Patience

I was reminded this morning how hard it has been  to be patient.  I used to be in a hurry.  Wanted everything to happen right now.  No patience.  In those days I frequently did things that were my short-term, right-now solutions to challenges that might have benefited by a little longer view.  For instance, one day in about 1970 when we were living in a beautiful location between Shelley and Idaho Falls and  temporarily housed in a very ancient house, built around 1900 from pieces of other buildings erected before that, I suddenly became disgusted with the kitchen.  I spent an entire day and money we did not have to paint the cupboard doors dark blue and cover all the other odd surfaces with a "gorgeous" matching contact paper with matching blue flowers and dark green foliage.  Hey!  I liked it.  It was bright and pretty and put a smile on my face.

Needless to say Harry was shocked and amazed when he came home.  But he smiled and said whatever made me happy was fine with him.  That started me on a yearlong journey of covering over the old worn out surfaces in the entire house with anything that suited me... bright blues, greens, and oranges were the colors of the day, and we had them everywhere.  :) :) Was that a bad thing to do?  Not at all.  But  it would have been better not to have spent the time and money on that temporary fix when we knew the house was coming down in a year anyway.  We were about 25 then.

I did some similar "creative decorating"  when I was 45 in our current house in Providence.  Tulip contact paper in the kitchen that time drove  Harry the Wise to put his foot down, and he began taking the entire house apart piece by piece and rebuilding it.  Now we are 65 and he is still at it.  Anytime I look at contact paper with a longing sigh, he gets out his handy little hammer and saw and knocks out another wall.  Now I have a window in a closet, and I love it.

Granny A