Make do and mend...

Make do and mend book on Amazon. This book really is the epitomy of what I was taught as a child - and what I still do as an adult. It is a reprint of what was distributed in WWII to families to help them through the hard times. I'm sure I've seen bits and pieces of it over the years, but never the whole thing. I read through what Google Reader would let me and was amazed at the quality of the writing, illustrations, and examples. It is a shame that fewer people have these skills now, especially as this nation is beginning to need them more and more. I am thinking, if we cannot make more money in this economy, how to do with less and stretch those things we do buy and those things we already have into more enjoyment and more meaning. And it also makes me think of how I grew up, and what I would like to pass on to Esme.

I remember a time when I was Esme's age, maybe just a little older, four and a half or so? My cousin and I were outside and fighting over something the way that young children do. My grandfather called us over to a pile of wooden bits - he gave us some nails and a hammer and we each made a toy. Mine was an airplane - really just blocks of wood nailed together to LOOK like an airplane. The boards that made it up were yellow and blue and for some reason I was insisting on naming it Cindy. My grandfather, I am sure, was rolling his eyes and I know my grandma hid a laugh. This instilled great morals that things of value do not have to come from a store and can cost next to nothing yet bring hours of enjoyment. And, the enjoyment is as much in the making as it is in the use of the object. That has stuck with me all of these years.