This week as I was driving to Salt Lake City, I was listening to NPR’s Radio West.  The author being interviewed was Ellen Ruppel Shell about her book, Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture.  The subject really caught my attention.  It was a fascinating conversation filled with many ideas I agreed wholeheartedly with and others that I didn’t.  She talked about frugality being different than cheap.  “Cheap” defines things that are made poorly, which self-destruct… and cost so little you just replace them many, many times.

Frugality by her definition, is about having fewer things, but of good quality.  It’s about taking good care of what you have, so that it lasts a long, long time.

The program made me think about my daughters’ bed.

My twins share the full bed you see above.

I really love their bed.

But before it belonged to my girls, it had a little history.

It was the bed my husband and I had when we were first married, until we could afford a larger bed.

And before that, it was my bed growing up.  When I was young, I shared it with my younger sister Cam.  She woke me many nights having had a nightmare… and I would walk her up to my parents room.  We also gave each other “charlie-horses” in that bed…ouch.  And told stories to each other under the covers…

Before it belonged to me it was my parents first bed when they got married, until they could afford a bigger bed.  As newlyweds they had driven to Beaver, Utah to pick the bed up from the home of my mother’s Great Aunt.

She gave them the bed because it had once been my grandfather’s when he was a little boy.  His mother had died giving birth to him, so he was raised by his Uncle Will and his wife.  The bed was their’s and they gave it to my grandfather.

Before that, the story of this old bed is lost.

But, I am grateful that whoever of my ancestors purchased my daughters’ bed, they bought something of such quality, that after many generations, and many coats of paint, it is still solid and lovely.

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