Day 211: Make do...

These certainly aren't the best looking fruits and veggies but knowing my beautiful wife, she'll make something special out of them.  That futon has definitely seen better days.  But it's hanging in there.  With screws and duck tape, it's still a function piece of furniture. 

I know we've all heard the slightly overused phrase, "when life sends you lemons, make lemonade."  Well, I say "when life sends you crap, make crapola."  You probably don't know this but "crapola" is an actual word.  At least it was in my house growing up.  When it came near the end of the month and both the bank accounts and cupboards were bare, for dinner mom would have to go into the kitchen and create something out of virtually nothing until dad's next paycheck when she could go to the commissary.  She would take whatever was in the frig and throw it all together in some kind of casserole and that was dinner.  Even if it was old, stale food the process of brewing it up pretty much destroyed any potential contagion.  Guess that's why today I have a hard time throwing out any old food.  Hey, if that ruby team can live off of old teammates for 70+ days in the Andes, we could survive off of week old meatloaf. 

One of the first life lessons my mom ever shared with me was "make do".  As an Army Brat we were never showered with top of the line toys, clothes or gadgets.  Our dads didn't make a butt load of money and there were no charitable organizations throwing money at military families.  Hell back in those days, post Vietnam, I think the American population just wanted to ignore the fact we even existed.  But hey, that's another story.  I know as kids we whined a bit about not having this or that and I know deep down inside my folks would've like to have done more for us.  So without all the cool stuff the other kids had, we Brats were expected to make the most of what we had.  I think that taught many of us to be resourceful, creative and most importantly, grateful for the things we did have.  I think we appreciated and enjoyed those things we created more so then any perfect gift we would've received.  We had a very tangible connection with those things because together we created lasting memories that we still carry today.  Hey, look at my previous posts.  I'm still a bit if the pack rat.  I find it hard to throw away things from my childhood because they were things I created and enjoyed. 

So if you ever come visit us, you'll see in my office and also strewn about the house a bunch of stuff.  You'll probably say, "Wow, you have a lot of crap."  No, I have a lot of crapola.