You Have Come a Long Way Baby!

Isn't it funny how time can resolve just about everything?

I wish I could have understood that concept years ago and even today.  There is hardly anything that time can't teach us....especially in the area of motherhood and handling a household.

I was one of those overly-energetic new brides.  I truly wore "rose-colored" glasses as I entered the venture of being a wife at the naive age of 19.  My husband (the dreamer) could just carry me away with all the possibilities that were before us.  I could just take any idea and start to run with it.  There was nothing I wouldn't try when it came to being a "good wife".

This is my copy from the early 80's and I was stunned to find out it is worth a pretty penny...again, who knew... and time.

The kitchen was one of my first mountains to climb.  I made a vow that the first year of our marriage that I wouldn't cook the same dish twice....so collecting recipes and cookbooks became necessary to achieve my goal.  I have to say I achieved it...mainly due to the fact that with my college classes, my husband's out of town travel and our weekend schedule, the challenge wasn't hard for the amount of meals we ate at home.  

As our children continued to come (four in 7 years), I used my kitchen as one of my creative outlets....and that is why this story comes to mind.  You see, even if you don't know what you are doing...time will eventually give you the experience you need.

My adventurous, get-tired-of-anything-more-than-once-a-month mentality, took over while corralling little ones in the grocery store.  There they were!  I was missing our traveling and I could bring some of our traveling cuisine to our dinner table.  The kids eyes lit up with excitement as I grabbed the iced red bag of crawdads for our Etoufee that evening.  As a home school mom. I would also treat this as part of our science studies, telling my interested students about this crustation.

As was the norm, the older boys were to help bring the groceries from the car.  I threw the red crawdad bag on the countertop, to deal with later after taking care of the youngest child.

Hubby made it home and he, too, was excited about the Cajun dish I would be serving.  Then he heard a SCREEEEEEEEEEAM coming from the kitchen....it was me.

To my horror, those crawdads had awakened and were crawling all over the kitchen cabinet!

Who knew they were still alive?   Not ME!!!  I had no clue that they were live crawdads which had been lulled to sleep while sitting on the ice.  Once removed from the ice, they would be revived.

My husband was rolling over with laughter as I pleaded with him to catch them.  He looked at me with the look of , "what were you thinking?"  I am yelling "they are alive!"  "Yes", he replies.  I start to negotiate.  "I am not going to cook those.  I don't know how to cook live crawdads.  Please do something!"

My loving husband goes to the phone to call the grocery store.  Over the phone he re-tells the story to the butcher who is now laughing his head off.  "Well, just bring them back up here and I will boil them for her!"  Now I must say...I didn't show my face in the store for them to identify me....NO, my hubby gathered up the crawdads and took them back to their timely death.

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So you see...time does resolve so many of the issues that can set our hair on end.  With just a little time and some experience we can all say, "You Have Come a Long Way, Baby!"