Caroline Ingalls is my Grandma

I recently read In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan and boy, oh boy. Oh boy. I know that food is a hot topic for many and I don't want to push any buttons, except for Jesus, on this blog. One thing I took away from the book is to think about what your grandmother would buy and eat at the grocery store. If your grandma wouldn't recognize it, don't eat it.

I started thinking about this and how it might look in the rest of my life. I never knew either of my grandmothers. They both went to heaven long before I was born. But I do know Caroline Ingalls. And I know the Caroline Ingalls of the TV show much better than the one in the books, who coincidentally wasn't much like the one in real life, which is kind of a sore spot for me and another post for another day.

I know TV Caroline Ingalls' house like the back of my hand. I watched Little House on the Prairie every day when I came home from school. I remember when she got her cookstove, I remember when she got real glass in her windows, I remember when she got running water in the house and the kitchen addition. I remember her little shepherdess figurine that she always put on the mantle wherever they lived.

I am going through an immense season of my life when I'm turning my attention and priorities to where they need to be. I am having to leave some friendships and extra curricular activities on the back burner for a time. And I got to thinking about the TV Caroline Ingalls. She never had a mother close by to drop her children off to when she wanted to go shopping, she took her children with her. She didn't have lunch dates with her friends, she rarely even ate at restaurants. She ate the food that Charles provided for her and never ran to the store in the middle of a recipe for that forgotten ingredient. Do you remember the time Charles wanted her to go to the big city with him for the night? You would have thought he'd asked her to go to a five star hotel for a whole week, oh how very happy and thrilled she was. A night in a hotel for us is so old hat it's ridiculous.

Now, don't misunderstand what I am saying. I do not wish I was living in pioneer days, I know that God has me on earth today for such a time as this. And please don't take away my dishwasher and washing machine. But if I had hung on the apron strings of a grandmother, like many of you had the privilege to do, I would have learned wonderful things from her. But since I didn't I will take what I have learned from old Grandma TV Caroline Ingalls and remember it.

And my own mom taught me a lot about home making but she worked full time and encouraged me to do the same.

The next time I wish I could stop in this store or that but can't without three rambunctious boys I will stop and think of Caroline Ingalls and what she might say to me if she were my grandmother. For now I'll be out on the banks of Plum Creek with my joy and delight - my family in my home, right where God has asked me to stay.