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["clanSkeen" <sgian AT planetc.com>]

> > tvoivozhd--- Persistence is the most valuable trait you can have---look 
> > around.  Most successful businessman are not geniuses---merely 
> > bulldog-persistent.
>
> "That which we persist in doing becomes easier - not that the nature of 
> the task has changed, but our ability to do has increased."
> --Ralph Waldo Emerson


Years and years ago I was in the library reading a magazine.  This in itself 
is unusual for me.  But anyway, in this article the woman was remarking 
about a friend of hers who was very very busy and yet made a from scratch 
cake for her family every week.  This much impressed author of article. 
Then said author gave it some thought and decided that, though it was no 
less impressive that this woman baked her family a from scratch cake each 
week, the woman baked the same cake, knew which ingredients she needed and 
had them on hand, etc -- so that it wasn't the HUGE thing it is for a 
non-baker to bake her first scratch cake.  I think her remark in the article 
was that anything habitual becomes easier.

Her article impressed me as we began life on our farm and doing a thousand 
tasks that were new to us.  "What is habitual is easy," became a sometimes 
mantra for me.

I was expecting friends this last Saturday and on Thursday I took cream from 
milk I had milked the day before and cultured it for sour cream so I would 
have it for the meal I planned on Saturday.  It occurred to me that many 
people in our instant culture couldn't be bothered to think this far ahead, 
or to do even the easy tasks it takes to separate the cream and culture it. 
I make bread lots of times without a specific end in mind for it, knowing 
that having bread means having a meal pretty much whenever we need it. 
Making bread is easy and I do take shortcuts (like letting a bread machine 
mix and knead sometimes) but it is something different than picking up a 
money loaf at the store in effort.  I keep ice cream made for the kids.

Take it a step further for us homesteaders and it is, what seeds do I need 
on hand, and when do I need to plant them in the hothouse, to have June 
cabbages?

Compare that with "budgeting" which has become (if it wasn't always) 
concerned only with how much money is coming in and going out this month.  A 
body making payments and collecting a paycheck has a lot of trouble ever 
really "getting ahead".  But picking blackberries and making jam, there is a 
point somewhere where it becomes "enough".

I believe the ability that most needs increased is the ability to discern 
"enough".

Denise, thinking out loud I guess