Meandering

I've had a bit of a blah day......I didn't sleep well last night, and my brain has felt foggy all day. And I've been staring at this blank computer screen for almost half an hour, totally uninspired by anything. I'm quite certain no one is interested in the three loads of laundry I did this morning, and cleaning the leftovers out of the fridge for lunch isn't exactly a bright spot. I know none of that really inspired me.

We did a lot of creative writing when we were in 7^th grade English class. That was a huge focus of that year's curriculum. On the vast majority of the assignments, they gave us a topic for our writing – and some days we had a variety of topics we could use. That was so helpful. Sadly, I usually don't have a list of topics to choose from for the blog.

I can still remember a couple of those creative writing assignments. I remember one essay was on the topic of pets. I enthusiastically wrote about the dog of that era. He was a cute little beagle/terrier mix. Where I evidently tripped up was including the fact that this dog loved chicken bones. The teacher, who was not a farm gal, thought it was terrible that I would risk the dog's life by letting it eat chicken bones. It was normal on the farm for the animals to get bones from the meal......unless, of course, you had ham. In that case, the bone was saved to make yummy beans. After the beans, the dog could have the ham bone.

I wasn't aware of any of the neighbors from my childhood buying dog food or cat food. Maybe once in awhile, or for special hunting dogs. But the pets and even the barn cats ate scraps from the table. The neighbors up the hill had several barn cats, and there were many times I saw the wife fix a bowl of gravy to be taken to the barn to feed those cats. They had a dog who was partial to hard-boiled eggs. They had chickens who produced plenty of eggs, so that dog was able to enjoy his eggs on a regular basis.

On a few occasions those neighbors went to visit relatives and we watched the animals. I don't remember that they worried much about the barn cats, but Mom and I went up the hill a couple of times a day to let the dog out for a bit and feed him. Feeding him wasn't a chore – he never would eat while his people were gone.

Another memorable essay that school year was on the topic of “breakfast”. It was cold weather then and I truthfully wrote that I ate a bowl of Campbell's soup for breakfast. This was some time before their “soup for breakfast” campaign. The teacher, who also taught Home Ec, had trouble processing the fact that I was eating soup for breakfast. She thought I should be eating something more traditional.

The fact was that Mom would cook either oatmeal or Malt-O-Meal for breakfast. She would have it hot and ready for Dad when he came in from morning milking. By the time I got up, it was pretty much a congealed lump in the pan. It wasn't very appetizing, and I soon decided I didn't like either cereal. Mom thought I should have a hot breakfast, but to get me on the bus and her to work by 8 am, there wasn't a lot of time left. We hit on the soup idea, and it didn't take very long to heat it up. And, voila!, I had a hot breakfast.

When Campbell's finally caught up with our ingenuity, I would watch those commercials and really hope that teacher was realizing what an innovator I was! Truly ahead of my time, regardless of the reason! Now, I really appreciate my microwave that makes hot oatmeal in 1:45.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll have a better focus for my daily blog topic.