Relationships in black and white

Last week my long-time friend Dewey stopped by to visit.

He comes around every fall, as he likes to bow hunt on our property. He didn't know if he would have time to bow hunt this year, but he likes to walk out in our woods and look at the animal tracks and the changing season.

The last couple of years when he had come around, his moods were not upbeat. He was going through some tough times as he had divorced his wife after 18 years of marriage. This year when he came to visit he was upbeat and smiling because he had a new girlfriend.

"She's real low maintenance. Not like my first wife. My new girlfriend and I like to do the same things. My first wife and I didn't have anything in common. My new girlfriend likes to hunt. She can only get off work two weekends out of the month and that leaves us only four days out of the month to hunt together. She says that's OK 'cuz she only wants to hunt so she can spend time with me," Dewey said with a grin.

"Oh, that's really nice," I said.

Dewey nodded, "Yeah. She really is nice and she wants to marry me. She has never been married before. I told her if we can make it through two hunting seasons, then I would marry her."

"Two hunting seasons," I thought to myself. "Only someone like Dewey would think of having two hunting seasons be his deciding time factor or trial period about whether to marry or not."

I was glad to see Dewey so happy. He looks at life in black and white and has a very simple philosophy. He doesn't search for the answers to life in any self-help books or look to any talk shows for advice on deciding on how to pick his mate or how long he should court someone. Two hunting seasons are his deciding factor.

One of the many mysteries in life is how someone chooses his or her mate.

In some parts of the world, parents choose their children's mates. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't.

It is not common practice in our part of the world. Here everyone has his or her own stipulations on what the perfect mate should be. When people marry at a young age, attractiveness is high on the list. Sometimes income, what someone owns, or the types of job or position are the deciding factors.

I have noticed that often when someone marries the second time around that these couples seem more tolerant of one another as they know what it is like to come home to an empty apartment or house. They know what it is like to not to have someone to talk with about his or her day.

Dewey knows what loneliness is about, and he has matured and mellowed since his divorce. He is not rushing through life but is taking it one day at a time. These next two hunting seasons will go by quickly for him. But like when a person is hunting, it is not the end results that are the most important. It is the time spent out in nature, listening, being aware of one's surroundings and being careful to not to harm yourself or fellow hunters.

That is what courting and marriage should be like, being aware of your mate's feelings, listening and being in tune to what is really happening in your surroundings. I wish Dewey the best of luck.

I want to thank Virginia Larson for the kind letter that was printed two weeks ago in the Herald about my writings. I will always do my best for you readers.

It's hard to be a Sacred Woman

My friend Heidi and I are trying to keep our houses more in order.

She has a book called Sacred Woman that details out a plan to get your house and self in order. One of the suggestions is to clean the rooms in your home with ammonia, water, with a few drops of frankincense or patouli oil added to it. After you have washed the rooms with this solution and purged out all the dust and bad energy, the next step is to wash the walls with Dead Sea salt and water.

Heidi said it took her two weeks to clean her bedroom. She is working and going to school so she had to go at the job in spurts.

"Now my bedroom is the cleanest room in the house. I would like to have people over, but I have to do the rest of the house. It is a lot of work becoming a Sacred Woman," Heidi said.

I tried part of the program one Sunday three weeks ago. I spent all day cleaning my bedroom with the ammonia solution and frankincense oil. My bedroom did smell very sweet and clean. I didn't get around to washing the walls with the Dead Sea salt and water. But now that three weeks have passed, my bedroom is full of dust again. I have to go back and clean it all over again with the ammonia and frankincense. It is a lot of work trying to be a Sacred Woman. I have only touched up a few of the other rooms in the house.

I like to have a clean house and love to go to people's homes where everything is clean and orderly. But I am more comfortable in someone's home that is less than perfect with books lying around, shoes at the doorway and dishes in the sink.

When I was first married and had only two children, I would try and never leave the house a mess. The more children I had and the more responsibilities I had, I realized that I would never ever get out of the house if I tried to keep it in tiptop shape. Now I have settled for my house being topsy turvy.

I used to be embarrassed about my messy house, but one time when I stopped at a friend's house, and she and her kids were sitting around reading books, and things were not perfect she said, "Oh we were worried when someone was knocking at the door, but it's you. Sheila, you can drop by anytime, as you never have your house looking perfect."

I took that as a compliment. I don't know many women who do have their homes looking perfect like many of our mothers did. My sister, Kate is pretty organized and does a good job of keeping things in order at her house. She always knows where the glue and scissors are, and I have learned from her to place my supplies back in the same place every time I use them. The only time I saw things out of order at her house was when we returned from a trip and her son and husband had left the night-before supper in pans on the stove.

I was glad to see that they weren't perfect. I used to get really miffed when I came home and found that the dishes weren't done or trash not carried out, but I realized that I'm not the only one living here. If the other people in the house want to live in a mess, it is not my problem. I don't like it, but I have quit ranting about it.