Greenbeans and Crown Molding

When it is hot like this,

 steamy,

 humid,

 almost-unable-to-breathe hot,

I know it is that time of year again.

Green beans.

Do you like them?

Do you like them in a box?

Do you like them with a fox?

I think they are okay:

not my favorite;

take 'em or leave 'em.

But not to my Farmer.

He and our three children could live on green beans.

There is usually scrambling over the last helping of green beans.

So when I married my Farmer,

I soon realized that July's hottest days

would be marked by picking

and canning green beans.

I can't say I have always had the happiest attitude
when picking them.

I've had 13 seasons of bean beetles
 
 and their eggs,..
 

and larvae,..

to squash
 
in order to maintain the plants for a longer harvest.


 It's the season of scurrying along a dirt path on a garden mat,

a knee high view of the world around me,
 

spiders racing across my bare feet,

grasshoppers bouncing off my head,

praying mantis bobbing in irritation at my interference

in the search of their next meal.

"A house divided cannot stand,"

Abraham Lincoln so wisely said.

And like it or not,

I'm living in a house where

there

MUST

be green beans.

My husband has a favorite saying when it comes to household fix-ups.

"I'm not a carpenter.

I can't do that."

I ignore this remark.

Everything I've given my "non-carpenter" to do,

he does an amazing job:

like the framing he did all around the porch windows.

(HURRAY for the finally finished painted floor!)

I've tried to run his saws

and hammers

and swung at my fair share of nails.

But I TRULY am not a carpenter.

My carpentry usually gets flung out the basement door

with words of frustrating:

"I can't do this!"

after several failed attempts

and decades of lost minutes.

I don't try anymore.

A few weeks ago,

I measured some places around the house that needed molding

and went out and bought it.

I showed my "non-carpenter" when he got home

what my plans were for him

and got irate rejection of the idea.

But the molding was purchased,

my dreams were in his hand,

and the next Saturday,

the saw was buzzing,

and my molding was attached and beautiful.

He helped my plain, newly painted cupboards go from this:

to this:



Our house is not divided on issues of carpentry and green beans.

I understand this is very likely a broad use of the Bible verse,

"And if a house be divided against itself,
that house cannot stand."
Mark 3:25

but the general idea is there.

 Marriage consists of a man and a woman

two extraordinarily different thinking people,

trying to walk in unison on a path through life.

In marriage there is a lot of sacrificing,

a lot of giving up what one wants to do with "my" time

to meet the other person's needs.

Learning to love something that the other loves

is a choice sometimes:

it's friendship.

Smooches and sweetness are grand,

the rose petals on the road of life;

but in the long haul,

friendship is the soft-soled sneakers

that make that road walkable.

We all have them in marriage:

the greenbeans and carpentry we can do for the other.

It's not always fun,
 

but it's worth it.

Linking up to:

 Between Naps on the Porch: Met Monday



Homestead Revival: Barn Hop


Kellys Korner Blog: Share A Piece of Marriage Advice

and to the fabulous