A Cheery Morning, and a bit about Clothes

The temperature outside was 42 this morning. It felt heavenly, so invigorating. We left some windows open last night, which meant the house had a chill to it this morning. Getting the stove fired up for making breakfast also chased away that little chill and had the house toasty warm in no time. My eggs sizzled and popped in the pan as I fried them, and the kettle spit and hissed as it began to boil.
The morning sky is bright blue, with a few well placed clouds to make it look like the sky in some masterpiece hanging in a museum. I could hear the hens cackling in the chicken house, sounding delighted in their ability to produce an egg. Maybe they are bragging to the other hens !
When its cool like this I so miss having goats and sheep. I suspect a mood of wanting them again is coming on. Now I think things like, well Melanie's baby may need goats milk as it grows up. Cows milk is for making a critter grow to near 1,000 lbs so not sure I can reason that sort of growing is needed in humans, but now goats milk is for raising up something that will get to be about 150 lbs. Maybe that is why goats milk is so talked about in the Bible, it just makes more sense to drink something that would raise a baby to an adult weight similar to our own.
Always loved quoting Proverbs 27:27
You will have plenty of goats' milk to feed you and your family and to nourish your servant girls.

Now a bit more about my thoughts on dress since you asked.....Having recently been down the trip of "chic" well at least somewhat chic, I was a bit overwhelmed.
Too many things needed, yes even if you do that well matched thing of one nice pair of pants, a jacket, a dress, a skirt and then the tops to make it all look put together and look like you have many outfits. You need several tops and then to be chic you need the shoes, the purses etc. I cannot maintain that sort of look. Its not me and then there was the stuff about scarves and jewelry. I don't wear jewelry, never have, hate the stuff, it feels uncomfortable on me, probably because I never wore it.
Most of the time there isn't even a wedding band on my finger. And never a watch.
So back to the clothes thing. Seems like it takes a lot of shopping, even thrift shopping, to keep a closet filled, that's money, time and energy that I don't care to spend on something that Jesus said....
Matthew 6:28 "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.

If you have lots of pieces of clothing for anyone in the family, you are apt to have lots of laundry around too. Might be clean, but it probably needs to be folded and put away. Having a limited amount frees you up from all that. Stuffing the items in the drawers, looking for certain items and on and on. I have said many times when my children were growing things were kept to a minimum. The boys shared a room and the girls shared a room. One dresser per room, two drawers each child. One for underwear and another for pajamas. The boys had 5 pair of pants, 7 dress type shirts. Two pair of shoes.
The girls had 7 dresses. 5 for everyday and 2 for church. I had 7 dresses like the girls did. Emery had more shirts since his work demanded it. As the girls got older and they had more clothes, we got them another dresser to share.
It was never overwhelming to do laundry or to know what to wear. Simple.
I miss that sort of simple so am working towards getting myself back to that. I have found that having a dress is easier than having a skirt and blouse. One piece of clothing to hang up vs. two.
Its the same principal as having a few nice toys to play with instead of a room full that overwhelms a child and they grow tired of them all.
I have maybe 7 pairs of shoes, which seems excessive to me, so am going through them bit by bit.
I wear only a few favorites. The others just take up space.
Even when I was a young woman, clothes were not important to me. Never had a full closet, never owned more than 10 pair of shoes. Perhaps that makes all this a bit easier for me than for some.
So many other things are really important in life. And each year I am more certain, "things" bog you down. They begin to own you and dictate your life. "I can't do this or that right now since I have so much stuff to move or care for". That's more power in a persons life than some jobs ! What if God wanted you to do this or that, and in the end your excuse for not doing it was "stuff". That's gunna look bad when you are trying to get past those purly gates !
The money spent on excess "things" is next to sinful. I bet if everyone was modest in what they spent, there wouldn't be poor folks among us, we could share more of what we are blessed with.
And what about the stress of having to pay for all this stuff. Credit cards rule so many peoples lives. We don't use them. Plain and simple. If you don't have the money, then you shouldn't buy it. They are good for emergencies, but a savings account is better.
I say, cut all your credit cards up except one, keep that one with a low credit line on it.
Simple living means doing without some of what society and the media tells us we HAVE to have.
It means living on what you need more than what you want.
Well, that was a rant and a rave this morning from my typing fingers : )
Feel like shouting, POWER TO THE SIMPLE LIVING PEOPLE. That sure tells my age doesn't it ?

The cozy stove this morning
The dress I am making, when its done I will show it off
and the amont of clothing I now own. Takes up 12 inches of hanging spcae in my closet