Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Lessons I Learned From a Butter Knife


Yesterday was the first really pretty day here in Cincinnati in a very long time!! The sun was shining so bright I actually wore my sunglasses for the proper reasons! (sometimes I wear them on top of my head to keep my hair out of my eyes!:) I spent most of the day cleaning the bedrooms. I dusted, swept, changed sheets...it felt great. Then I moved in to my bathroom. I got out my heavy duty cleaning gloves, my all-purpose cleaner with bleach, my Clorox Toilet cleaner....and I was standing in a sparkling clean bathroom in mere minutes. I started thinking about how great it is to have such wonderful cleaning products right at arms length to help make cleaning so much easier. My toilet cleaner is great. You just click the little blue sponge onto the bottom of the long white stick, swish it in the toilet a few times, then hold it over the garbage can and push the button and it falls in the trash...such technology!! Where was this stuff when I was little?! Then I thought, "who needed that stuff when you had butter knives"!!! Let me explain...


Growing up at our house was always an adventure! (at least that's what dad always said!) Travis and I had our "chores" that we had to do every day. (Rachel did when she was older too, but these specific chores were when she was still rather small.) Travis had to take out the garbage . I did the dishes every night. ..at least the nights I couldn't convince mom my stomach hurt too bad to do them! *wink* We had to keep our rooms clean...stuff like that. We usually did them pretty well. All of them except one...WEEDS!!!!!

We lived in a ranch house in West Carrollton, Ohio.Recently Travis went by it and sent me a picture. (above) It looks run down some from when we were there, but it sure brings a smile to my face just seeing it again. So many memories in that old house. It wasn't big. It wasn't gorgeous. But it was the most beautiful place in the world to me. It was HOME. Anyway, it had a back patio, for lack of a better word. It's hard to describe that patio. It was just lots and lots of cement squares placed close to one another. The problem was, they weren't quite close enough. Weeds grew in between those slabs...thousands and thousands of weeds. I can still remember the sick feeling I would get in my stomach when dad would tell Travis and I to go get the butter knives. We knew what that meant!!! We had to go out back, in the scorching sun, get on our hands and knees and dig out all those weeds..one by one..with our butter knife. Sometimes I would cry and beg dad to not make me do it!! I would fake near death to get out of it. It never worked. So Travis and I would head out the back door, and begin the daunting task of weed removal...with our butter knives! It would start out quiet. Neither of us would say a word. We would scrape our knuckles on the cement..secretly hoping for a bleed big enough that dad would let us stop. That never happened! But before long, we would start talking. (usually about how much we hated digging weeds) Then someone would "flip" their weed a little too hard and it would hit the other person. Of course the other person would then "accidentally" flip his or her weed in to the other one's face a little harder! The laughter would start. And of course the competition always was there too. "I can get my row done before you can."

We whined. We complained. We even cried over having to dig out all those weeds with that butter knife. But, you know what? I learned so much on that back patio. I learned about hard work. I learned it won't kill me. I learned satisfaction! I loved seeing it all done, and knowing we had done that all by ourselves! I learned that my brother wasn't the world's worst human being! I might even like him someday! :) I learned that butter knives don't just spread butter. If you promise to never tell dad...I'm glad he made us sweat over weeds on that back patio. I'm so glad I have those memories with my brother.

Today, I'm thankful for my Clorox Toilet Cleaner Brush...but I'm also thankful for that butter knife!