We all know Sunday is supposed to be our day of rest but there are times when it becomes the day when we get things finished up with weekday work that spilled over to the weekend, or we find that Sunday is our only window of time to get things done around the home and possibly elsewhere.
I went over to an elderly client’s very early this morning to help with getting his yard ready for the person who does his mowing. Having not been able to get someone to do the fall yard clean up, there were extra leaves and branches that should have been removed before the snows arrived. His home has a line of hedge between him and his neighbor and I thought it best to get the leaves removed from under the hedge so that they won’t start blowing around his yard again. As I was nearly finished on the neighbor’s side, the neighbor came out and said, “Joe, you really didn’t need to do that because I would have taken care of those leaves on my side.” I replied, “It wasn’t a problem and I’d rather continue to keep paying forward than find myself having to do some paying back.” He laughed while thanking me for the extra effort. I just thought it best to get all of it done rather than leaving half for the other guy. Unfortunately it’s the way our society is becoming in that they too often don’t consider doing a few extra little things to lighten their neighbors’ load. Remembering the stories told by grandparents about how farm families would get together and help each other when it came time to bring their crops in as well as coming together to help with a building project. They didn’t argue about it or even take notes on who got more help than the other—they just did it and weren’t even paid for it other than being fed by the wife and other women belonging to the group. Seems people in those years created enough work for themselves whereby they didn’t have time to get in trouble.
I had a good laugh today when someone was asking me how it was that a certain couple got married who were definitely not from similar family backgrounds. In those days they called them shotgun weddings because when a young lady found herself pregnant, the young man nearly bound to marry her. My added response was, “From what I heard about that situation was that after they had all their “not enough” chores done, they must have considered there nothing better to do than mess with each other.” Yes, the questioner, as well as myself did get a good belly laugh. I believe some mothers that keep their teenage children very busy have a positive hidden agenda in limiting the time their offspring have to think about being naughty with their raging hormones.
Too many of our young seem to find work boring and distasteful and give countless excuses for not wanting to do something. Another unfortunate change in our society is that nearly all parents give their older children spending money. As far as I see it, it’s counter-productive in a child’s development when more sooner than later, they’ll be out in the real world and on a fast track of learning to budget and pays bills on whatever salary they receive from their first jobs. Children who’ve understood at an early age that having money comes from making it themselves as well as learning to save some for a future big purchase are the children of today who have strong budgets with iron linings.
