I don't think I'll be complaining about my housework again anytime soon.

My great aunt used to get up in the dark before breakfast and milk cows out in the yard, then rush to eat and catch a wagon for a 5-7 mile ride to school.  Can you imagine expecting your children to do that?  Our generation is definitely a lot softer than that one.  Even my mother's generation was softer on children.  It just goes to show how our expectations of life have completely changed.  When I read about this in Laura Ingalls Wilder's era it doesn't hit so close to home...but Aunt A-'s is a bit closer to my generation.

She wrote that she was embarrassed at school, though, because the lye soap wouldn't get the smell of cow off her hands and the milk streaks dried on her shoes.

And after reading about corn shucks-as-toilet-paper, I'm a lot more appreciative of the little luxuries of life.