper (remember those?) or a carefully cut up tattered and torn tee shirt of dad’s was good enough for most jobs.

And then there was this:

Jesus loves me, this I know

For the Bible tells me so

Little ones to Him belong

They are weak, but He is strong

The thing that has stuck most of all. A child’s introduction to what matters most. A lifelong work on my sorry soul began with these simple lyrics.  

So, Mom, until I can get there say “Hi” to Jesus, the bread of life, for me.

What did your mom teach  you? Would love to know.

Image: Free Digital Photos