~Labors Of Love~

I was outside starting my day last week, of course a cup of black coffee in my hand, the Spring sun warming my face even at that early hour of morning.
I was walking towards my swing ready to sit back and gain my daily perspective.
I heard a faint sound coming from across our little two lane road.

There in his crisp plaid shirt, well worn jeans, boots and a straw hat was my great uncle guiding his tiller carefully through his large, garden area.

This is a sight I have watched since I was 6 years old and my parents bought my great grandparents home next door to great uncle Edsel.

I used to stand in our fruit orchard and watch him in the early mornings smiling as he tilled the newly thawed ground and prepped the area for his big, upcoming vegetable garden.
Now here I am many years later watching him again. Now viewing it from a different perspective, not just in location which is across from Mom's house and Edsel's.
I am seeing it for the deeper meaning it has to me since becoming an adult.

Sure he could zip down to the grocery store and buy whatever he wanted, even pre cut and pre sliced, but he doesn't.

It’s a task he truly loves.
He loves going out there and digging, tending and working hard.
It’s worth every ache and pain to see the end result of his labor.
A labor of doing something he loves.
Its very simple, no fancy tools needed, he is at peace when is out there. If he catches someone looking on in his line of sight, he raises one hand., gives a friendly wave and a smile and then presses on.

I began thinking of how consumed we have become by convience and the quick way to do things.
I thought over the moments and. memories that I treasure and I quickly realized not one of them contained the easy, quick formula we have so sadly adapted these days.

Maybe I am simple minded but to me its those back to basic acts that I find so endearing and remember the most.

As a parent I could easily pay money to generate the happiness of my children, its everywhere, so why not, right?

The problem there with me is when they are my age will they remember the dollars spent or the memories made?
I can buy something today and by next week they won't even think twice about it but if I put some effort and work into doing something for them that has little or no cost they remember it vividly and with a happy heart.

As a rule usually every summer we skip down to the pond, put up our tent, gather fire wood and attempt to fish.
It has become a seasonal tradition that the boys love.
Thinking now about our camping last summer I laugh recalling Seth and Dylan with an axe, Luke digging worms and me erecting a tent without pegs (it worked btw).
Sitting by our nice fire, the dew fallen, catching fish in the almost darkness, using cheese puffs when our bait ran out, it’s a labor of love.

Sure we could pack up and hit a fun park, heck I could pay someone to take them for me, but no its kinda basic but the end result is worth the splinters, Smores burns( hot coal and hot foil hurt!) and a sleepless night in a tent with them.

They will be standing somewhere someday and it will hit them just as it did with me.
Our needs and joys don't have to revolve around elaborate costly things.
We can find the most incredible insight and love in those acts that might make us sweat, make us tired and dirty, but that were done out of just pure love.

I guess I am simple, flashy doesn't do it for me, thought does.
I am most impressed by simple and in saying simple I don't mean I am dim or slow witted and all it takes to make me happy is an empty box, but an expensive dinner and lavish gifts has less value to me than 2 hand made cards from the boys and a pecan pie from Mom to celebrate my birthday.
Labors of love, try them.. You won't ever forget them and years from now it will still make your heart smile. Here are my thoughts! Happy Day All!

T ;)

~One day at a time--this is enough. Do not look back and grieve over the past for it is gone; and do not be troubled about the future, for it has not yet come. Live in the present, and make it so beautiful it will be worth remembering. Author Unknown

~I am beginning to learn that it is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.Laura Ingalls Wilder

~The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life. ~Robert Louis Stevenson

~Live simply that others might simply live. ~Elizabeth Seaton