Amish Peace & the Mulberry Bush

It is rainy & rather cool here at the farmhouse this morning.  The weatherman is predicting a temperature of 56 which is quite welcome after the few days of temps in the high 80s last week.  Of course the rain means no gardening will be accomplished today.  I remember reading a quote recently ... unfortunately I don't remember where I read it or who said it ... that went something like "God sends rainy days so gardeners can do their housework."  I got a kick out of that   : )

Yesterday was a rainy day but sadly I didn't accomplish any housework.  I have so much to do in here that it overwhelms me at times.  I will get up in the morning & think about all there is to do, wonder what I should do first, & before I know it the day has passed me by & nothing has been done.  I've heard it said that you shouldn't focus on the "big picture" ... the many, many things that need to be taken care of.  You should instead make a list of what needs to be done, pick something & concentrate on just that one thing, taking it one step at a time until it is finished & you can move on to something else.  In the book Amish Peace (referred to in an earlier posting), it states that the Amish do not get up in the morning & wonder "What will I do today?"  They already know what they are going to do.  They have certain tasks they do each day.  For example, Wednesday might be baking day.  When the Amish woman wakes up on a Wednesday, she knows that she will be baking that day.  And while she's baking, she is not obsessing about the floors she has to scrub on Thursday or the beans she has to can on Saturday.  She is giving all of her attention to the task at hand.  The Amish "enjoy the journey" to complete a task as much as they find pleasure in completing it.

I was thinking along these lines yesterday & was reminded of an old nursery rhyme song I used to sing when I was a little girl.  It was called "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush."  It went something like this ...

Here we go round the mulberry bush,
the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush.
Here we go round the mulberry bush early in the morning.

This is the way we wash the clothes,
wash the clothes, wash the clothes.
This is the way we wash the clothes early Monday morning.

The song described a "task" for each day of the week ... ironing on Tuesdays, mending on Wednesdays, sweeping on Thursdays, cleaning the house on Fridays, baking bread on Saturdays, & going to church on Sundays.  I wonder if life followed this type of pattern back in "the old days?"  It would certainly make things a lot easier.  I think this "modern age" is both a blessing & a curse.  So much has been invented to help us do things more easily & quickly, but it seems there are more things to do!

Mother Goose & her nursery rhymes.  I don't know anything about Mother Goose, nor do I know when she may have written her rhymes, but I wonder if she wasn't feeling a bit like Solomon when he wrote Ecclesiastes?  Now there's a comparison I bet you don't see every day ... lol!  One of Solomon's observations was that nothing in this life is really new;  everything has been done before, everything has been said before, life is the same thing over & over.  Have you ever thought that about your life?  I'm wondering if when Mother Goose wrote "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush," she wasn't thinking "Here we go again.  Wake up in the morning, brush my teeth, get dressed, do a little house cleaning, cook some meals, clean up after cooking them, take a bath, go to bed.  Get up tomorrow & do the same thing."  Maybe for her, going round & round in life was like going round & round a mulberry bush.

I think I will go try to heed my own posting & accomplish something.  I'll let you know tomorrow if I succeed   : )