Enjoy DIY Today

Most people have some aphorisms they live by. My mother was fond of repeating "Waste not, want not." When I was bored once in school, I made up a long list of proverbs and wise sayings. I don't remember all of them, but there was a whole series that went something like this:

If love is the mortar that holds relationships together, then by extension, divorce is the skip for hire that holds the debris when relationships fall apart. If friendship is the mortar that holds society together, then by extension, the school system is the carpenter that takes that mortar and smashes it between bricks. If school is meant to teach us how to live in the adult world, why do they make sure we know as little as possible about the adult world?

My father was a carpenter, and he often made comments about how people improved their lives and "by extension," their homes. I guess it was carpenter humour. Certainly I didn't understand why it was supposed to be funny.

My mother was used to it, though. And she was full of wisdom in her own right. Some of her proverbs were well-known, but others seemed to be unique to her: "Never trust a smiling policeman." "Day-old bread and three-day-old bread is fine, but two-day-old bread is fit for nothing but the waste bin." I surely didn't see how that last one could be true, but she repeated it often enough that it became accepted wisdom anyway.

I took my grandmother's advice most to heart when I was a child. She gave very practical advice, and was willing to explain it when I didn't think it made sense. Why must you always look fresh and clean as a daisy when you leave the house? "Because you might meet the love of your life on any day, and don't you want to look nice for him?" she would reply, and it would make perfect sense suddenly. Why shouldn't you cake makeup on your face? "If your skin can't breathe, it might die, and then what would you put all that makeup on?"

I've gotten a lot of advice down through the years, but I still value the advice my mother, father, and grandmother gave me the most. It's served me well.