I come from a long line of crafty, backwoods, hard-working, rednecks. 🤘🏽I am reasonably intelligent and financially blessed thanks to my incredible life with @sean-king, but if I had my druthers I'd still to this day rather labor physically than be stuck all day at a desk job. My man calls me "hardy farm stock" and I can't disagree with Him. I am strong and wiry and gifted with physical endurance. Now, I clean up real good and I know how to blend in at the country club 😉, but that's not really my element. I think there will always be a little redneck in my bones.
My man doesn't seem to have this in Him as much as me. He's naturally neat and orderly. He believes that if you're going to do something, you should do it "right" or else not at all. He is an excellent balancing influence on me (as I like to think I am on Him as well) and helps keep my inner redneck in check.
My inner redneck...she is kinda like kudzu weeds. I have to stay mindful of her or else she creeps back out and takes back over the planned landscape. I do believe if it weren't for my man's consistent neatnik influence I would likely have old broken down cars out in the yard that "I'm getting around to fixin", plywood doggie gates on my stairway, and chicken wire fences in the yard.
When you're poor and material goods are scarce you have to get creative with what you do have. You waste nothing. My grandmother got one pair of shoes each year as a child, and she wasn't allowed to wear those in the summer or else they'd wear out before winter. She made quilts from the scraps of her daddy's flannel work shirts. You didn't just throw it away because it was too worn out to wear as a shirt any longer! Instead you cut it up into pieces, sewed those suckers together, added some batting in between the layers, and that kept your ass warm through the winter. And you were rather proud of what you created out of "much of nothin," and rightly so. That's what I call redneck ingenuity.
This 👆🏼is my history. Today I want for nothing and can afford to buy a new WHATEVER anytime I want it! But...redneck ingenuity that comes from a sense of scarcity doesn't leave your bones so easily. I still save scraps of ribbons and old bread twist ties in the back of the junk drawer in my fancy kitchen, because "I might need that for something." My house may not look like my grandfather's barn, which was a treasure trove of "might need that" items, but if you look closely up in the attic or in my basement you will find many old long-since-last-used items. Old furniture, the arms from an office swivel chair, plastic shovels for digging in the sand next time we go to the beach (even though my kids are 20 and 13 now), etc. etc. etc...
Soon we are moving our family to live in Puerto Rico. I am so excited about this change of life and lifestyle! But, now I am faced with ridding myself of these stockpiles of "might need that" items. It's time for me to let go of the ribbon scraps, the sand shovels, and even my ingenious plywood dog gate with a mylar blanket scotch taped around it. Can I do it? It will be interesting, this process of letting go, shedding, and growing. And also interesting to see if my collection re-accumulates once we are in Puerto Rico.
-- thanks for the inspiration @countryinspired ! Your post yesterday about your "ramshackle recline redneck river raft" was great