Easy living

This morning's rainbow, seen from kitchen steps overlooking back yard

Yesterday a friend was telling me that when he was small his grandmother only ever went to the grocery with a list of three things: sugar, flour, oil. Everything else was grown in the garden, along with chickens for meat and eggs. In those days the neighbours also had their kitchen gardens and the community would trade with each other.  e.g. One gives potatoes and cabbage and one gives excess eggs and tomatoes, etc.

He said his grandmother raised 8 children single-handedly (her husband had died)—they dressed well and got a good education. They had no electricity. She would press their clothes every morning with one of those oldtime irons heated by coals. In those days there was no stress about money and material possessions. What you had was what was necessary. And, I'm sure, the things people wanted were simple.

Why do we live in such excess today?