What is left behind...

That stove there in the corner...that is the stove our mom cooked thousands of meals on. Hard to believe that someone my age remembers their mom cooking on a wood burning cook stove. My brother and I often talk about how we were raised. It was as if we were from an older generation....I doubt that there are many people our age that actually remembers and grew up using stoves like this.

I am pretty sure that all of us at one time or another carried in wood and kindling for this stove...and probably at one time or another, all of us sat by it to get warm while we waited for breakfast.

Our mom was not perfect....but I won't go into that. Probably never will on here. But I will say there are 8 of us children and not one of us thinks the other is making up stuff...we all have good memories made up of things we done with each other...for that I am very thankful. I really don't know how we would have made it without each other.

But along with that, I know that some of us think about how our mom lived and worked and never really had any of the normal things we take for granted. Just so many little things we don't even give a second thought....

As far as I know, my mom did not have her hair cut by a beautician till after I left home, in 1975. I think some of my sisters would give her a home perm when they were home for a visit. And she may have had a sister that gave her one every now and then, but I am not sure about that.

Mom did not drive, so she was lucky to get to town once a month when I was young, but as us kids got older and got our driver's license, we took her. I am not sure how often my brothers took her, it still may have just been once every two or three weeks....why go when you don't have money to spend? I do think once I got my license, we went more often.

Mom wasted very little money. About the only thing we ever spent extra was if we found a paperback western by Zane Grey....and every now and then one by Grace Livingston Hill or Emile Loring...but mainly the only ones we bought new were Zane Grey. You just cannot imagine how excited we were when we found one. I don't recall how it was decided who got to read it first...cause my mom and I and my oldest brother read every one we could get our hands on...not sure about Neal back then. I know he has since read them.

Also, once in a blue moon there would be a magazine with a picture of a quilt in it, or even an article about quilting. Before she died, there were at least a couple quilting magazines, but I don't know what she would think now with all the different magazines dedicated to nothing but quilting. (And talking about quilting, I would be afraid to hear her reaction to my stash of quilting fabric.)

When I have company coming, I can easily run to the store for anything I need. And I really don't have to worry about how I am going to pay for it. Mom would usually try to get to the store if she knew one of my siblings was coming home for a visit, but she couldn't just go and buy whatever she wanted...she had to sit down and decide just what she basically had to have. For the life of me, I don't recall what those things were...probably eggs, and maybe bacon...depending on if we were milking at the time, she might have had to buy milk and butter, also she would probably have bought chicken to fry and ground beef for a meatloaf.

Other than that, she could come up with a meal from all the stuff she canned and stuff she put in the freezer. And probably even some of the bacon she used was from hogs we butchered. She was quick and efficient in the kitchen...and cooked three full meals every day that we had company.

When it was just us, she cooked breakfast...but not always a big breakfast. That being said, she always made a pan of biscuits. And she cooked a full meal at lunch, which we always called dinner....and she always made at least one pan of cornbread. When I was young, she usually made two pans.

Then when supper rolled around, she warmed up what was left from dinner, and if more was needed she would cook little bit something extra....fried okra, fried green tomatoes, or whatever. But mostly, she cooked enough for both dinner and supper when she fixed the noon meal.

These are just a few of the most obvious things...I will hush about it now...just wanted to spend a bit of time thinking about the positive things about mom.

So, being that Mother's Day is tomorrow, I hope all of you have a wonderful day and that you get to be with the ones you love....