Two things have been coming to mind lately:
1. I have been copying recipes off Pinterest to fill my recipe box with healthy recipes so that I can hopefully combat the overwhelm when it comes to cooking and trying to find a recipe for which I have all the ingredients.
As I was writing I kept remembering a time when I was still quite young and looking at recipes in old Country Women magazines and thinking about how good some of them look and I can still hear my dad saying that people usually keep some ingredients out so it doesn't turn out well, referring to magazines and newspapers. How in the world did he get that idea? Was it truly a misinformed belief? Or was it a type of control tactic? Or...is it really true?
2. Sometimes I regret the days when I didn't save money when I could have and it's hard to not be hard on myself when I think of all that "wasted" money...
And I remember the day when my dad and I went to the bank when I turned 20 to put my account into my name instead of under my parents' names and the lady asked if I wanted a savings account. My dad said that no, I don't need one. I do believe that lady looked a little strange at him. I walked into adulthood knowing next to nothing about finances and how to use money wisely.
What I know now is what I tried to teach myself. I had three people who gave me a few tips. It's been a trial and error sort of thing. Some times I regret purchases. Other times I don't. Sometimes I treat myself in response to someone being unkind. Other times I get things that I want for the future.
I don't always know what the best thing to do is.
There is still a lot I don't know. But I'm learning. I will keep learning. I will keep honing my skills. It's hard work. I can have compassion for the younger part of me who wasn't taught any good habits. All she had to go by was the ways her parents used money and her dad's credit card spending and the debt load they carried most of their lives. How could she have known better? How could she do better if she didn't know?
But now...we can learn. We can grow. We can make progress.
It is worth the hard work it takes to learn better and healthier ways to walk through life than the ways a lot of our parents have indirectly or directly taught us...