Status Updates From Little Heathens

“It was up to us Little Kids to maintain a steady fire. It is my opinion that all children are, by nature, pyromaniacs, and we loved this task.”

These recipes are nothing short of amazing. I’m afraid we will have to go back to living like we are in the Great Depression soon, but books like this might help see us through! That and farmers. Lots and lots of farmers.

Breakfast, dinner, supper. Is it a Midwest thing to say dinner jnstead of lunch? Though I know some nuns at a retreat center in NJ who say breakfast, dinner, supper as the order of the meals of the day as well…different from what I am used to, very interesting.

Why don’t we still use home remedies that work?!? They sound effective, cheap and less traumatic than Western medicine!

I love the chapter on thrift. For those who want to me more economical and environmentally friendly, act like you are in the Great Depression. They knew how to be thrifty because they HAD to be. Necessity is the mother in invention and creativity.

“Without knowing it, the adults in ours lives practiced a most productive kind of behavior modification. After our chores and household duties were done we were given ‘permission’ to read. In other words, our elders positioned reading as a privilege-a much sought-after prize, granted only to those goodhardworkers who earned it.”

“For us children, building character, developing a sense of responsibility, and above all, improving one’s mind constituted the essential focus of our lives. … The adults thought of reading as part of the cure. Practically everything we were given to read was for the purpose of supplying examples of how we were to behave.”

“One of her more important observations was that it was impolite and unacceptable to visit your ill temper on those around you. If you wake up feeling at odds with the world, direct your attention outside of yourself, see what the world requires of you, and then get busy. The chances are that in a very short while, your grumpiness will soon be displaced by a feeling of goodwill.” PREACH!!!

“Once I deliberately used the word ‘shit’ to shock her [Grandma]. She looked at me with distaste and said, ‘Now you have in your mouth something I wouldn’t even hold in my hand.’”

I’m using that from now on…

“…and news came that Mrs. Donleavey had given birth to her ninth child. This family had a baby every year; in fact, the arrival of a new Donleavey baby was the signal that spring had arrived, too.”