Me? I'm watching with 'bated breath on my 24 x 7 news, because when she was readying herself for the potential NASA program, I was a little girl in grade school, thinking "Yes! That's something I'd like to do!"
Of course, at that time, I had no idea that women were in actual training. They didn't put THAT on TV.
Instead, I was a little girl, frustrated by her total lack of traditional "feminine" skills. Nope, I not only cried when they made me sew (my grandmother and great-grandmother), I cried over my inabilities with needle and thread, and I was deeply hurt by their giving me gifts that brought them joy, like an embroidery kit! Yes, I cried in grandma's face. Not proud of it, but at the time I was four years old, and all I learned from it was to feel guilty for not pleasing the elders.
Eventually, I got to junior high school, and was forced to take something called "Home Economics" to prepare me for the life that these elders envisioned for women. Again with the sewing. The cooking I enjoyed, the sewing, NEVER! BUT, I did learn a skill that still holds me in good stead. I learned how to sew on a button.
So while I do not enjoy sewing, nor am I good at it, I am capable of sewing the button back on when the threads the shorts shipped with give way. And I can remain modestly (well, by my own standards, anyway) clothed with my store-bought, not hand-made clothing.
When my son was about six, I attempted to "hack" a Halloween costume for him. And that was when one of my own mom-isms originated: "Do you know how much your mommy loves you? She loves you enough to try to do something she's terrible at!"
This, my friends, is why it's so important when you are designing your "healthy lifestyle" that you choose things that you love. Find healthy foods that reward you emotionally, and include them. Savor them, celebrate them. Find activities that make your heart and soul sing. If you don't yet know how to do them, seek advice, and spend loving time learning. Celebrate what you learn. In the end, if you don't 💝love what's in your lifestyle... it won't last. If that "honeymoon" feeling starts to fade, tweak or change to get the love back!
Now let's get out there and LIVE the very best Tuesday, July 20, 2021 we can... whatever today's task may be... whether it's launching into space or sewing on a button. Because it is the only one we'll ever get. Life is good. And your life is worth nurturing, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually!
✨🎇💖
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| I have 28 days left to build this, day by day! |
After those 28 days, I'll still be Sparking, just not on the site, which will be gone.
I so appreciate your transparency! Your gramma must've thought you'd be thrilled! We've come a log way, baby! I remember home ec and I did like the sewing. I made a cute little jacket for someone's child...don't remember whose. Too funny! Though still a really naughty kid myself, I stole a bag of chocolate chips from the home ec class and didn't own up to it. Yes, choose what we love and then do it!! That's what works!
ReplyDeleteThe major problem, my elder sister tells me, is that the age-appropriate lessons for her were beyond my age-appropriate skills. So I would stab myself with the needles, my stitches would be messy, and not as intended, and I always felt the failure! And I never overcame the scarring of those early experiences... anyway, so goes her theory!
DeleteThe launch was spectacular. Wally Funk just struck a huge blow for women everywhere of any age. 82 years old and lift off...what a concept!! Home ec was required, but we were not allowed to take "shop". I would have been much more successful there.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to say, "Thanks!" for leaving a response to every comment that is left on your post(s. Not only mine, but those left by others. The personal touch leaves a warm feeling.
Wishing you a great day!
I was one of the pioneers, because I had a strong mother who went to bat for me, both with Dad and with the school system.
DeleteAfter two years of slogging through Home Ec, I took drafting, then electronics... shop classes... one of the first young women allowed to do so. That would have been in 1968.
I love the ability to leave responses to comments! There can even be some back and forth conversation that everybody can see... sometimes when we went to the commenter's Spark page to leave a response, it would not be obvious that the response even happened. That's one advantage of this platform!
good advice thanks Hugs
ReplyDelete✨
DeleteYou made me smile!
ReplyDeleteWhile I can be an artist in the fabric crafts, I'm happier with a jigsaw, chisels and a hammer!
I never was a clothes horse, so jigsaw, chisels and a hammer can make SO MUCH COOLER STUFF! ✨💖
DeleteVery cool.
ReplyDeleteRead this on lunch & couldn't comment.
Icing after my walk, great time to 'catch up' what I can on blogs.
(hugs)
🤜🤛✨ Ice... and Spark on!
DeleteI do so agree -- "efforting" away at stuff that brings us no pleasure just never ends well!! My DH thinks it's utterly hilarious that I won the grade 9 Home Economics prize: because I am so utterly undomesticated!! (But: was able to score points on the exam, "knew" the right answers although abysmal at performing them!!)
ReplyDeleteHave to smile... "knowing the answers" was how I passed "physical education" back in the day when it was so team sports oriented. I knew the rules of baseball, basketball, volleyball, etc. Never a start on the field, though... knowledge saved my grade! Would you believe they only taught the rules to GIRLS? Boys were expected to have learned them from their dads. Kevin complained loudly, as it led to him "flunking" gym class in grade school.
DeleteGreat advice for making it to the place of peaceful surrender to a new lifestyle. Why suffer more than necessary? I am always adding things to my life that I love (and keep discovering more). I recently discovered that I love to watch golf tournaments ... maybe the first step to swinging a club?
ReplyDeleteHave you been in person? I used to work in Broome County, NY, where they hosted the BC Open golf tournament, and my employer would buy a whole lotta tickets, and give us time off to go join the gallery. I always picked the Pro-Am invitational day, because that was when all the cartoonists (invited by Johnny Hart, creator of B.C. comic) came to play. They also spoke to the crowd and autographed some of their art. It's how I met a few of my idols... as well as enjoying some beautiful outdoors... at the EnJoie golf club.
DeleteI am definitely not a seamstress, don't care... love knitting stick to that apart from hemming :) We each have gifts they are varied and enjoyable to us :)
ReplyDeleteAmen! And I love and admire your gifts even if I don't happen to have them myself... isn't that the essence of "namaste"?✨
DeleteCongratulations on your button 😁
ReplyDeleteAlthough I could sew from a young age, I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up. Or a fireman. (That was before I was informed I wouldn’t grow up to be any kind of “man” - for three year old me, this was a confusing concept - then why did everyone in the late 1960s in CA keep saying I could grow up and do “anything?!” I’m pretty sure I had already gotten the message that men had more fun options, but it took longer for for the whole biological sex and social gender concept to sink in. LOL)
I eventually settled on “biologist,” and activities where gender didn’t really factor into things, so much as intelligence, endurance, and grit.
I only picked up knitting in the past few years, after many attempts to try it. Never thought I’d ever get “into” it. I think I like it best for the puzzles it presents. LOL
LOL! Thanks. The button is functioning within acceptable parameters.
DeleteYou and I shared the perception that the boys had "cooler" toys. I know that in the 1960's in Nebraska the same rules applied... usually California was "ahead" of us in adopting new ideas. But I had this mother, you see, who insisted that she be called the "Chairman" if a man in the same role would be called that. A mother who wore the Santa suit and passed out the toys at the Elks' club Christmas party. Ah, yes... so when I wanted to go into computer science... or study electronics... or take shop classes and build a radio? She went to bat for me. God bless my mother!
I later uncovered studies that showed those most successful in computer system development were those NOT strongly gender typed, either masculine OR feminine, but able to use both sides of their brains!
I have sisters who work well with yarn and fabric, and I admire their skills. There are puzzles involved (I like puzzles), but also a level of manual dexterity and hand-eye coordination that do not suit me as well.
Onward, and happily so... oh, and I got your comment twice, so deleted the duplicate.
Your mom sounds very cool. Mine had rebelled in her own ways against her stalwart Boston DAR family - mostly by marrying an Italian Roman Catholic, moving to CA, and converting from Unitarian to Episcopalian (that was my parents’ religion compromise 😉). But your mom was miles ahead! Mine didn’t even drive. 😉
DeleteInteresting about the duplicate comments - I only saw one! But for some reason I gas to paste and try...and fail. ...and paste and try...and fail. A BUNCH of times. I finally switched from Chrome to Safari and one actually made it through, so I stopped.
I wonder if it has anything to do with the sometimes extreme latency of my cell data here.
I’ve definitely learned the hard way, to copy my comments on Bogspot before hitting “publish!” LOL
One generation at a time, Anja! My dad's mother *could* drive, when she was younger, but grandpa always did the driving, and after he passed away, she never drove again. And lived as a widow for maybe 25 years without ever driving.
DeleteI was shocked and amazed a few weeks ago when I brought out my little sewing box and showed my two young granddaughters, 7 and 12, how to sew on a button and I just gave them a scrap of fabric and let them make stitches. I just wanted to let them have the experience but they loved it and played around with needle and thread and buttons for well over an hour. I told him all about home-ec in the olden days and how much I loved it
ReplyDeleteBy the time I had a young son, they made the boys take home-ec, and the girls take shop, just to encourage ALL skills in ALL kids. So happy your granddaughters are finding a love in the new skills. I used to enjoy weaving and some form of "rope making", let's call it... lanyards made from flat ribbons. There was also a little spool crochet thing that made a ropey kind of output. You pounded four small nails into the top of a thread spool, threaded the yarn through the center hole and then used some kind of pattern with looping around those nails. No doubt SOMEONE has the skill out there on YouTube somewhere!
DeleteHome Ec ... I made and orange poncho and black slacks. Yep ... I looked like a pumpkin. Granma taught me more about sewing than the class did.
ReplyDeleteMy mom was not ... the domestic kind ...so there are tons of things I didn't learn along the way. But I took apart engines with my dad and put them back together.
Taking apart engines and putting them back together is an awesome skill! Well learned!
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