He also assured me that he could teach me how to breathe underwater. He would demonstrate how easy it was, and I would see lots of bubbles popping on the surface of the water. When he came up, he was just fine and encouraged me to go under and take a nice big breath. Of course, I came up coughing and sputtering. I couldn't understand why I wasn't unable to figure it out when it was so easy for him!!
Perhaps I was just simple minded. I think Ming came by those kinds of stories naturally. My dad told me a few things that I believed wholeheartedly too. And for entirely too long. Nothing malicious, just mischievous. I'm such a lemming.
Anyway, like I said, my mom and I are very different. I think she would have been very happy to dress up every day and take her briefcase to work. She really always wanted a career, and even to this day, when asked what she did when she was younger, she responds that she worked in a bank. Which she did, for a very short time before I was born. Actually, she was pretty much a full time mom. Interesting how we all choose things in our lives that define us.
But I never wanted a career. In fact, I never aspired to work outside the home. I just wanted to get married and have lots of children. I wanted to be a keeper at home and love my husband, and raise cool little dudes and dudettes. God, in His grace, gave me 2 grandmothers that were pretty good with domestic things, so they introduced me to sewing and a few home arts. I took the little bit they showed me when I was very young and went on to teach myself how to sew, and I do pretty well with it. But the problem is, no one was around to teach me how to cook or clean. As a result, my dear husband got to weather the "learning years" when I turned out things like "gravy", that was made from a package mix and was clear with little brown pebble like things in it. Not pretty. When he said "you don't need to make that again" I knew I hadn't been too successful.
My biggest learning experiences came at the expense of my parents home, for it was there that I learned to clean. Mom wasn't too particular about the condition of the house, but I had a bent to keep things clean and orderly. I thought of myself as being very helpful. In truth, I'm a tad on the hyperactive side and don't sit still well. So when there is nothing to do, I'll find something. My grandmother identified my inability to be still early on and often accused me of having "St. Vidas Dance". I don't know what that is, exactly, but I'm glad it's not terminal. Now, I tend to put my hands to things that I won't destroy, .........usually.......... but that wasn't always the case.
One day, I decided that mom's refrigerator needed to be cleaned. So, I emptied it out and thoroughly washed the inside. Then I went on to tackle the outside. It was in the days of earth toned appliances, and she was so proud of her new brown fridge with the freezer on the bottom. It was obvious that the outside had lots of fingerprints and scunge on it from the 3 of us kids. But when it wouldn't come off, I took a steel wool pad to it, and that did the trick. Kind of......
What I didn't know was that the paint was SUPPOSED to be darker around the edges of the door. ............um, oops. I also decided to clean the oven for her. So, to make it easier to reach inside to clean it, I pulled the door off. You can do that with some ovens and easily put it back on. Yeah. Not hers. My poor patient father labored for a couple of hours to get that thing back on. He was actually sweating and breathing hard when it finally snapped back into place. I also mixed all the sugar in the sugar canister with the flour in the flour canister, and put it back just as if it had never been touched. It went unnoticed until dad went to make coffee. My response? "I was helping!" I said that a lot. Usually when the parentals were bailing me out of the situation my 'helpfulness' had created.
Some things never change, and often my husband has to bail me out to this very day. My delusions of grandeur cause me to take on projects that I can't always accomplish on my own. He shows the same patience as my father, thankfully. He survived my learning to cook. Maybe he thinks that if he sticks around long enough, I'll outgrow my inability to sit still too.
Older women likewise are to be reverent
in their behavior,
not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine,
teaching what is good,
so that they may encourage the young women
to love their husbands,
to love their children,
to be sensible, pure, keepers at home,
kind, being subject to their own husbands,
so that the word of God
will not be dishonored.
Titus 2:3-5
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