A Sheet to the Wind (not that kind!)

Mmm. I just made my bed with sun-dried sheets! They smell like fresh air and sunshine itself. My husband got my “umbrella dryer” installed, and today I had the novel pleasure of hanging clothes in the morning breeze (such as it was). It couldn’t have been easier! All I did was stand in one spot and effortlessly whirl the square network of lines toward me as I filled them with our laundry.

Bending down and carrying the clothes gave me exercise, the sunshine gave me my daily dose of vitamin D, and the blue skies lifted my spirits. Besides which, I saved money and helped the environment! (When the clothes were dry, we just slipped the apparatus from it’s plastic sleeve anchored in concrete, collapsed the “umbrella” and stored it in the garage until next washday. Presto change-o, no clothesline to clutter the yard!)

I read a magazine article recently by someone who said she always envied the life of Mrs. Charles Ingalls of Little House fame. Laura’s mother was always gathering eggs, cooking over a fireplace, or sewing clothes for the family. The writer recommended doing something involving manual labor for stress relief and a good night’s rest. She mentioned someone who had bought a reel-type lawn mower and derived tremendous satisfaction from pushing it at her own speed, smelling the new-mown grass, sans gasoline smells, and actually being outside in nature.

So much of what we do today is ease-oriented. Thank God for all the wonderful labor-saving devices we have, but there is something lost as time-absorbing tasks are traded for convenience. Nobody would want to chop wood for cooking, or carry water from a spring, but you have to admit, our predecessors had less stress than we do today. They weren’t bored, unappreciative, nor without skills for survival.

Our push-button technology, instant communication and fast-paced lives have us more frazzled and stressed than is good for us. Take a moment (or an hour) to do something by hand: wash the dishes, peel the potatoes and chop the vegetables, paint a picture or iron a shirt. Hand write a letter and send it by snail mail. How often does anyone get a real letter! Make a pie (crust and all) or slow-cook beans or a slow-cooking sauce.

Proverbs 5:12 says, “The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.” I’m pretty sure my sleep will be sweet tonight on those sweet-smelling sheets!