Did Progress Bring Too Many Choices?

I was thinking about my grandmothers' lives yesterday.  While talking with a friend about the beautiful needlework that both of them did and how I value owning those things today, I realized that their lives were far more simple than mine.  Yes, they had to use a wringer washing machine, made their own laundry soap and didn't have microwaves or computers, but they knew exactly what their lives were destined to be.

Here is grandmother Louise Albert teaching my little ones how to bake Christmas cookies.

I spent more time with my paternal grandmother Louise, who was famous for her many skills.  She was a wonderful cook, knit and crocheted beautiful things that were given with love and received with joy.  She took classes and learned to decorate wedding cakes, upholster furniture and was truly in charge of her home, which was always spotless.  She did all that while raising 5 children.  I really think she was happy and content with her life.

She loved to tell the story of the time she got a job to earn Christmas money, packing candy in a factory.  I can't help but think of the I Love Lucy episode, with Lucy and Ethel in the candy factory.  She claimed that my grandfather actually paid the kids NOT to do their chores in an effort to convince her to come back home full time.  He loved having his life with his wife at the helm.  He really appreciated what she did.

Here is great grandmother Anna Snell Knox, grandmother Marie Louise (Weeda), my mom Shirley and brother Ed in about 1949

My maternal grandmother, also enjoyed needlework (crochet, tatting and embroidery) and spent a lot of her time creating beautiful items that still grace my home.  Her life was orderly, with each day planned, including her shopping day when she took the City bus downtown to comb department stores.

They both spent their summers at their cottages, enjoying smaller spaces to keep neat, watching the lake as they knit away and listened to grandchildren play.  I don't think either one of them felt pressure to "be" any more than they were.  They enjoyed their lives.

Today, as I question my value constantly, I wonder why.  I cook and clean, knit and sew, create scrapbooks to document our lives,  have raised more than 5 children and yet I still think I have something else I must do, haven't done enough (or well enough).  I think of all that I "could" have done and haven't.

I think of the dreams I once had to teach and to write.  I think of the goals I probably won't attain.  I am going to work on remembering all the ones I have reached.  They are probably the most important.