Celebrating our families…what a wonderful holiday!!
My sons and myself went for a lovely lunch at the Roadside Cafe today to celebrate…. well… us!!
When I think about my family and how we were raised, I think about a family of seven with my Dad working as a carpenter and my mom working just as hard at home, keeping us 5 kids in order, planting the seeds for our big garden as soon as the frost had passed and canning cherries and peaches in the fall. We would pick our potatoes, carrots and beans from the garden before every meal and quickly steam them for dinner.
The protein was pork chops, chicken or beef that Mom and Dad bought straight from the farm. Once a year, I would tag along (not that I had a choice) with Mom and Dad to a farmer out in the country to buy a side of beef, part of a pig and lamb. It would all come wrapped in that light cherry colored freezer paper with a black grease marker vaguely stating what cut was tucked inside.
It wasn’t easy to ‘grab’ something from the kitchen to snack on in our house. I thought people who bought milk in a carton were rich! Only powdered milk for us…. (it was a shock when I found out milk wasn’t really blue). A box of chips bought at the Friday night grocery shop was gone in a heartbeat. The only processed food was the sliced cheese and maybe if we were lucky cheese whiz or Velveeta…. yum!! ha ha I know now it’s plastic cheese, but man it was a treat back then!
When I look at my 3 big brothers and my sister and see how healthy they are and might I say slim too, I give my parents the credit. We’ve all raised our kids the same way(except for the powdered milk)… because that’s how we were taught… whole food, locally grown, minimal junk, we didn’t know any different.
Whole food, very little processed foods perhaps equal healthy humans without weight issues?
I drive by that gorgeous new Surrey Memorial Hospital and as gorgeous as it is…. it’s horrifying too! It’s filled with very sick people and clearly the government is planning for a steady stream of customers because it’s expanded greatly along with all the other health (or lack there of) facilities that surround it.
I think every one of my siblings still has a garden as I do. I’m not a big fan of meat myself, but I think the moral of the story is to know where your food is coming from, buy whole locally grown foods.
My thought on this family day with my parents now passed, is that, I am thankful to them for taking good care of us and teaching us how to take good care of our families and so on.
Thank you Mom and Dad
Marilyn, your youngest daughter